Pinta this, Pinta that

My experience of Poland's Pinta brand, from previous visits to the country, was of a stolidly reliable producer, a veteran of the 1990s microbrewery boom and still turning out decent if unadventurous beers. I shouldn't have been surprised to discover that they've adapted to current market conditions and are now making more diverse and trend-chasing products. I discovered this by buying two of them.

That they do hazy IPAs in colourful cans probably isn't very noteworthy in itself, but this particular one, uses a hop I hadn't heard of before: Pacific Sunrise from New Zealand, to the tune of 20g per litre. With a cheery optimism they've called it Enjoy Pacific Sunrise and it's 6.5% ABV. The visuals are certainly on-trend: a pale orange-yellow emulsion, the colour of beaten egg, with a loose white froth on top. For all the massive hop charge, the aroma isn't especially exciting, offering merely a nod to some non-specific tropical fruits. It follows that there's no taste explosion in the flavour either. It's quite sweet, with tinned-fruit-in-syrup vibes rather than anything fresh and juicy. The texture is spot-on though, so if you come to hazy IPA for the creamy smoothness rather than the hop impact, then this is for you. Mercifully, there's nothing unpleasant taking up the space where a bigger hop flavour might be: it's clean and, if not quaffable and refreshing, at least sippable and enjoyable. Pinta's look may have changed, but I detect a certain caution in how the beer has been put together. And I'm not really any the wiser on the merits of Pacific Sunrise.

Something quite different but equally fashionable follows: a big imperial stout with added coffee and maple syrup, called Risfactor. It's a handsome devil: oily black with a firm beige head of tight foam. Textbook for a 10%-er. There's a decent quantity of freshly roasted coffee in the aroma but it doesn't smell like a novelty beer. And it doesn't taste like one either. There's a light touch on the add-ons, to the point where the coffee element could easily be from delicious roasted malt, and there's nothing I could point to in the considerable dense sweetness that's specifically maple syrup. Both of the novelty ingredients integrate fully into the proper flavour of good imperial stout -- they're enhancements, like seasoning. But wait, there's more. What really propelled this one into the upper echelons is the aftertaste. Once you get past the dessert effects there's a remarkably fresh-tasting grassy green bitterness providing what I guess counts for balance in such a palate-thumper. In this one, the brewery's years of skills really shines through. Pinta is of a similar vintage to Dublin's Porterhouse and, for me, this is their Around the Clock.

There are more versions of Risfactor out there. I hope we'll see them in here.