Home and Garden

In the summer of 2019 I spent a pleasant sunny afternoon in the taproom of Garden Brewery in Zagreb. Their beer does get out and about as well, and today I'm at home getting reintroduced.

I've had most of the core range, though the India Pale Ale has eluded me for some reason. Until now. "West Coast" is in small print on the can but writ large on the beer as it pours: an almost-clear amber colour with a lovely grapefruit-on-toffee aroma. There's a pleasing softness about the texture, though a continent away from New England fluff. This is 6% ABV but feels like it could be more. That emphasis on malt dampens the hop impact a little and it lacks the initial zesty sharpness of the best west coast IPA. Give it a minute, however, and the pine and citrus gradually rise, eventually coating the palate in classic American resins. We're not told what hops are used but I would fully expect that Cascade is the driver. Anyone in search of the proper American IPA experience will not be disappointed by this.

At the other end of the spectrum, Milkshake IPA is Still A Thing™, though it's not a beer style I go running to. Garden's looks to be taking the IPA part of the equation seriously, using six different hop varieties, plus lactose, of course. It's quite a deep orange colour and 6.2% ABV, smelling sweetly of strawberry and kiwifruit. No syrups are involved so I'm guessing it's the Summer and Hallertau Blanc hops bringing that fruit effect. Still, the hops don't prevent it from seeming like a milkshake on tasting. The texture is horribly sticky and the lactose gives it an intense and cloying sweetness. The realistic fruit in the aroma isn't delivered in the flavour and instead it's gummy and artificial. My brief moment of thinking that maybe milkshake IPAs aren't so bad ended abruptly with the first sip. This is one for the MIPA purists alone.

Bière de Garde is a style which doesn't get messed about with as much as IPA does, but Garden has had a go, in cahoots with Brooklyn's Stillwater. The result is a Peach, Nectarine & Camomile Bière de Garde. It looks like orangeade in the glass: sunset orange and pouring with a head which instantly crackled away to nothing. It smells normal for a BdG: cracker-dry and crisp with a light peppery spicing. The flavour too is clean and unfussy, adding in some apple to the grain and spice as it warms. The fruit add-ons are detectable, however, though they're subtly done, bringing a zesty spritz to the grain dryness, one that's entirely complementary. There's a floral side too, which I'm guessing must be the chamomile though it tastes more like elderflower to me. It's all done at just 5.5% ABV and served in a tall can, making it a great summer thirst-quencher. I always think of old Bière de Garde as a somewhat stuffy and serious kind of beer, but here's proof that it can be fun while also staying true to its essence.

We wrap things up for today with a simple Imperial Flat White Coffee Porter. I sneer at the name, and at the cacao nibs and vanilla pods, but it looks gorgeous: a rich velvety brown as it cascades into the glass, forming a decadent café crème head. The aroma is all about the coffee, and more like raw roasted beans than the finished drink. And while that's a big part of the flavour too, the chocolate gets heavily involved also, for a tasty mocha effect. The vanilla shuts the hell up, as it should do. At 8.4% ABV, this is a finisher, a nightcap, but it's also beautifully smooth and effortless drinking with no excess heat or cloying sugar. The sweet chocolate is balanced perfectly by the dry roasted coffee: both highly unsubtle yet working together in harmony. All sneers were gone before the glass was a quarter empty.

No surprises that the milkshake one wasn't for me, but the others have raised Garden's standing in my eyes. I had thought of them as experts in sour and little else, but from this is appears they have chops across the beer style spectrum.

Dry state of the art

It's time for one of my periodic checks on the state of non-alcoholic beer. Brulo (formerly Coast) is one of the new wave of UK brewers who make nothing but. The company is headquartered in Edinburgh with beer brewed in Belgium by De Proef. What attracted me most was the stylistic variation in their range: not just the usual IPAs and lagers.

The first one claims to be a 5 Fruit Gose, containing mango, passionfruit, guava, apricot and orange. It looks like juice, being orange, hazy and quite lifeless in the glass. There's a faint sparkle but no proper fizz. The fruit is present in a big way, meaning it tastes much more like a soft drink than a beer. Behind it there's a subtle note of salt, as well as the worty malt sweetness that most non-alcoholic beers exhibit. What's missing is any bite of sourness. Modern craft gose with fruit in it doesn't bother much with sourness but they usually make more of an effort than this. It's a fine thirst-quencher, and genuinely enjoyable, but not as a beer and certainly not as a gose. I think they've over-reached themselves a little here.

Maybe an IPA is safer. This one is a Centennial IPA, and is extremely pale -- a disturbing wan yellow, the colour of very dilute lemon squash. I don't think it's the visuals alone that made me think of lemons when I smelled it: there's a proper citrus here, though quite a lot of malt sweetness is promised as well. Again, there's lack of proper carbonation, though it does manage to form and keep a thin head. The flavour is... odd. I get a kind of squeaky, mineral, asparagus bitterness that's quite sharp. And then running in parallel with this is too-sweet malt extract, which eventually comes to dominate the whole picture. Both aspects are loud and brash, to the extent that this, too, doesn't really taste like a beer. Disappointing.

It looks like Brulo is falling into all the old traps. The last-chance saloon is pouring stout: the style which I think suits the non-alcoholic format better than any other kind of beer. If they mess this up I despair. The ambitious feature here is that it's a Dry Hopped Stout, Simcoe and Columbus doing the honours. Problem one: it's not black, being more of a reddish-brown. The aroma is lovely, though perhaps better suited to a black IPA than a stout, being all about the bitter and vegetal dankness. The hops were clearly added in abundance. It's more stoutlike on tasting with a strong coffee character. I don't get the wort or malt extract thing, but there is a sweetness, like the coffee has had a couple of spoons of brown sugar added. Despite the hopping, the bitterness is on the low side and that reduces the extent to which it tastes like a proper stout. I'm filing this one with the gose as something that's fun to drink but doesn't deliver a substitutable beer experience.

It's a mixed welcome for Brulo then. I appreciate their efforts at trying to provide something more interesting in the non-alcoholic space, but these aren't convincing. I'm more likely to reach for an actual soft drink than any of them.

Oi oi oi

The recent surprise realisation that I'd never posted a review of Augustiner Dunkel on here had me checking the status of the rest of the range. Sure enough, Augustiner Pils was absent too. It would not do to have such gaps in my personal assessment of one of the planet's great breweries, so I picked up a bottle.

It wasn't the freshest, mind, caught just inside its best-before. The big 5.6% ABV suggests a baroque Bavarian luxuriousness, as against the skinny and severe north-German pilsners. That said, there's plenty of hop, and it's the dominant feature of the flavour, just as it should be. I get a grassy Czech effect with a sharper citrus-rind edge. A decently full and fluffy malt body balances this, contributing richness without sweetness, then it's back to pilsner-as-usual with a dry finish scraping the back of the throat pleasantly.

As expected, it's very good, let down only by the most unBavarian 33cl bottle: I could happily drink this in quantity. I also don't see how much better it would be if fresh; mine showed no staleness nor signs of faded hopping.

Augustiner Pils is a pure class act and fully worthy of carrying the brewery's name. If you haven't had it in a while, treat yourself.

Stout mask replica

When Dublin City Brewing first graced these pages, I mentioned that their intended line-up included "Parnell Porter". That never materialised but they do have a new dark beer, simply called Irish Stout. The blurb on the back still has a bit about Parnell, though, so I suspect a last-minute name change. I still have no idea if this is brewed at the Parnell Street brewery, which remains all boarded up from the outside, or if it's contract brewed at Dundalk Bay. I suspect the latter.

Anyway, to the beer. I expected quite straightforward stuff from a 4.2% ABV stout, and I pretty much got it, but that's not a criticism. The body is attractively smooth and black, and there's a decent but not excessive amount of rocky foam. It smells sweet and roasty and this unfolds on tasting into caramel, liquorice and well-done toast, with the sweet side maybe a little more prominent than is ideal, especially in the finish. The mild roasted side helps balance that and there's even a little green squeak of vegetal hops. Its best feature is the drinkability: no trace of stickiness and no hard edges or odd twangs means it slips back very easily and is pleasingly refreshing. Perfect summer stout, wherever they brew it.

Backyard Brewing is a new operation, based in Tullamore but currently availing of midlands solidarity and using the facilities at Dead Centre in Athlone. Their first beer is a Cascade Oatmeal Stout. It's 5.5% ABV and looks very proper: an even jet-black with an old-ivory-coloured head on top, every inch the wholesome and old-fashioned glassful. The interloping American hop hasn't been overdone and there's a mere pinch of zest in the aroma, plus a little more in the flavour. The initial grapefruit settles to a weighty dankness in the finish. This is entirely complementary with the smooth dark chocolate and dark toast notes. Overall vibes are not far from Sierra Nevada's excellent hop-forward stout. Its mouthfeel could maybe stand to be a little fuller given the oatmeal, but otherwise I have very few criticisms to give: it delivers very well on the promise of the name, tasting at once traditional and modern, but always a proper stout. I hope this is a flagship rather than a one-off, because nobody else is making beer like it in these parts.

Before we get into the properly strong stuff, a gateway export stout from The White Hag, called Balor. This is 6.5% ABV, the recipe boosted with brown sugar. There is a certain molasses sweetness in it, rubbing up against an espresso roast and some significant hop bitterness, this time of the more traditional sort -- metallic and vegetal. It's not a beer for the soft pastry crowd, showing a robustness that's not in fashion which I enjoy scouring my palate from time to time. Again, though, the texture isn't quite right and it's a little thin for 6.5% ABV, with a knock-on harshness. Maybe I'm softer than I thought. Anyway, it's a jolly decent stout, full of flavour, if maybe a bit of an acquired taste.

Something big to start the wrap-up with. Cask is a collaboration Lough Gill did with Faith American Ales, and the can bears the signature of Faith's frontman, Kelsey Grammer, off of the telly. It's a coffee-infused milk stout which has been whiskey-barrel aged for the full Irish coffee effect. Not an original idea, but one that turns out good results more often than not. Honey is the quintessential Irish whiskey flavour for me, and this has plenty of it: a sticky honeycomb or honey-nut cereal is the centrepiece. Though 12% ABV it's not especially hot, though it is as creamy and full-bodied as one might expect. Other flavours include hazelnut, milk chocolate and a lacing of espresso in the finish. It's enjoyable, but I felt it all could have been dialled up a few notches. Beer like this shouldn't be as easy drinking as this is. Make me work a bit harder.

Perhaps the answer is Sixty Ships Down. This is another 12%-er, brewed by Galway Bay in collaboration with La Pirata. They've added vanilla and tonka beans, calling to mind, to an extent, one of the special versions of Two Hundred Fathoms they released in 2020. The first impressive feature is the head: deep brown, looking like a chocolate milkshake, on top of a velvety dark brown body. The cinnamon and brown sugar of tonka dominates the aroma, as it tends to in all beers where it features, and there's a complementary note of chocolate behind this. So far, so churro. The texture is fabulously smooth, and only a somewhat assertive kick of spirituous alcohol prevented me from slurping the whole thing down indecently quickly. Luckily the complexity builds as it goes along, and what starts as mere pinches of dark chocolate, pipe tobacco, cinnamon, nutmeg and ristretto coffee, become properly bitter and properly spicy within a few mouthfuls. By the half way point it had switched from a lush liquid dessert to a serious sipper. At €10+ a can, it's not cheap, but while I might not be rushing out for a second tin I very much enjoyed the one I had.

It's nice to see such diversity, even just in Irish stout. All of these have a welcome place in the drinking ecosystem.

CANarchist party

"CANarchy" would be a ridiculous name for a start-up microbrewery with delusions of youth appeal, but as the collective brand of several fully mainstream American producers it's downright cringeworthy, and even moreso now that it's a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Monster Beverage Corporation, and therefore partly within Coca-Cola's portfolio. That's some soundly financed can-anarchy.

Anyway, I picked up three beers from two of the brands recently and am starting at Cigar City. Frost Proof seems like a pretty straight-up witbier, or "Belgian-style white" as the Americans would have it. Coriander and orange peel are present and correct, though the ABV is somewhat on the high side at 6%. Despite this, and the rather dark colouring, it's light and refreshing. The aroma is crisp and wheaty but there's a delightful juicy sweetness in the flavour: tinned pears and lychees. This leads on to a slight fusel-esque burn, a wisp of nail varnish, which puts a more serious note on it. While maybe not as quaffable as it first appeared, and quite two-dimensional flavourwise, it's a jolly affair. I have no complaints.

From Florida to Colorado, and Oskar Blues. Western Mutant IPA is an intriguing offer: purportedly west coast style though quite hazy with it, and brewed with a combination of American, German and New Zealandish hops. The aroma is mostly quite fruity and tropical, with a hint of Nelson Sauvin's hard diesel headiness. That turns to a pithy bitterness on tasting, but there's a sizeable juice quotient as well: mandarin segments and lime jelly. Though 7% ABV it's very accessible -- complex but not busy, with resins, fruit and mineral all playing nicely together. It doesn't deliver the palate-scouring punch that "west coast" ought to, but I'll give it a pass. Stylistic concerns aside it's a very enjoyable modern American IPA.

The Oskar Blues flagship is Dale's Pale Ale: famous as the originator of canned craft beer. I was a bit disconcerted to see it getting souped up and tricked out to become Double Dale's Imperial IPA. What have those Monsters done to you? This looks more west-coast, being clear and golden. The aroma is lightly citric, but nothing extreme. The flavour isn't very extreme either, even though it's a beast at 9% ABV. You get a very clean heat with strong coconut foretaste. Behind this there's a an old-school citric bitterness set on chewy malt. Compared to the others it's a bit plain, and not an improvement on friendly little Dale's. That's a brand that didn't need extending.

Though not CANarchic, there's some genuine creativity on display here. Western Mutant in particular is a reminder that messing about with hop varieties can bring fun results. Let's have more of that.

A hazy shade of summer

There can be no clearer indication that I don't drink as much IPA as I used to than coming home on a sunny evening and thinking "Ooh, I'd love an IPA about now." Basqueland was the brewery that happened to have the goods on the day.

I started hazy, on Life Cycle, which is 6.4% ABV. It's fully hazy and smells beautifully juicy, of fresh and pure orange juice. On tasting it takes a sudden turn to the savoury, with herbs and liquorice making it bitter, sending the juice to the back as an aftertaste afterthought. It still works, though. There's no grit and no garlic, even if it is sharper than the really good hazy IPAs. The can's smallprint tells us that Sabro features in the recipe, and I think that explains the oddness, even if it doesn't end up tasting like coconut. Azacca and Ekuanot, I presume, are what bring the juice. This is a pretty decent take on the murk thing, offering a pleasing level of bitterness while still retaining the essential hazy features. Ideal for getting back into the IPA game.

We turn immediately retro with a purported west coast IPA. To underline its credentials they've called it SSD in honour of San Sebastián and San Diego. I say "purported" because it's hazy, even if it's a proper shade of orange. The aroma is strangely rubbery, not unpleasant but not singing with fresh hops either. The herbal thing I noticed in the hazy one is present here too, even though the stated hops are quite different -- Strata, Citra, Mosaic and Ella. It's bitter, sure, west coast-like, but it's not clean. That visible fuzz gets in the way of the flavour. Impressively it's 8% ABV and actually billed as a double IPA: I had to read the can to know that because it doesn't taste it. The end result is quite harsh while also lacking in west-coast's proper punchiness and weighty malt base.

To conclude, Life Cycle is a beer to try if you don't think you like hazy IPA, while SSD should be avoided by any west-coast purists. Beer is weird. You're lucky to have me here, putting things straight.

Punching up

Summer appears to have brought with it a slew of fruited sour beers. It's been observed, and I think quite rightly, that sour beer has a very limited appeal in Ireland, though our brewers remain determined to take a punt on it. Good for them. Here are the new ones to pass my way.

We start at Kinnegar, and Brewers At Play 23: Mango Gose. A head formed briefly on this, before leaving it millpond-still. The body is a shocking dayglo orange and as opaque as a glass of actual mango juice, which I'm sure is deliberate. It doesn't taste like juice though, and the tropical fruit is relegated to the aftertaste. Before that it's a rather plain and basic sour ale. I thought I could detect a slight salinity, though there's no salt listed on the ingredients. There's definitely no coriander either. The goal is to refresh, and it does that, slipping back easily with a low-impact 4.3% ABV. But for a professed mango gose, it barely tastes like mango and doesn't taste at all like gose. *shrug*

I anticipated an altogether more full-on fruit experience from Kahuna Krush, the latest Rye River seasonal. There are three different fruits in this one, including two I've never heard of: sudachi and calamansi, in with the cherry. Both of the strangers are citrus, and that's the dominant characteristic in the bright pink 4.5%-er. It turns out that adding citrus to cherry makes something taste like raspberry. There's also a strange kind of sweaty sourness in both the aroma and flavour, meaning it's not the fun and frivolous summer beer that it's pitched as, at least not for me. It's complex, properly sour, and makes good use of its ingredients. It didn't work for me, though. The wrong kind of tang. I will be wary of strange fruit in future.

It's over to Larkin's for the next three, all part of their new series of fruited sour beers. We begin with Acid Passion: Raspberry. I'm not a huge fan of raspberry in beer, generally, though this one takes a light approach, tasting very simply of raspberryade, which is miles better than thick and sickly jam. While it does contain lactose (and strawberries, for some reason), the texture is light and there's also no real sourness to speak of. It's busily fizzy, reflecting perhaps an aim to be a summer refresher, but the 6.4% ABV puts paid to that. This is dangerously easy drinking, and might even work well over ice, but beware of that sneaky booze. 

They get stronger too. Acid Passion: Passion Fruit is 6.5% ABV. Otherwise it's largely the same deal. The passion fruit is pretty much the be-all and end-all of what it does, but that's OK, I like passion fruit. There is a little extra sourness here than in the previous one, a clean salinity, which also makes it an improvement and balances the sweet tropical fruit nicely. As before, complexity is not part of the offer, but I don't really mind. Passion fruit always means a fun time and this one takes full advantage of that.

The final part of this trilogy is Acid Passion: Mango at 6.6% ABV. It looked like I was going to get proper head retention on this one but that didn't last long. It's probably the least flavoursome of the three, mango being a generally less distinctive fruit than the other two. As such, it's quite one-dimensional, with a very broad tropical-fruit-flavoured soft drink vibe. I think I get a touch of the lactose's sweetness, and a slight stickyness as well. It's certainly not the clean and simple summer drinking I had become accustomed to. But neither is it doing anything that justifies the beefy strength. Once again it's fine, and I'm sure will be appreciated this coming summer. It offers no more than the basics, however.

Enough messing. Time for something proper. Land & Labour kindly shipped this bottle of Crimson over as a freebie -- much appreciated as I had thus far failed to pick up one myself. It's a kriek/framboise blend, though with twice the cherry quotient compared to raspberry, both constituent parts being spontaneously fermented. The deep bloody-red darkness of it gives an impression of strength but it's only 5.5% ABV. There's a certain sweet jamminess to the aroma, alongside oaky spices. That sweet side contributes significantly to the flavour, but much more like real ripe fruit than jam or anything processed. There's a rounded lusciousness to the foretaste. Drier and sourer times follow, beginning with quite an overzealous carbonation, the sort of busy prickle which interferes with the taste. At least with a 75cl bottle I was able to let that flatten out as I went. There's a big dose of tannin too, from the cherry skins, perhaps? The spice is fainter than I'd like but there's enough to season the fruit nicely, and of course it's properly, puckeringly, mouth-wateringly sour. As with previous Land & Labours, the complexity here isn't quite up there with Belgium's best, but it's not far off.

It'll be interesting in particular to see if the Acid Passion series continues running. Releasing three at the start must provide a good indication of whether enough people are interested. I have no particular objection to the simplistic, fruited, kettle soured, beer that they represent, but I did find sessioning through a bunch of them to be a bit of a chore. Variety is good, and we certainly didn't need another IPA in that space, but I longed for something a bit more involved and, well, sour.

Friends and allies

Ballykilcavan began its "Clancy's Cans" series of limited editions two years ago with a raspberry wheat beer. It looks like they've decided to make it a regular part of their range now, adjusting the ABV downwards slightly to 5% and giving it the name of Robinson's Revenge, commemorating an incident on the farm in 1861 involving a stroppy gardener. The specs are otherwise largely the same as before, from the pinkish-amber colour to the contrasting flavours of sweet fruit purée and bitter American hops. The latter dominate the aroma: from sniffing it, one could be forgiven for thinking that a classic grapefruitish pale ale is what's on offer. The raspberry -- concentrated and candy-like -- comes through immediately in the foretaste, but quickly followed by quite a harshly acidic bitterness. It's a strange pairing and I don't think it quite works. Each is fine on its own but they don't really belong together. The original version was saved by a soft texture but I didn't get that here, where a dry prickly mouthfeel only accentuates the harshness. Fewer hops and more wheat, would be my preference.

The limited series itself is still running, of course, and has now reached Clancy's Cans #8: Foreign Export Stout. The appearance is the very essence of stout: a dense black with a generous nicotine-stain head of loose bubbles. There's a surprising sweetness in the aroma -- strawberries and cherries -- plus some more typical liquorice and tar. While the fruit doesn't hang around for the flavour, it is still quite a sweet beer, the foretaste full of caramel, intensified by the sticky texture. This is a sipper, as one might expect at 7.4% ABV. Behind the dark sugar there's an old-fashioned, old-world vegetal bitterness, not dissimilar to the raspberry wheat beer, in fact, but much more simpatico with the rest of the features. Overall, this pretty much nails what export stout ought to be: nothing fancy, but presenting enough of a challenge to make you take your time drinking it.

Beer three is also a stout, part of the Drinkers for Ukraine charitable project. Resist follows a recipe set by the project and is an imperial stout with added beetroot. There's a reddish tinge to the head and a definite earthy root vegetable tint to the aroma. The flavour makes great use of beetroot's sweeter qualities, putting that purpleness front and centre in the foretaste. The stout behind gives it a backing of treacle and chocolate. It may be a concept recipe designed to make a statement, but it also tastes really good. Beetroot is a divisive ingredient and this does a great job of showing off how well it works in strong dark beer. And you get to feel virtuous while drinking it. Budmo!

Props, I guess, to the brewery for providing the sort of variety a fruited wheat beer brings, but this customer would be perfectly happy with more strong stouts.

We're mad we are

I'm always a little concerned when a country's entire beer output gets represented by one single brewery. It's the case with Hungary and Mad Scientist. Of course there are plenty of other Hungarian breweries, but this seems to be the only one we see. And they're kerrr-azy. Nobody elected them as ambassadors and they may have some compatriots who wish they weren't by default. Anyway, here's some kerr-azy dark stuff they've done.

The first is a "cinnamon roll milk stout" called Cin City. The aroma gets the gimmick just right: spicy grated cinnamon and slightly burnt brown sugar, all very enticing. The cinnamon is a big part of the flavour and it's almost savoury with it. That means the sweetness is on the low side, and that's very much to its benefit. No cloying sticky lactose here. At 6.5% ABV it has a substantial body without being hot or heavy. This is a clean and balanced sort of cinnamon roll milk stout. The ingredients include orange zest, which I couldn't taste, but I suspect it does add to the overall Christmassy feel. There's chilli too, but it may as well not be there. Once you're fine with cinnamon in your stout, this is genuinely lovely. There are no surprises, other than the surprise of how pleasantly drinkable it is. Novelty beer doesn't have to be upsetting.

OK then. Filled with optimism, I turn to Meggyes Pite, which is a cherry-flavoured pastry sour at 8% ABV: much more the Mad Scientist way. It looks nice: a dense and murky blood red, suggesting cough-syrup sweetness. It smells powerfully of rum, an eye-watering oak and molasses mix. The mouthfeel is thick and greasy, leaving me genuinely surprised that the ABV is as low as advertised. I'm not sure I need to describe the flavour after all that: it's exactly as sticky, as boozy, as oaky and as mad as I thought it would be. Cough mixture meets some highly flammable cherry liqueur from a bottle with no label poured by a wizened old farmer who smiles too much. There's a pinch of salt on the end which only makes it taste like one of those denatured cooking wines where the salt is meant to prevent you from drinking it. This is a beer to be endured rather than enjoyed, and I was on edge all the way down the 33cl. Here's the Mad Scientist I know and fear.

The lesson is that not everything from this brewery is a cloying concoction, but a lot of it sure seems to be. It leaves me asking what's consistently good from Hungary and can we have that instead please?

Cask central

Time was, the twice-annual Wetherspoon Real Ale Festival meant setting off on two wheels to the outer suburbs of Dublin. Its post-pandemic return has seen a change in the dynamic, however, with central Dublin boasting three branches (and counting) and the original Blackrock flagship sold on to new owners. Now I can do a crawl while getting barely any exercise: win win! Newest addition The South Strand did not seem to have got with the programme on the day I checked, so first stop was The Silver Penny on Abbey Street.

Number one on the festival roster was Malt Crush from Manchester stalwart JW Lees. Despite the name, its bright gold appearance made it look like a properly bitter Manchester bitter. It's certainly not big on the malt front, though is far from a hop bomb either, displaying just a mild lemonade lemon character. The accompanying notes call it a golden ale and that's fair enough -- there's a certain lager crispness, although the condition of my half wasn't great. This is an easy-going 3.7% ABV beer where any drama is confined to the pumpclip. An acceptable starting point, I guess. 

Robinson's of neighbouring Stockport is a brewery I've never really got on with so was a little trepidatious about one of theirs next: Hoptimus Prime (with all us Gen-Xers running breweries, how many beers of that name must there be now?) It's another golden one and 4.1% ABV. It's fine too, and very unexciting. There's a touch of Robinson's's signature soapiness in the aroma, and very little that I'd call hops in general, only tiny metallic tang on the end. With most other breweries I would castigate this one as boring; here I feel I've got away with something. It could have been a lot worse.

To London next, and Sambrooks. Their contribution is an American-hopped red ale called, with some no doubt unintentional racial insensitivity, Tomahawk. It's a dark garnet colour and the hops and malt meld in the aroma to create a bittersweet black liquorice effect. The flavour is dank and resinous, but smoothed out with strawberry and milk chocolate. There's a lot going on at first, and then a tannic dryness ties everything off neatly. You get a great deal of flavour complexity here for just 4.1% ABV. It's not a style I would have thought lent itself easily to cask but it works beautifully, keeping the hops front and centre where other cask reds drown them completely. Excellent work, apart from the name.

Keavan's Port had a sizeable range on, so it was thirds all the way. I began on Cairngorm Red Mountain, one which is suspiciously un-red. Mixing up the lines is not unknown here, though I did go looking for pictures of it elsewhere and what they served me checks out. It's pretty malt-forward, but not like a red: rounded and biscuity without caramel or toffee. From the middle to the finish there's a spiky hop kick, all grassy and noble. It's quite nice, but that's at least partially because it fits the profile more of a bitter, or even a German pilsner, than a red ale. I'll take it.

Shepherd Neame is next, with a sassy and modern-looking "light amber IPA" called Crossfire, using modern hop variety Ernest. There's a fresh oily-orange quality to the aroma, while the flavour is spicy more than anything: bergamot and jasmine, finishing with a cleansing tea-like effect. I regretted only having a third of this: it's one built for big and quenching draughts, the sort of pint that's gone in three gulps. Sipping a tiddly tumbler felt wrong. Regardless, I enjoyed it: clean and unchallenging, but with plenty going on in the flavour -- exactly what English cask ale does best.

The final part of this second trilogy is Jekyll and Hyde from Vale brewery, strongest of the lot at 5.2% ABV. "Deep red" says the description but it's definitely amber. It's weirdly strongly flavoured: a heavy floral perfume which starts at rosewater and proceeds through incense and patchouli oil to a rasping lemon rind finish. It's all a bit much for me and impossible to relax with. Here I was glad I only had a third, but shout-out to the boldness on display anyway.

That was a pretty efficient way of ticking off six new cask beers, poor service and inaccurate app data aside. Negotiating these is all part of the Wetherspoon adventure now. I look forward to an extra node being added to the crawl when the Aston Quay branch opens.

Stash Killing as a Service

The reason I was in Heidelberg was as a base for paying a visting to Barry and the Kertelreiter brand home in Schefflenz, an hour away via some stunning scenery. Trees were examined, ciders and perries were sampled and it was all rather a grand day out. Barry also took the opportunity to open some sharing beers from his cellar, with which I was quite happy to assist.

The first is from Brauerei Faust, situated in Miltenberg, just inside Bavaria where it meets Hesse. Rather than giving it a name, they tell us directly what it is: Holzfassgereifter Eisbock 2011, so a barrel aged eisbock. It's 11% ABV and a dark brown colour, smelling of chocolate, raisins and fortified wine. It's incredibly smooth, with either time or expert brewing having shaved off any hard edges. The complete lack of alcohol heat was its biggest surprise. Dark chocolate and caramel are the flavours, like a liqueur. For such a powerhouse it's very easy drinking and moreish.

The previous time I went to visit Barry it was in Münster, when we went to drink Münster Alt at the last brewery making it: Pinkus Müller. Now, not far away, another brewery has taken on this highly endangered sour style.

Kemker Kultuur's version is called Aoltbeer. It's barrel-aged on grapes and finishes at 8% ABV, pouring a rich autumnal gold. There's a big grape aroma backed by an eye-watering mineral spicing. The wine barrels had been used for red wine previously and there's a richness to this which says red wine to me. The flavour is every bit as complex as Belgian grape lambic, showing apple and pineapple lusciousness balanced against fun funk and acidity. The whole picture is beautifully complex and rewards slow and considered sipping.

From the same brewery (and the same cellar) came Stadt Land, a saison, but really a sort of table beer, at just 3.5% ABV. It's a hazy blonde colour and is as light as expected. Set on a luxurious soft texture are flavours of pear, passionfruit and mango, given a balanced backing of peppery farmhouse spice. It's a gorgeous little number, easy drinking but far from watery and devoid of the harshness that these often have.

Kemker claims to be the only brewery in Germany making these sorts of beers. There should be more.

A few miscellaneous beers before we wrap things up. Ahead of one train journey I plucked a bottle of Beck's Unfiltered from the fridge at the station shop. I'm not averse to Beck's though it's not the beer it once was. Could an unfiltered version be its redemption? In short, no. Passing by the insanely skunky aroma and ignoring the fine head, I found a medium hazy lager with a certain wholesome biscuity crispness but no extra hop wallop, which is what I miss about Beck's from the old days. This is an improvement on the original, much like Carlsberg Unfiltered was when that was around. On its own merits, though, it's really not much good. Distress purchases only.

I only know the Welde brewery from their wibbly longneck bottles, but they have something rather more sensible looking in Welde Pale Ale. It's 4.8% ABV and brewed with Simcoe, Cascade and unfamiliar hop Pekko. Pouring a clear deep amber colour, it smells of orange-flavoured boiled sweets, promising a sticky citrus experience to come. That's not what arrives, though. Instead of analogue candy fruit it's quite a real juiciness, low on the bittering, like a mandarin. There's an accompanying sandalwood spice for balance but otherwise it's a pretty straightforward, medium-sweet chap -- uncomplicated but quite charming. All credit to the Pekko, I guess.

From the same supermarket in Heidelberg I picked up Dolden Sud, an IPA from Riedenburger Brauhaus in, well, Riedenburg (between Nuremberg and Munich). It's a medium-pale yellow colour, lightly hazy and 6.5% ABV. There's a strangely detergent-like aroma, part fabric softner, part cosmetics of the elderly. It's exceptionally bitter, and not in a typical US-style IPA way. This is a harsher affair, more minerals, vegetables and weeds. I suspect some German hop varieties have been involved and they do not suit the profile. There's a floral side to it, and even some tropical fruit, but they don't get enough of a look-in, largely drowned out by hard talcum and fetid fruit. This is perhaps a noble effort at brewing IPA from a brewery not accustomed to doing so, but they should have stayed in their lane.

The journey finished up with a night in Frankfurt, where I got to do a little exploring of apfelwein and apfelwein bars (thanks to Barry for the directions). I enjoyed the time off from notetaking and almost forgot to drink any beer, and that wouldn't do at all.

The ubiquitous local macro is called Binding, part of the Radeberger conglomerate, and their flagship is Römer Pils. I caught up with it shortly before heading for the airport at the pub bearing its name: Römer Pils Brunnen. It's a charming place, in the heart of the bustling city though still frequented by locals, in to read the paper and pass the time of day.

Römer Pils is a middle-of-the-road 4.9% ABV, clean-tasting with a mildly herbal aspect. The finish is nicely dry and there's a Munich-like softness to the texture, conspiring together to make something extremely drinkable. There are worse ubiquitous pilsners to have as your city's example.

The brewery also makes a seasonal doppelbock for the winter called Carolus, and fortunately it was still around in April. Served in a clay mug, its colour looked properly dark from the top though it's impossible to be sure. An aroma of chocolate and liquorice doesn't quite follow through into the flavour, making this smooth and accessible, I guess, but somewhat lacking in character. Doppelbock for people in a hurry then. How appropriate.

It was homeward bound after that, with the feeling that I had covered a substantial bit of ground over the nine days. Special thanks to Barry and family for the hospitality and information. Germany is such a fascinating country to explore and I haven't seen a fraction of it yet.

Heidelbräu

After Bamberg, the next stop on the Germany trip was Heidelberg. It's a charming little city, the old town squeezed into a narrow valley on the river Necker, overlooked by the castle and, above it, a hotel and assorted radio masts. Below, it's narrow streets, quaint squares and, what with the student population, a lot of fast food.

There are currently two brewpubs operating in the town centre. Kulterbrauerei is part of a large eating and drinking complex spread across several buildings. The beerhall is a palatial high-ceilinged affair. The beer prices are similarly palatial, almost touching €5 the half-litre.

The house lager is Scheffels Kräusen, a slightly hazy blonde in the typical brewpub style. There's a strongly sour lemon juice aroma and I was worried it would end up being vinegar. Thankfully that doesn't materialise and instead there's a big dose of lemon citrus, making the sum total light, fresh and invigorating. It's maybe not the wholesome chewer that most of these are, but I'm not going to fault it just for being different.

Beer of the moment was a red ale called Scheffels Red: something of a beast at 6.5% ABV. It's an unattractive murky, muddy ochre colour, though set me at ease soon after with its lovely clean fruit notes. I got red grape and cherry in particular, with a little banana as it warms. In total contrast to the beer above, it's weighty and warming, giving it a whole different set of charms. I don't know if it's an attempt to mimic any particular beer style -- I've certainly never tasted anything like it -- but they've made something quite beautiful here.

The other regular is Scheffels Hefeweizen, an orange-coloured take on the style and one of the sweeter iterations. I got an immediate whiff of brown sugar from the aroma, turning to a flavour of Sugar Puffs, toffee and cinnamon. Despite this, it's not oppressively sweet, the way the like of Maisel's weissbier is. It manages to remain drinkable. That's about all I can say in its favour, however. This recipe is not an improvement on the weissbier basics, distinctive though it may be.

Not far away is Brauhaus Vetter, a compact little place with the brewkit sitting in the front room at the end of the bar. In an effort to try all four beers available I took the unusual step of ordering a flight, since they were on offer.

Vetter Helles holds very few surprises, though is more full-bodied than 4.5% ABV suggests. It's a standard pale yellow and tastes of white bread infused with lemon zest, finishing on a crisp mineral dryness. It's clearer and cleaner than I was expecting, but I'm not complaining.

Next up in strength is the 4.8% ABV Vetter Dunkles Hefeweizen. I don't go in for these much, and this wasn't a great example. The low strength leads to a pale body, more copper-coloured than properly brown. The flavour offers little other than some green banana, with no dark malt character at all. It's all bit characterless really and I was glad of not being responsible for more than a taster.

Pale lager no. 2 is Vetter Märzen. This has a proper Märzen ABV of 5.4%. It's heavy too, but with an inappropriate concentration of esters bringing a headachey pear drops effect with a slice of fruitcake on the side. Beyond these flaws there's not much else. The wholesome breadcrust of decent Märzen is missing. Like with the Dunkelweizen, they've skimmed past the style's good points without actually hitting them.

That brings us to the headline act: the beer the brewery proclaims on the menu and assorted posters is the strongest in the world. Vetter 33 held the title in the Guinness Book of Records in 1994 and they're still trading on it. It's 33° Plato so 10.5% ABV and a handsome chestnut colour, like a doppelbock, but not one. It's quite flat and there's a sweet-sour dual aspect, tasting of cherry liqueur chocolates. I loved it. Making a dark beer of this strength is a simple proposition but a fun one. Every brewpub should have something like this on the books, to be served in small glasses at session's end.

And those were the beers of Heidelberg, take 'em or leave 'em. The trip wraps up on Friday.

Here comes a new challenger

Bamberg, capital city of beer culture in Germany, is not known for a here-today, gone-tomorrow approach to breweries. The establishments that put it on the map for the beer tourists of recent decades are, well, established: all with at least a century under their belts and some famous far beyond Bamberg. I idly assumed that that's how it works: with the exception of the 2004-vintage Ambräusianum, the list of breweries is pretty much fixed. I was wrong though. Perhaps because of the city's reputation, new players have been setting up their kettles and fermenters in recent years, hoping to get a piece of Bamberg's beer action. Attracting pilgrims has been Bamberg's core business since the beginning.

Apart from beer, the other thing Bamberg is famous for, at least locally, is market gardening. Zollnerstraße runs up behind the railway station, and from the street side seems perfectly normal, urban and commercial, but behind the buildings is a lot of green space and greenhouses. Kris Emmerling's family owned one of these gardens and when he inherited the site he was determined to continue growing produce there. He added Bamberg's smallest brewery -- Hopfengarten -- to the premises and in 2021 converted the former flower shop at the front into a taproom. Hopfengarten specialises in exotic recipes using botanicals grown onsite, and you get a hefty portion of horticultural education as a side order.

He introduced us to Hopfengarten's beers with Koala, a sweet and clean kellerbier-style lager at its base, but with added eucalyptus for an extra sweet and herbal complexity. Without knowing what it was I guessed rosemary as the interloper: while it has the wintery oily quality it didn't taste as full-on herbal as I would expect from eucalyptus. There's a subtle lightness of touch here, suggesting that they're not out to make gimmicks. Bamberg's reputation still counts for something.

Rauchbier is part of that reputation. I mentioned yesterday that Klosterbräu seems to have decided that adding one to their roster is essential. At Hopfengarten they have too, though given it their own twist. Where everyone else uses smoked malt, Hopfengarten smokes the hops. Rauch Hopfen is broadly a Märzen, I think: 5.8% ABV and amber coloured. The smoke is mild but present and there's a dominant savoury aspect, tasting a little like tomato seeds to me. Again, it's decent lager and not just a gimmick or a joke recipe.

For gimmickry, we finish on their Chilibock. They grow chillis out back and fifty different varieties go into this dark red-brown doppelbock of 8% ABV. It smells quite innocent, all smooth with sweet caramel and biscuit. Stylistic concerns, and indeed sanity, leave the equation from the first sip, and sip is all you can do. There's a ferocious chilli heat which drowns any beer character it may have had, while I also get a strong kick of acidic vinegar, suggesting the peppers have been pickled rather than boiled. They sell this by the big bottle, but not to me.

Down in the city centre, you would be forgiven for thinking that the brewery/inn Gasthus Zum Sternla had been operating for centuries: it fits the model of the rambling restaurant with onsite brewery perfectly. But while the site is historic it only took its current form in 2019 and the brewhouse out back is very high-tech and shiny. Despite having this small batch production set-up, they're not constantly producing new recipes the way a brewery like this at home would. Instead there were two permanent beers and a seasonal, all of them pale lagers.

Sternla Märzen is a bit of a lightweight at 5% ABV though is a healthy amber colour and sports a heavy bitterness. I get a rye-like grassy pinch and some cardamom or poppyseed spicing. Märzen isn't meant to be quaff-and-go easy drinking, but I found this one demanded my time more than most. While hard work to drink, it's fun and rewarding too.

A different hefty lager style is on the other permanent tap: Sternla Export. Although a much paler yellow colour it's just as dense, and slightly stronger too: 5.1% ABV being perfectly acceptable for Export. That said, it's generally a malt-forward beer, and this one really lays on the hops, with bags of celery and fresh spinach. That makes it a little busy, though it gets away with it by being super clean, allowing each flavour to play its part separately and distinctly, not all smushed in together. There's a poise and precision here that's very unusual for something produced onsite at a large German restaurant.

It seems quite topsy-turvy that Sternla Helles -- an accessible 4.7% ABV -- would be the special-edition seasonal, but here we are. It's almost completely clear and supremely smooth. There's a dry and husky aspect to the flavour, as well as a soft candyfloss malt middle. That doesn't leave much space for hopping, and I would have liked a little more green, even given that it's a Helles and an especially light one at that. More than anything, however, this was drinkable, and I could easily have opted for a second and third Seidla. That's the whole point of Helles so I can't say this one didn't achieve its goals.

The Sandbank Prison is one of Bamberg's landmarks, and with closure and repurposing imminent, the area around it is ripe for redevelopment. The Ahörnla brewery has stolen a march on this, with their brewkit installed and operational in a tower above their Ahörnla im Sand pub, and a sister hotel on the way nearby.

There are two flagship beers in production, and I'm starting with Sand Hell. This also seemed low-strength for the style, at 4.8% ABV. It was also much less polished than the Sternla fare, tasting of sweet caramel with added strawberry and raspberry. "There'll be butterscotch too" I thought, and sure enough the telltale diacetyl arrived a second or two later. Despite being unlikely to win any homebrew competitions, it does manage to stay enjoyable. I think there's merit to the fruity complexity, even if it's quite untypical.

Ahörnla Rot is quite a different proposition. This is 5% ABV and a clear red. Burnt caramel is the first impression I got from it, but exploring further gave me fruitcake, and tea brack in particular, with a sprinkling of coconut complexity. The overall impression was of a wholesome and old-fashioned teatime treat. Again, this is perhaps not how lager should be brewed by-the-book, but again it's enjoyable and drinkable.

One more brewpub finishes this whistlestop tour, and it's as different again as the others. Like Hopfengarten, Landwinkl stakes a claim to be Bamberg's smallest, crammed into a side room beside the poky corner pub that's been serving the beer since 2019.

There's a rauchbier in the set here, called A Rauchigs. This is a garnet red-brown and 5.4% ABV but packs in a lot of flavour to that package. Tar, salty fish, brown sugar and cola all feature, and I was reminded of Schlenkerla's delicious but slightly extreme Ur-Bock. Like it, the smoke is smoothly integrated into the weighty dark-malt-driven body and it makes the beer incredibly satisfying to drink. This is the kind of beer that one might expect to find on every street corner in Bamberg but which is sadly rare.

With time for just one more, I thought I'd go for a cleansing Helles. Landwinkl's is called A Hells. I give up kvetching about relative strengths, because this one is only 4.7% ABV too. Though dry and chalky at first, the flavour evolves into a beautiful summer-meadow floral quality before bringing a balancing spinach bitterness in the finish. As at Sternla, there's none of the roughness of what is essentially a kellerbier, and it's completely clear to boot. I loved how it adheres to the strictures of Bavarian pale lager while also showing superb creativity in its complexity. Very nicely done.

After four nights and a lot of legwork, time was up in Bamberg. Phase two began with a train journey westwards.