BXLnt to each other

Tour & Taxis is a vast former goods depot on the canal in north-west Brussels. As is the way of these things, the authorities have tried hard to find things to do with the plentiful buildings and even more plentiful space: shopping, exhibitions, startup workspace and of course events. BXLBeerFest set up here in 2017 and, prompted by Eoghan Walsh, I made arrangements to attend last year. That didn't work out but tickets rolled over and so there I was, if not quite front at least fairly centre, on the last weekend in August 2022.

Sixty invited breweries occupied eight circular pods, each pouring four or more beers at a time. The selection was carefully chosen from Belgium, Europe and North America, with an emphasis on the wild side of fermentation, like saying "we invented lambic, show me what you can do".

The first brewer who I wanted to see doing their thing was our own Land & Labour. Spon 4-Year Blend is one I missed by being at the wrong day of Fidelity for it. It's definitely an accomplishment for an Irish brewer in this space, tasting very convincingly gueze-like, down to the sharp waxy bitterness and different-sharp nitric spicing. If anything it's maybe a little too sharp, verging on harsh, though that's more about my preference: I like a bit of mature smoothness in these. But, as usual with Land & Labour, whatever the criticisms, the potential for better is always apparent. The Spon project is definitely going in the right direction.

Across the way, 3 Fonteinen were showing everyone how it's done, their bar including three lambics on the cask handpumps. The one I'd never tried before, and therefore availed of, was their Oude Lambik, a dark amber colour, looking like apple juice. Its ageing is apparent in the concentrated sappy tang of old oak, sweetened with a quince jelly middle and a mild sour burn in the finish. The smoothness is off the charts, and even though it's only 5% ABV, the long finish encourages sipping and savouring. It's a shame this is such a rare speciality -- I'd love to see a cask of something like it in every corner café in Brussels.

I'm not sure if  Gueuze Erfgoed from Het Boerenerf counts as a new one or not. It's one of those revived brands, a farmhouse brewery closed in 1960 and now producing again under a new generation of the family. It tastes convincing, showing all the right flavours: bricky, oaky and smooth with a rub of lemon zest. Although 7% ABV there's little by way of weight or heat, and bitterness has been sacrificed for extra spice. Just the way I like my gueze, in fact. I'll be looking out for more from them.

Another new-wave producer of wild drinks is Pellicle Vergistingen, not really committed to whether it's a brewery, a winery or something else: if it ferments, it's fair game. They were offering something like a plum lambic called Palla Mirabella, 6% ABV and hazy orange in colour. It was surprisingly sweet for what it purports to be, loaded with apricot jam notes and only very faintly sour. 80ml cost me €5 and I don't feel I got anything like my money's worth. I'll be more circumspect about this lot in future.

My big discovery of the festival was the Norwegian project Eik & Tid. I began with Barbar, described simply as a rhubarb sour ale, and only €3 for 150ml, and was stunned by it. It's bright golden, with a gentle haze, and while sharp and flinty at first has a juicy white grape centre and then a spicy mineral finish. It's absolutely lambic-grade, even if the brewer is too modest to claim so.

That had me back soon after for a cherry beer called Cerasus. While not as amazing as the other one it is pretty damn good: bright pink and with the too-rare proper kriek effect of a sharp sour spark meeting sweet macerated cherry in the finish. It's sort of a sherbet-and-vinegar combination which shouldn't work but is absolutely magnificent. I tried not to linger too long on any one brewery, but Eik & Tid were the ones who made that especially difficult for me.

Berliner weisse was a major comedown after all that, especially Dunham's Bébé Lala, one I chose mainly because I liked the name but also because it includes blueberries. The result is a yoghurt aroma and a Ribena flavour, refreshing at 4.5% ABV with its light body, but not in the same league as regards flavour complexity as everything else on offer around it. I didn't linger long over this one.

Their fellow North Americans, Off Color, did something much more interesting in creating Avec La Guillotine. Seemingly the recipe started as a doppelbock but there was no trace of that left by the time it had been infused with cherry and pomegranate and blended from barrels which previously held red wine, bourbon and Calvados. The end result resembles a Flanders red most of all: a heavy oaken acidity and lots of hot cherry, like throat sweets. Strong and sour isn't normally my bag but this carries it off well, at 7.8% ABV and tasting like all of it and more.

Staying in the US it's a gose next: the Watermelon Suburban Beverage by Perennial. This looked like a glass of white wine and managed to be both dry and juicy at the same time. The melon flavour is very realistic, not at all the ersatz candy effect that tends to plague "watermelon" beers. And like an actual watermelon it's very refreshing. It helps that they've paid attention to what traditional gose tastes like and included quite a heavy salinity which adds to the quenching power, and it also helps that it's only 4.2% ABV. Nice work.

The other Perennial beer I drank takes us into the dark and sweet zone. Abraxas, in its vanilla-infused form, is an imperial stout of 11.5% ABV. The vanilla, combined with cinnamon, gives it a bit of a tonka bean effect, which can be hard to take if there's nothing else, but here there's a herbs on red wine complexity that gives it more of an air of vermouth than any imperial stout has a right to. A rounded and mature smoothness also helps elevate this beyond the easy sort of multi-ingredient palate-puncher into something powerful yet refined. I was charmed.

And to illustrate what I mean by that, here's Prizm's Breaking Decency for contrast. This 12% ABV imperial stout also includes vanilla, and the flavour piles in chocolate, banana and hazelnut in a most unsubtle way. It's pastry stout in its most basic form and it's lucky I had a few lacklustre sour beers immediately before I drank it. It wouldn't be my sort of thing normally, though there's nothing wrong with it as such.

We'll finish today with two more from Sweden, courtesy of Stigbergets. Their pastry stout, at 12.5% ABV, is simply called Vanilla as if to make it clear that complexity is not on the menu. And so it goes, though it was better than I expected. No hot and sticky mess here, just the clean sweet crunch of chocolate wafers balanced against a medium hop bitterness. The mouthfeel is surprisingly light making for easy, relaxed drinking. This could work well as a gateway pastry stout, though if you like it you'll be chasing the 19% ABV barrel-aged raspberry donut jobs within minutes.

These stouts, however, top out on 13.5% ABV with Stigbergets Big Bourbon. Again, not a subtle name, and not a subtle flavour either, but not what I expected. Instead of all that cloying vanilla oak there's a nuanced mix of coffee liqueur and luxurious chocolate fudge sauce. It would run the risk of turning sickly were it not for a just-right level of hop bitterness. It was easy to forget it had been barrel-aged at all, never mind in bourbon: the base beer has held its own well against anything the barrel could throw at it. Unsubtle, yes. Unbalanced, no.

So there's a flavour of the nationalities and beer styles on show for you. Was there any IPA in the room? We'll find out tomorrow.