Das Wochenende

It's a while since I had any And Union beers on here. They haven't gone away, though, and now that their Irish distributor Noreast is dominating the shelves in my local supermarket they're more in my eyeline than ever.

So here is Friday, the IPA. €2.50 is not a bad price for a 6%-er. It did look a bit worrying on pouring: a muddy brown ochre colour. The aroma is vaguely citric: marmalade spread thinly on a slice of toast on the opposite side of the room. The texture is full but the carbonation lower than I'd like. This isn't going well so far.

The flavour, however, is cleaner than I expected. A tangy lemon-and-lime is in charge, backed by very sweet toffee malt. The result is quite candy-store or fizzy pop: something with a sugary base given a citric infusion. Boiled sweet, sherbet lemons, 7-Up, that sort of thing.

I'm guessing the older style of American IPA is what they have in mind, big on crystal malt and Cascade. It doesn't really do it for me, though. German IPAs are usually balanced and integrated much better than this.