From Sweden with bugs

My erstwhile Swedish drinking buddy Mats arrived over in Dublin several months ago with a handful of cans he thought I ought to try. There was a general wild-ish theme about them, which is fair enough. Let's go!

We start on a no-frills gose created for, and called, Great Swedish Beer Festival 2022. It's a three-way collaboration between Brekeriet and two other breweries whose names I had no compunction about copying and pasting: Snausarve Gårdsbryggeri and Svartbergets Fjällbryggeri. Nobody brought any silly ideas to the table as this is very straight up and all the better for that. It's 4.4% ABV and a slightly hazy yellow. The hopping is perhaps higher than the norm as I detected a new-world lemon sherbet effect on top of the faint sour tang and a herbal bitterness. No fireworks, but a very refreshing glassful. Made for a beer festival and perfect as a mid-session palate-cleanser.

Brekeriet remains in charge for the next two. Tristron is made with blackcurrants and looks like Ribena in the glass: purple and pretty much completely flat and headless. The aroma gives a major impression of diluted cordial too: forest fruit but on a thin and watery base. I hoped for better on tasting, even though it's only 4.8% ABV. The series is called "The Sour Patch" and it definitely has a ring of sour candy about it, being puckeringly tart in an unsubtle way, then trying to balance it with equally unsubtle sugar. There is a certain depth and complexity which comes from it being mixed-fermentation rather than soured in the kettle -- a certain farmyard funk and some floral high notes to add a modicum of seriousness. I'd prefer it to be more serious, however. I think a gravity boost might have helped round it out. As is, it's a basic decent blackcurrant sour beer.

The companion piece is called Lusse Lelle, and the added ingredient here is saffron: not something I've encountered in beer before. The gravity does get a boost here and the ABV is 6.5%. It's a lurid amber colour and properly carbonated, the short-lived headed tinted by the saffron. It smells rather harsh and medicinal, with eucalyptus meeting antiseptic phenols. The flavour leads on a peachiness which I'm guessing is the Brettanomyces, dropping its funky aspect this time, and then there's the savoury addition of the saffron, feeling quite tacked on to the rest. The lingering aftertaste, wherever it comes from, is the Listerine phenols and isn't pleasant. I honestly couldn't say if something's gone wrong here or if it's part of the complexity. The mouthfeel is once again thin. I found it hard to enjoy, beyond the initial juicy lusciousness. I think it's safe to say the saffron adds nothing positive.

The final one isn't sour and comes from Stigbergets: Pacific Northwest Coast, a name which sets a certain stylistic expectation which it immediately confounds by being a densely opaque eggy yellow. There's a good old blast of raw garlic from the aroma, something I haven't got from a hazy IPA for a while. How delightfully retro. That's not so pronounced on tasting, thankfully. Here it's juice and pith in a 50/50 mix of lemon and orange. A slightly dry and crisp note in the finish is a little out of character but better than cloying vanilla. That makes it an easy drinker, which is a bit dangerous at 7.2% ABV -- there's no significant body nor heat to signal the strength. Overall it's fine: an inoffensive can of haze which will be of interest most to those already predisposed.

Not to look four gift horses in their mouths, but this was a bit of a disappointing set, especially the Sour Patch jobs. Keep making the gose, though, Brekeriet: you've got the hang of that.