New kits

The newer brewpubs of Vienna are today's subject, or at least the ones I hadn't been to before. Mama Kraft is indeed very new: even my local guide hadn't tried it yet. It's in a handsome basement space adjacent to its parent restaurant, Mama & Bull, which also sells its beers, but you need to come down here if you want to drink next to the gleaming copper.

What to drink? We start with Helles as usual. After yesterday's disappointing headline lagers I'm pleased to report that Mama Kraft Helles is absolutely by-the-numbers for a Mitteleuropa brewpub lager. It's 4.8% ABV with a misting of haze suffusing the medium-yellow body. The body is quite full but the foretaste is fresh and clean with topnotes of lemon zest on a chewy grain base. It goes a little bit eccentric as it warms, introducing a strange beeswax funk, but you're not meant to let it warm up: this is a good quaffable conversation lager; a proper session beer.

They also do a red lager called Die Herzdame. To me this seemed very much along the lines of the signature rotbier of Nuremberg, and that's a bit of a problem for my palate. It's almost acrid in its dryness, not helped by an assertive liquorice bitterness, nor balanced by a splodge of caramel in the middle. I'll grant you that there aren't any flaws in here and I'm sure it's absolutely what the brewer set out to produce. If rotbier is your thing then it should be good news that there's somewhere in Vienna you can drink it. Me, I was glad to be merely tasting somebody else's.

They pick another country's vernacular with the third beer: Wit Bull, a witbier. This is darker than benchmarks Hoegaarden and St Bernardus and they've fully upended the herb sack, resulting in something that tastes in between Oriental stir fry and the second-cheapest bath bomb in Lush. The base beer beneath this is thick and syrupy with an off-putting sweaty tang. I think they've overreached themselves trying to do a witbier. What it needs is a tang of some sort, and orange peel would be ideal. If they used it they didn't use enough. Stick to the lager is my concluding advice to myself as regards Mama Kraft.

On a tram going along the side of the Belvedere palace grounds I noticed a sign for a brewery. That'll be the Salm one, built into the walls. I was there last time and don't need to go again. A check of the the map, however, showed me that the Belvedere has two breweries built into its perimeter: Salm was round the other side and this was the hitherto unfamiliar Stöckl im Park. Driver! Stop the tram!

This one is smart and modern, the pale wood and plate glass of an upmarket restaurant. I'm sure the views over the manicured Belvedere grounds are lovely when it's not pitch dark outside. Along an entire wall there's an impressive, though solely decorative, Salm-built brewery console from the 1950s, rescued from some large brewery that had no further need of it.

Zo, Helles? Stöckl's Helles 1924 is 4.9% ABV and a dark golden colour with only a faint haze. It tastes quite sweet with a tang of banana though subtle enough to be classed as rustic rather than flawed. It maintains its crispness despite this and shows another full and chewy texture. It's fine: hardly a showcase of the brewer's art but plain and palateable.

Across the table, something called Böhmisch G'mischtes which they claim is a unique Austrian speciality, though it must be an endangered one if so because I didn't see it anywhere else. From the name I'm guessing it has something in common with Czechia's polotmavý amber lager. To my palate it was spot on as a Bavarian-style dunkel, centred on light caramel with an oily, nutty richness, a bit of runny chocolate and a balancing edge of roasted dryness. It's wholesome and filling stuff, the essence of süffig. It's a shame that such things have gone out of fashion, presumably to be replaced by mediocre Helles.

She was having another one of those. I decided to chance the Stöckl Weizen. This looked a bit strong, being a muddy dark orange, though the ABV is only 4.9%. It's a little on the dry side but there's a decent wodge of green banana on a light body making it fresh and summery, not cloying or hot. This is a straightforward and workmanlike weissbier, easy-drinking and thirst-quenching without being any way bland. That'll do.

Our final brewpub is quite a grand affair. Kaltenhauser Botschaft Fünfhaus is built into the imposing Brauhof Wien Hotel on Mariahilfer Strasse. It's smart and spacious, though they've slightly incongruously put faux-industrial features into an airy baroque beer hall. I'm sure no small part of the smartness and slickness is because it's owned and operated by the local tentacle of Heineken.

Their Helles is named a Zwickl, hazy yellow of course, with a light 4.7% ABV. This was the best example of these I had all trip, with all the requisite features in the correct proportions. That's a freshly herbal aroma leading to a flavour of bright and zingy lemon and basil. And that's it. Quick finish and order another. It is mostly definitely designed for drinking in large measures but is perfectly sippable too.

It was quite the novelty to find a Stout on the list. 5.2% ABV looks good for the sort of thing we drink at home, likewise the aroma of roast and the flavour of dark chocolate and liquorice. Where it falls apart is the mouthfeel: it is unacceptably  light bodied and I suspect it might be cool-fermented. The result left me thinking of watered-down Baltic porter, and nobody wants that. I deem this to be not stout in either style or nature. Another reason to be glad of the decent everyday stout that so many Irish breweries make so well.

Still I persisted with unAustrian beer styles despite knowing better, and had the IPA next. This is properly American-style at 6.5% ABV with properly American Amarillo, Simcoe, Mosaic and Cascade hops. It's dark amber in colour and smells sweetly tropical, of passionfruit, pineapple and bright yellow candy chews. Again, though, it's thin bodied and the hops don't sit right on it, coming across as harshly vegetal with a strong metallic twang. The basic elements of the IPA flavour are there but the chassis simply can't carry them. It seems they just can't get the hang of warm-fermented styles here. Time to switch to something more in their wheelhouse.

That was the Wiener Lager: there hasn't been one today yet. It's a little hazy and pale copper coloured; modestly strong at 4.8% ABV. The aroma is perfect for the style, with its toasty baked melanoidins, like bourbon cream biscuits. The flavour is plainer. It's not rich but clean and crisp and very easy drinking. Despite the difference in colour and smell, the experience isn't very different to what you get with the Zwickl. That's not a complaint after the adventurous-but-wonky beers which came in between. Lager is what these people do best.

And that's it for Vienna for now. On my third trip in twenty years it's gone down a little in my estimation, beerwise, but maybe that's because of my choices. There is plentiful unpasteurised Czech lager served from the tank, and if I didn't have a blog to feed I could have happily stuck with that.

In tomorrow's post I'll be doing a quick circuit of the city next door.