Further abroad

Yesterday we got introduced to Riga and its beer via some of the bars in the historic centre. Today we're firing up our transport pass and moving out into the sprawl for more.

It's not very far to BEERA, a low-ceilinged basement lounge in one of the grand 19th century buildings. It stocks a mix of local and international beers and I went for one from the Swiss Brasserie des Franches-Montagnes: Resiståtør, a golden sour beer of 6.8% ABV. It's surprisingly sweet for all that, with an abundance of sunny summer fruit in the foretaste -- cherry, raspberry and the like -- followed by a more serious foeder or barrel oakiness. The tartness kicks in properly in the finish where there's a twang of green apple skin. Generally I'm a fan of this kind of beer, and I enjoyed this slightly odd take on it. BFM can sometimes go a bit too heavy on the vinegary sourness but this pitches it at just the right level.

A few doors down from BEERA, and presumably in a symbiotic relationship with it, is the tiny stand-up watering hole, grandly named "Beer Manor" (Alus Muiža). Still, there's a very solid selection and plenty of seating outside if the weather is cooperating. I was drawn to something calling itself Old School IPA, from Indie Jānis brewery. This is clear and amber-coloured; a modest 5.5% ABV. It smelled highly unappealing, funky and foetid, like the unexorcised ghosts of old boiled vegetables. Then it performs an amazing about-turn on tasting, bringing fresh and zesty satsuma to the fore. The bitterness is low, which makes it not exactly as advertised in the name, but it's fine -- not too far from that traditional style of east European IPA I mentioned yesterday, if lacking in the resinous notes.

Herself wanted a can from the fridge: Black Pecan Cake with Raisins from another new-to-me Latvian brewery, Hopalaa. It's a pastry stout, I guess, being 10% ABV and including vanilla in the recipe, though no lactose. There's a nicely serious amount of roasted grain in the aroma, along with some light floral elements. The texture is every bit as silky smooth as one would want something like this to be; it's not hot nor does it cloy the palate -- no lactose is paying dividends here. It does, however, taste sufficiently like a chocolate cake for the name to be accurate, and there's even a green hop bite in the finish, for those who prefer their stout to be stout-flavoured. Something for everyone in this, which I wouldn't have expected from the outset.

The next bar is only a few kilometres from the city centre but it feels like much further. We're out in the motorway hinterland, among the car showrooms and garden centres. On the first floor of a strip mall, above a hardware superstore, is Craft Beer Station. It's a long way from any trains but has been intensely decorated along a railway theme, feeling a bit more like a family restaurant or play centre than a pub.

The international selection is pretty good, so I opened my account with a Polish beer: Topping Revolution, a "calamansi pie crust" pastry sour. The strawberry coulis is advertised, and obvious from the dirty pink colour. It is extremely jammy, with concentrated, processed strawberry in both the aroma and flavour. It got better, though, starting with a late-delivered tang of real sourness and a fruit complexity involving peach and pineapple notes. It's not heavy or syrupy either, despite the sweetness, and offers a decent quantity of refreshing zing. I didn't think it was possible to get both jam and zing into the same beer, but my notes don't lie.

I couldn't resist the novelty of Belarusian beers. They're not exactly easy to find in Dublin at the moment. Both of these are from Valaduta, near Minsk. First it's Rager: Wakatu, a double IPA and presumably part of a hop series. I'm so used to these being murky yellow that the clear amber colour was a surprise. It's thick and chewy but doesn't deliver the hops to match that, giving me only a vague marmalade aroma, then a flavour with hints of lime shred and eucalyptus on a base of golden syrup. It's old-fashioned, I guess, and probably would have been fine a decade or so ago, when it would be interesting solely for being all of 8% ABV. Double IPA has moved on, however, and this seems bland and tired by contemporary standards.

Redemption for Valaduta came in the form of a dunkelweizen, which is odd because I don't normally like them. "Why would you pick a style you don't normally like?" This is why. Saule Dunkel is 5% ABV and treacle-black, with quite a busy aroma of bonfires and marker pens. The texture is light and the flavour is cleaner than expected, blending weissbier banana with a dry toasted element that is always missing from other examples. It may be that they've used roasted barley, which a German brewer probably wouldn't, but regardless: this is as good as dunkelweizen gets and I hope to find more like it.

As well as multi-brewery pubs, Riga also has a few taprooms/tied houses, and I went to two. I don't know if there's an actual brewery at the Trofeja pub: it didn't look like there was but I can't see any other production address listed. The venue seems to be going for a kind of rustic country cabin vibe, and there's an amateurish feel to the beers as well.

Oh hey! There's another English-style mild! Trofeja's Angļu Kents is no more successful than the one I reviewed yesterday. It's orange again, murky with it, and has a dirty, dregged-up flavour to match. A hint of orange peel is the one saving grace, otherwise it's bland and watery, despite a full 4.1% ABV, and nothing like a dark mild. I guess it could be classed as a pale mild, but only to serve as an example of why nobody brews those much any more.

I hoped for better from the pale ale called Sunny. It's very pale indeed, being a white-gold colour in the glass and only faintly misted with haze. The sour lemon aroma seemed a bit... off, and was followed by a similarly puckering hard lemon taste. A raw green celery note completes the poorly-drawn picture. I don't think it was infected, just over-hopped on too low a malt base. The end result doesn't really resemble proper pale ale, isn't very sunny and is just an end-to-end disappointment. Time to leave Trofeja and never return? You bet!

The Fon Stricka villa was once the exceedingly grand home of a 19th century brewer and his brewery. It hasn't fallen down but looks to be on the verge of it, appearing in need of a plasterer and painter, if not a structural engineer too. Pass through the grand but shabby archway and there's a courtyard with a cluster of buildings, some of which, presumably, used to be the brewery. While it all looks ready for the wrecking ball, it's home to a selection of event and hospitality businesses, including a taproom for Labietis, Riga's "pagan" brewery -- I get the impression that this is meant to signify the brewery's preference for pre-modern ingredients and nods towards ancient brewing.

Akmeņrags is one example of what I mean. This is an amber ale of 4.5% ABV, brewed with heather and wild thyme, plus Sladek hops. Minor points off for being more golden than amber, but the herbal side is spot on, tasting powerfully sagey and gruit-like, just how I want something like this to be. The hops keep quiet, and without their bitterness for balance this does get a little cloying after a while, but I'm sure you're not meant to drink it in quantity. A small one was different and fun.

I followed that with what used to be an obscure anachronistic herbed beer style but which has since gone mainstream: a gose, named Asara. Again it's 4.5% ABV and lightly hazy; pale yellow and with an odd appley aroma. The mouthfeel is strangely gooey, which isn't fun, and it's only tangy rather than cleanly sour. I was hoping for palate-cleansing refreshment but it proved a bit of a struggle to drink. Maybe gose was like this in Old Leipzig (it's not in modern Leipzig) but it isn't the way I like them, needing thinned out and cleaned up.

One of Riga's landmarks is the old zeppelin sheds, relocated to near the main train station and turned into market space. The second hangar along is the foodie one, and Labietis has a bar here as well. As someone who regularly chooses beer based on a silly name, I was drawn to the collaboration with the Dok brewery called 4 Naked Guys and [a] Dead Pigeon. One does not ask how it got that. It's a saison with added meadowsweet, mugwort and yarrow. Once again they haven't skimped on the botanicals and there's a strong blast of savoury herbs in this, all blended together and creating a general vibe of bucolic outdoor drinking. The base saison is the victim of this, losing its spice and crispness, but for once I didn't mind.

I also picked up some Labietis for hotel room drinking, including Trīs Indiāņi, a 5% ABV American-style pale ale. They're keeping things classic with this, presenting a pale yellow liquid which is quite free of haze. The aroma is all hop, mixing dank and funky with a lighter zesty side. The flavour also swings in multiple directions at once, throwing out lots of hard limey bitterness with savoury herbal resins and a slightly chalky, soda-water minerality. It's very old school, reminding me of the drier end of English bitter more than anything American, lacking the crystal malt side that these tended to have. There's a certain amount of malt sweetness but not really enough to balance the relentlessly sharp hop attack. This isn't an easy beer to like, and is definitely not for anyone who doesn't like their tongue getting a thorough scraping from hop acids. I imagine it makes an ideal antidote to fluffy, vanilla-laced haze, however. It's worth keeping on that basis alone.

Then there's Mežs. It means "forest" and is a 5.5% ABV "juniper red ale". It's pretty much red all right, though on the paler side of that spectrum. Hops aren't meant to be a major feature, and sure enough, once you get past the initial mild caramel everything else is herbal rocket, red cabbage and rosemary. There is a berry element too, though more cranberry than juniper: sharp and zesty, with a suggestion of sourness, without being a fully fledged sour beer. I liked it. I remember when gruit ales were fun and exciting novelties, and this belongs to then. You want a beer that's all about picking berries naked in the Baltic rain? Here's one for just such an occasion, where you don't have to actually do it.

That's enough meanderings for today. We return to Riga Old Town for a final couple of pubs tomorrow.