Cheap and exotic

Cheapie beer doesn't have to mean mass-produced chemical fizz. I'm a sucker for anything that looks interesting in the bargain corner of the supermarket beer shelves.

The first isn't actually from a supermarket, but was only €2.50 for the half-litre can. Gaffel Lemon Radler is from one of Cologne's respectable Kölsch houses -- it's odd to see their sober traditional brand on this Hawaiian shirt of a can. That helpfully informs us it's 40% Kölsch and 60% lemonade, of which 7% is lemon juice. That's enough to give it a real lemon taste: tangy and zingy with minimal syrupy sweetness. A dry tannic quality finishes it off. This is quality stuff. Admittedly there's little sign of the beer underneath the lemonade (it's only 2% ABV) but neither is it a sticky alcopop mess. There doesn't seem to be a grapefruit version yet but here's hoping one is in the pipeline.

A litre of Lithuanian rye beer for a fiver? Thanks SuperValu! Ruginis from Aukštaitijos Bravorai is 5.2% ABV and a pale copper colour, mostly clear with a few light floaters. I'm guessing it's cool-fermented as it has the clean crispness of a lager, albeit a strong one: think bock or Märzen. That effect is accentuated by a weighty malt sweetness: honey, spongecake and brown sugar, with characteristics in common with the farmhouse beers you only get in Lithuania. The finish is dry more than bitter and I don't really see where the rye fits in. There's perhaps a very faint ghost of pepperiness but that's your lot. It's quite autumnal, or even wintery: filling, warming and calorific. I quite liked it, although it's far from the sharp grassy number I was expecting.

We go to Lidl for today's finisher. I had written before about a couple of their Steam Brew series, noting that the intriguing Imperial Stout had escaped me. Well, I finally caught it. It's a bit of a lightweight at just 7.5% ABV, but looks well: a properly pure silken black with a rocky ivory head that says traditional stout to be sure to be sure. And then it smells like a pilsner. What? There's a cool, clean, biscuit-and-grass thing that shows its German roots very clearly. And it tastes of very little. My guess is that it is indeed cool-fermented so should probably be classed more as a Schwarzbier than an imperial stout, but that's OK -- I'm down with Schwarzbier. The only thing is it's not a very good one. You have to work to find the slightest traces of roast while the high gravity has been smoothed away to nothing. Only a faint vegetal tang in the finish suggests stout, but not of the imperial kind. This is highly inoffensive, very easy to drink and was dirt cheap, but it's no kind of introduction to the joys of imperial stout. Even a big lager brewery like Eichbaum could have tried a bit harder here.

Down at the budget end, you win some and you lose some. Perhaps the true reward is the money we saved along the way.