A Song of Bees and Castles

A fancy took me for some Polish lager, which resulted in me leaving Polonez with three cans and a bottle.

Kasztelan is a Polish brand from Carlsberg that I hadn't seen before, though it claims to be piwo regionalne of Sierpc, north of Warsaw, and I've never been, so maybe that's why. Kasztelan Jasne Pełne is the "pale strong" lager, which turned out to be a medium amber and 5.7% ABV. There's a slightly headachey aroma of esters, suggesting banana and fusel oil. That starts the flavour off sweet, banana again, with slices of red apple and halved white grapes also in the fruit salad, all floating in thin syrup. Yum. There's a modicum of lager crispness in the finish but it's tokenistic. This is plainly meant to be a big sugary palate-stomper, and it succeeds at that. It's not how I like my lagers, however.

I hoped for something considerably more subtle from Kasztelan Niepasteryzowane, given that it's only 4.6% ABV for one thing. Unpasteurised doesn't mean unfiltered, and it's a very clear golden colour in the glass. We're back on normal lager territory here, with a very orthodox aroma of dry crackers and damp grass. The aroma continues on those lines, with the malt in the ascendant, giving it notes of cornbread and Victoria sponge, shading towards Bavarian Helles territory. I'm not sure what benefits the lack of pasteurisation is meant to bestow upon it: there's no special freshness or absence of any common off-flavour; there's an absence of almost any flavour, in fact. It's a dull mass-market lager of the sort Carlsberg has built an empire upon. I thought there would be more to it but maybe that's naive of me. I craved something more interesting next.

Is honey lager a big thing in Poland? I can't say I noticed it on my visits over the years, but the shelves of Polonez had two mainstream brands with honey-infused versions of their beers. New or not, of course they had to be tried.

Łomża Miodowe was first, only because I don't really like Łomża beer. We're back up at 5.7% ABV, making me guess the honey was fermented as part of the process. It still smells massively honeyish, though: a sensory flashback of honey on hot buttered toast, something I haven't encountered in decades. Grassy hops are there too, for the full meadow effect. This smells like fun. On tasting the lager takes a back seat, providing the light body and bright fizz, while up front it's a sticky-tasting but not sticky-feeling honey effect, fully realistic and natural. Alongside the floral sweetness is a waxy bitterness, suggesting that this isn't some ersatz honey flavouring but the full multidimensional deal. I drank it last year while summer was still in full swing but it left me thinking more of mellow autumnal evenings. Overall I was charmed: not what I expected from Łomża or their honey concoction.

Canned Perła Miodowa (different declension: here's why) is a little stronger at 6% ABV and looks paler too. The honey is much less pronounced here: absent from the aroma and in the flavour as the sort of artificial plasticky candy effect that I was fearing in the beer above. Other than that mild plastic twang, this gets filed with the unpasteurised lad two above as inoffensive but not doing everything it could. All big-brand Polish honey lagers are not the same.

Polish beer, then, is full of surprises. I expected to be impressed by the unfiltered lager and thoroughly underwhelmed by the Łomża but the opposite has been the case. Well played everyone.