Regular or premium?

It's four more from Mikkeller today, two from the mainstream side of the business plus a couple of fancier offerings.

Visions looks like an attempt to straddle both worlds, being a 4.5% ABV lager, very pale in colour, but with a misting of craft haze as well. The aroma, a vague grassiness, marks it as pretty plain fare, but it opens up on tasting. There's a bright and zesty lemon buzz which, coupled with a gentle carbonation, reminds me of brewpub lager from central Europe. It's quite a while since I last drank any of that, so the recollection was very pleasant. Proustian reflections aside, this is a very decent beer, offering excellent sunny-day refreshment. There's even a little extra complexity available if you look for it: some coconut, a pinch of chamomile and a brush of eucalyptus. Or you can just drink it. Thumbs-up from me either way.

Also pale and hazy is Burst, an IPA. Hazy, though not densely so. The aroma is all mango and passionfruit tropicals, and while that sorbet or ice-pop element is the basis of the flavour, there's a balancing bitter side as well. I get lime and grapefruit, with the merest trace of waxy, gritty dregs. A little bit of cleaning up would help it. It's also quite thin, in a way that a 5.5% ABV beer shouldn't be. There's a watery side to the finish which undoes some of the main flavour's good work. For me, this is fine, but a little lacklustre. Maybe it's harder to do hazy IPA for cheap at a level of quality that the style's aficionados will accept.

Challenge accepted, then: Hop Opera is a New England-style double IPA and produced in Denmark at To Øl rather than by the Belgian workhorses of De Proef, like the first two. It's 9% ABV and a dun orange colour. The aroma is strangely lacking: I got nothing at all from it. Even bad examples tend to at least smell like alcohol. The flavour is similarly muted. Here the alcohol does play a part, with a warm and smooth heat, the sort you'd find hidden in a fruity vodka cocktail. The fruit is quite a simple orange cordial. It's clean, at least, but there's a serious lack of complexity. When I'm paying €6 for a can, I want to have a strong opinion on what's inside; this is too plain and inoffensive for the money.

The next can was €7, though the beer inside only 5.5% ABV. I guess they knew there would be an eager market for a Game of Thrones Iron Anniversary IPA. "This better be good" I thought. It wasn't. Behind the hazy orange facade there's a pithy, Orangina aroma, which is fair enough, but the flavour is a nasty mix of raw onion, garlic paste and dry breadcrumbs. The texture is thin too, even allowing for the strength. There's a little friendly fluff from the haze proteins, but otherwise it's seriously savoury and appropriate for celebrating only the grimmest of TV shows.

Belgian lager beats Danish NEIPA. That's official.