Back with a bang

Despite the two-year absence it all seemed very business-as-usual at the 2022 Borefts beer festival. Once again the De Molen brewery in Bodegraven hosted a hand-picked selection of local and international brewers, with a slight emphasis on what used to be deemed strange and wacky recipes but these days is simply what beer is. It'll take me a while to get through everything and I'm starting today with the host's own beers and whatever else there was from elsewhere in the Netherlands.

De Molen took the opportunity to launch a new beer, a collaboration with BrewDog called Doric & Dutch. I'm happy to have spent enough time in northeast Scotland to understand the name. In the festival programme it's billed simply as a stout at 7.2% ABV and I was concerned that I might have been given the wrong beer when I brought it back to the table. What I got tasted strongly of gingerbread, and subsequent research revealed that it is indeed brewed with "gingerbread spices". That gives it an odd but not unpleasant aftershave aroma and then an even odder ginger and cinnamon taste. The base beer is a light and chocolatey stout which I think would be better without the enhancement. It's fine: far from De Molen's best work and perhaps not deserving of the troop of bagpipers who brought in the first KeyKeg, but as a sweet spiced stout it does the job.

De Molen seems to have got a bulk deal on blood oranges, or possibly blood orange syrup, because it featured heavily in two of the beers. First, good old Hel & Verdoemenis got the Blood Orange treatment which completely buried the imperial stout but created something new and quite fun. The density that comes from 10% ABV gives it an oily Terry's Chocolate Orange effect. There's not much else to it other than big chocolate and big orange, and it's certainly not an improvement on plain H&D. The underlying quality shines through the gimmickry, however.

Then there was Kruid & Koek, a quadrupel, though a bit of a lightweight at only 8.5% ABV. Here the bonus ingredient comes across as fresh and zesty, giving me an instant flashback to bitty Club Orange or Orangina. Even more than in the stout, the base beer disappears under the fruit onslaught, and really it could be any style at any strength. Quadrupel rarely impresses me, and even making one that doesn't taste like quadrupel isn't helping. A lighter touch on the orange is needed.

Time to get back to basics, and Heidi & Peter is the sort of thing De Molen can be relied upon to do well. It's an 11.4% ABV imperial stout with added honey and aged in bourbon barrels. There's a sumptuous chocolate-cake richness to it, made into even more of a dessert by a hint of coconut which I assume derives from the barrels. It was marked in the programme simply as "vintage" and I don't know how old it was, though I did detect a slight autolytic twang, but very much in the "adding character" sense rather than the "ruining the beer" one.

From there we progress to an 18% ABV icebock called Ice & Age. This dark brown number started life as a doppelbock before being strengthened by freeze-distilling. It really seems to have concentrated the doppelbock characteristics too, with an aroma of fig paste and a powerful fruitcake flavour. In fact, more than a German lager it reminded me of Belgian dark ale, with similar sorts of fruity esters. As such, I began to find it difficult to drink after a few sips, though at that strength that's probably no bad thing.

I finished my De Molen beers, and indeed the 2022 festival, up at the brewery windmill where De Molen had taken the bar to itself. Here I give my palate a bit of a reset with a 6% ABV hazy IPA called Water & Vuur. This had a bit of dankness, a bit of funk, and some citric high notes, all perfectly acceptable in an IPA. It's not the brewery's forte, however, and it shows. While there's nothing wrong with it, it doesn't really stand out, especially when compared with some other hoppy stuff available from the guests.

Normal service resumes with Mill & Wherry, a 13.8% ABV imperial stout brewed in collaboration with Polish brewer Piwoteka. Rowanberry, I've just read, is the special ingredient here. What I got was a spicy cinnamon, tonka bean and nutmeg kick in the foretaste, with chocolate around the edges and a dry chilli-skin burn. It's a little rough and there's a touch of staleness, however that may have crept in. It's still decent, though, and whetted my appetite for something even bigger.

My last beer, then, was Kaal & Krul, 15.7% ABV and aged on Bowmore whisky casks. The result is soft and devilishly smooth, with warming notes of port and sweet vermouth. Scotch barrels can result in harsh spirit flavours but there's none of that here: the strength is apparent from the texture but not from any heat. There's a honeyish character at the centre which grows as it goes, threatening to make it overly sweet, though fortunately it doesn't follow through. I picked well for a beer to finish on, though appear to have been in too much of a hurry to photograph it.

But while I'm finished with De Molen for now, there was much else to be sampled from the Dutch guests. An early pick on the second day was Crank Crank the Juice Juice double IPA (the single version is called "Crank the Juice", obviously) from Moersleutel. I was drawn to it because I really only know the brewery for their strong and dark stuff, and wanted to see how they fared with hops. Brilliantly, it turned out. This 8%-er absolutely delivers on the name and genuinely tastes like freshly-squeezed orange juice, down to the slightly bitty texture. Behind this sits a weighty green dankness and a luxurious alcohol heat. In a bigger measure it might get a bit cloying, but I think I'd take the chance.

I mentioned Brouwerij Eleven last Monday, in reference to their multicollaborational Glamping IPA. It looks like they've also collaborated with a local Indonesian restaurant in Utrecht, Toko Pedis, to create Lombokbok, a doppelbock with added chilli pepper and coconut. It's still copper coloured and more than meets the spec strengthwise at 8% ABV. There's a worrying touch of vinegar in the aroma so it was a big surprise to find the flavour opening on concentrated strawberry jam. Then there's a hard hop bitterness, some herbal spicing and tart berries. All the things, basically. Too many of the things, really, and I'm not sure this beer knows what it's meant to be. It's certainly not a doppelbock any more. Maybe it works with food but on its own it was just too weird.

Eleven also teamed up with a wine distributor to create BA Kriek, a kriek, obviously, aged in Geodoro barrels. I don't think I know what Geodoro tastes like. Regardless, the end result wasn't up to much. I got none of the oak or wine character I was hoping for, nor any wild sourness or funk. Instead it's a heavy and syrupy beer where at least the cherries taste real, but otherwise isn't a million miles from the heavily sweetened krieks of Belgium's less reputable lambic brewers. I'm sure a lot of effort went into designing and creating this; shame it doesn't seem to have paid off.

We'll finish on another freeze-distilled job, and Kees was rationing their Ice Bock Dark very carefully. There probably isn't much of it: getting a beer up to 25% ABV involves removing a lot of the volume, I'm sure. And yet the end result tastes about half that. Yes it's thick and tarry, but not excessively so and it's still very drinkable. That it's based on an imperial stout is apparent from the chocolate sauce foretaste leading on to drier roast later. Everything you'd want from a big imperial stout is here, just at a ludicrous strength. I can see a use for that. Well done Kees.

That's enough for today. We'll start bothering the international visitors next.