Lithography

I surprised myself with the discovery that I had never had any beer from the Utenos range, despite having once been to Lithuania and regularly being in Dublin's east-European supermarkets. It's a sub-brand of Švyturys, itself the property of Carlsberg. I don't know where it sits on the premiumisation scale, but the can design is pretty basic-looking.

Your starter Utenos pale lager is 5% ABV and looks decent: clear and properly golden. The aroma is malt forward, though with a hint of banana in that bread. The ester effect is quite prominent in the flavour, and especially at the end. It starts innocently as pear and lychee but grows in intensity to full ripe banana and red apple before the end. I like the weight and chewiness but would still find it tricky to drink more than a couple in one sitting.

There was no immediate difference between that and Utenos Auksinis, the so-called "golden" one: still a 5% ABV lager. It's a tiny bit paler and had a very fine haze to it, little protein flakelets bobbing about in there. It seems a little cleaner in the aroma: still with an estery note but more sharp pear than banana. Although the ABV is the same, it's lighter and crisper on the palate, suggesting that the gravity is lower and it's more attenuated. I don't know that it's a better beer, though. Something seems a little off about the dry side of the equation; a stale tang, close to classic oxidation. Like the haze, that's not something one expects to find in an industrial European lager. This is no more sessionable than the previous one, though if they knocked the ABV down a bit, it might be.

The curveball in the set is Utenos Cherry. Let's see if tipping a drum of syrup into it improves the wonky lager any. It does reduce the strength and we're down to 4.6% ABV here. The colour is a lovely shade of dark maroon with a firm head. So I guess it was a lot of syrup, because this is very cherry indeed: think of it as session-strength cough medicine. The cherry flavour is delightfully real, though, with that hard bitter and tannic edge amongst all the sugar. There are loud echoes of candified Belgian lambic here, and I really enjoyed it on that basis, while fully recognising it's not going to be for everyone. Beyond the syrupy wallop there's a spicy nuance, like the cinnamon seasoning in a fruit pie filling. Above all it is tremendous fun in a delightfully silly way, which was just the tonic after the previous two po faces.

And while I'm scouring the shelves of Polonez on Mary Street for new ticks, here's Vienas Premium, another standard 5% ABV golden lager but from a smaller brewery down Kaunas way. Initial impressions are excellent, from the generous 568ml can to the handsome cap of fine white foam it wears when poured. The aroma is sweet but pleasant, mixing light spongecake with meadowy blossoms. The flavour isn't so sweet, being a little on the plain side but with a lovely refreshing crispness. I get a very faint fruitiness -- apple or banana -- which is probably a flaw but I'm happy to write it down as character. This is a very decent no-frills lager in a large can. Sometimes that's all I require. Though a bit of cherry would be nice.

A Volfas Engelman sneaks in at the end, via the lower shelves in SuperValu. This is simply called Pilsner and is 4.7% ABV. It looks lovely, all clear and golden with a handsomely Germanic head. To taste it's quite sweet, with lots of meadowy flowers, honey, and a more artificial fruit candy vibe. The latter is accentuated by a chewy texture. It's not unpleasant but it's not what I want from a pilsner: no sharp bittering and a severe dearth of crispness. It didn't cost more than a few euro so I can't complain too hard. I'm pretty sure Engelman does better lagers than this, however.

Sweetly does it, seems to be the watchword in Lithuania, and their lagers suffer as a result, if this lot are anything to go by. No hidden bargains this time.