The Devil went down to Aldi

Unexpected summer lager is today's theme: one beer each from two breweries whom one does not find in Aldi regularly.

We don't see Whitewater at all in these parts any more. It's a bit of a shame because it was one of the greats in Irish brewing, in the early years of this blog. Today we have Whitewater's Helles Lager, the pitchfork and pointy tail on the label making it clear which pun they're going for.

At 4.2% ABV it's a little on the weak side, but it looks dense at least, a honey gold colour, with a properly persistent head. The aroma is absolutely spot-on to style, a clean and fresh white-bread effect, just veering towards cakey sweetness, and backed by a hint of vegetal bitterness. It's properly full-bodied too, and does show the cake and veg, but there's something else. I get a dose of heat, of marker pen solvent, which good examples of this in Germany never have, but which you might get in a rustic brewpub version. The beer is still perfectly drinkable, and has a very pleasant filling and weighty heft. It doesn't quite have the beatings of Germany's polished finest, however.

Iron Maiden played Dublin on the weekend I picked up Sun and Steel, and these facts may not be unrelated. This is the latest in the Trooper collaboration series between the band and the brewer Robinsons of Stockport. The gimmick here, other than the tie-in, is that it's "infused with sake", so I'm guessing that a proportion of the finished product is blended into the base lager. The result, 4.8% ABV, doesn't taste gimmicky, and has a very straightforward pilsner profile: predominantly dry with elements of grain and grass around the edge. It's decent, and it feels dead classy to be drinking it from a 33cl bottle. You don't really need sake to make a good clean lager, though.

Turns out these two shelfmates really have very little in common. Still it's always a pleasant surprise when Aldi gives us unexpected beer. Fair play.