New-trecht

My short stay in Utrecht in September provided an opportunity to explore some beer venues I hadn't been to before. On a sunny Tuesday afternoon I set off down the canal to the city's southern reaches.

I didn't get far before I was at the Brothers In Law Taproom, which is in a modern building just outside the edge of the Old Town. As far as I could see, this isn't the location of the brewery. I was immediately drawn, as ever, to the black IPA on the menu, even though it was a Black NE IPA. Uh-oh! It arrived a distressing murky brown, looking like the absolute dregs of something else. The taste is largely sharp and raw leaf hops, highly bitter in a way New-England-style beers famously aren't. There was more nettle and dandelion in the profile than I was expecting, and no roast or fruit. It's a bit of a disaster, failing to channel any of the good features of dark beer or IPA, hazy or otherwise.

Continuing south, we reached Taplokaal Gist, a grand bar and restaurant in a converted industrial complex by the canal. They have 30 taps, and they don't fill them end-to-end with hazy IPAs. My first beer was Westfälisch-Alt from Rolinck in Steinfurt, north of Münster. It has the specs of a Düsseldorf Altbier, being 4.8% ABV and a clear copper colour, with an aroma of oaty crackers and fresh-mown grass. The flavour is pristinely clean -- lager grain first, then a background of chocolate and coffee. You sometimes get an unwelcome metallic twang from these, but not this one, which is very well designed for consumption in quantity.

That's an imperial milk stout sitting next to it, called Traveler, by White Dog from Dordrecht. It's 12% ABV and uses that well, to express a rich, sweet and warming chocolate-driven aroma and flavour, set on a sumptuously soft and creamy body. Add to this a touch of rosewater, a mild roasted bitterness and a whole heap of liqueur spirit and you have a near perfect example of the style. Superb stuff.

The next round brought two very similar beers. On the left, for me, something called RUIG Brettanosaurus, from Oproer. Batch 124, for anyone keeping count. It's 7.4% ABV and hazy orange. They've made it with the spicy sort of Brettanomyces, because it smells brightly floral and herbal, like bathsalts. The flavour includes pink peppercorns with a fruitier side, tasting of peach nectar. On the downside, none of this lasts long, and I thought it would have more legs given the strength, but the watery finish is quite abrupt and impertinent. It's tremendous fun up until then.

On the right, an American. This is the 12.8% ABV 2017 vintage of Helldorado, described as a blonde barley wine, from Firestone Walker. It has a strong oaky vanilla aroma, to the point of smelling a bit sickly to me. The flavour is better: well smoothed-out and balancing the booze, wood and fruit, creating something like an Old Fashioned cocktail, with added caramel and coconut. It's not amazing, and I don't know that it justified a €10 price tag on 250ml, but it's a very decent sipper.

That gave me the chance to squeeze in one more: Struik, a bière de garde from Duits & Lauret. This is dark for the style, a mahogany red, and a little hazy as well, which is out of character. At 7.5% ABV it's thick and savoury-tasting, dominated by dry balsa wood and oily cedar. After this came a succession of herbs and spices, including dill, pepper, fennel and marjoram, making for a delicious Mediterranean fish garnish of a beer. It came across to me as a kind of foeder-aged Flemish red, only without the sourness. It's beautiful however you look at it.

Our final venue for this trip was one we caught as it opened for the week on our final day. I don't recall vandeStreek brewery having any retail premises on previous visits, but there's now a drink-in brewery out of town, and a pub on the Oudegracht right in the middle. It was at the latter that we had our last drinks.

A few days earlier, Dublin's own DOT Brew had been taking over vandeStreek's taps, and Turn-Around was a remnant from that. It's a blend of honey ale and a Belgian-style pale ale, aged in Rivesaltes wine barrels and finishing at 8.2% ABV. It's a misty gold colour, and shows a touch of wholesome beeswax plus a whole load of luridly sweet cordial. The concentrated honey is sufficiently offset by the zesty hops, and there's a lovely long finish which may have tasted like Rivesaltes (I wouldn't know) but was Sauternes or Muscat to me. The whole thing is creatively different and very enjoyable.

Beside it, one of vandeStreek's own: an 11.8% ABV imperial stout called We Want S'more. One assumes from the name that this contains chocolate and marshmallow, and while it has the standard overly-sweet aroma, the flavour is a bit more serious, dominated by a hard treacle bitterness, with some drying smoke as well. That doesn't make it easier drinking, however, and it's a beer which needs to be chomped through slowly. Not really my sort of thing.

My sort of thing is Indian Blonde, a bright and clear blonde ale of 6.2% ABV. What sets it apart is the list of Indian-style added ingredients: turmeric, ginger, lemongrass, coriander, chilli and clove. There isn't much aroma from all this, and my first impression of the flavour was that it's a mess, tasting busy and musty, like the ghost of a Georgian-era cosmetics shop. Things separate out in the aftertaste, and I get peppery aftershave with definite clove and something I've written down as nutmeg but might be the chilli. This last phase makes all the rest worthwhile. Yes, it's a total gimmick beer, but a fun one.

The Utrecht Film Festival was starting shortly and vandeStreek brewed the official beer, called Kalf, after the festival's mascot. It's pretty basic stuff, as might be expected: a 4% ABV golden ale in broadly a Belgian style, with notes of bubblegum and apricots. There's nothing here to distract from either the film you're watching, or the distribution executive you're trying to schmooze.

An all-pale final round has Hazy Weekend on the left of the picture. This 6.6%-er is something of a flagship for vandeStreek, and is a little on the darker side for New England-style IPA. It's a straightforward and familiar formula, putting pithy citrus fruit onto quite a full and fluffy base. It's no juice bomb, but it's well-balanced and polite; a reminder that IPA doesn't have to be clear and west-coast designated to be decent. Simple, balanced quality is just what a flagship IPA ought to be.

The one next to it is their Fruit IPA: Peach & Apricot, a big finish at 8.5% ABV. I tasted mostly a soft melony vibe, with a harder acridity in the background. I thought at first that this was simply the hopping, but when it turned fully harsh I realised it was more likely to be an oxidation issue. While not totally ruined, this never really recovers, tasting like an IPA that's lost its zing. If found, please return to Oudegracht.

I'm not sure I'd like to live in Utrecht, but it strikes me as an excellent party town; somewhere to go of a weekend for an excellent selection of food and drink. I'm sure I'll be back for more of that before long.