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?