The 51st state

It was finally time to put my 2020 travel plan into action! Latvia, a country I'd never visited, had been top of my list back then, and in September 2023 it became the 51st country I've been to.

My introduction to the national beer came shortly after we'd left Brussels and levelled off at cruising altitude. In-flight hospitality had nothing more interesting to offer than Mežpils, brewed by Carlsberg and, it turned out, ubiquitous around Riga. It's a wholesome and heavy job, 5.1% ABV and a decently dark gold colour. The head retention is excellent and there was lacing in evidence, even in a paper cup (I did have cause to drink it from a glass some days later, for science and that). Understandably, it's very much malt-forward and quite sweet, with just a small tacked-on hop bitterness at the end. I liked the chewy weight of it, and that it doesn't go too far in that direction. As a national mainstream lager it is perfectly acceptable.

On the dark side, there's Mežpils Tumšais, at 5.7% ABV. It looks lovely, even in a small hotel-room glass, a deep cola brown with an off-white head. At heart it's still quite a plain lager, tasting crisp and surprisingly light. The darkness is present in the aroma, however, with a mix of toasted white bread, gooey caramel and chocolate wafer. It's strange how almost none of that comes through in the taste, and a metallic tang in the finish, with a hint of treacle, is the only significant character to be found here. Still, like its pale sibling, it's decent and unfussy drinking. I would have liked if it were easier to find in the restaurants.

The competition is Lielvārdis, from the other Danish giant, Royal Unibrew. Though very commonplace I only got round to it at the airport on the way out. This one tastes more like a national flagship, and not in a good way. Despite 5.2% ABV it's very light, with a cheap and sugary aroma. The flavour adds banana and butter, classic hallmarks of poorly-made industrial lager. Luckily, it's also quite bland, so the suffering is somewhat minimised. On boarding the plane I was very glad not to have given this one more attention.

And so to Riga itself. I liked the look of the Riga Porter I found in an off licence, channelling the city's signature art nouveau architecture as well as the tradition of Baltic porter to which, in this instance, they've added blackcurrant. And even though the syrupy adjunct is fairly discernible, it doesn't interrupt the fundamental features. That's a strong liquorice bitterness set on a thick and creamy base, feeling more than its 6.5% ABV. Add in some strong espresso and a square or two of very dark chocolate. It's really just on the end that the concentrated blackcurrant appears, and frankly it would be a better beer without it. Thankfully, it can be safely ignored. This was one of only two Baltic porters I found on my visit. At the risk of sounding like a doddery old white-bearded beer writer, it would have been nice to get more like this and maybe less of the generic craft styles that the local breweries use to pay their bills.

We'll come to those. Riga is not short of specialist beer bars, and this account of the places I went is not intended as a drinking guide to the city: they're just the places I went. Large and central is Two More Beers, and in addition to the rangy main pub it also now has a satellite pop-up in a square around the corner. It was here that I started with the Two More Beers Lager, which seems to be very much in the local style, being sweet and quite sugary. There's a telltale kick of banana in here too. I don't know who brews it, but I suspect it exists as a pure place-filler on the pub menu and isn't created to anyone's exacting standards.

There's also a Two More Beers IPA, 6% ABV, which I had at the main pub. It shouldn't have been a surprise that this is also pretty basic stuff. The caramel malt base and harshly resinous hop overtones reminded me in particular of Polish IPA, which I'm convinced should be a designated style of its own. One could charitably say that this one is delightfully retro, in a 1990s American IPA way, but it really wasn't good enough for that. Drinkers expect freshness and zing from their hoppy beers; this lacked both.

The black beer beside it is Pilota Nakts, a porter by Malduguns. It's a very straightforward effort and offers everything you might expect in the chocolate and coffee realms, with a soothing creamy texture and no excess heat from the substantial 7% ABV. There's a slight absence of roast, so the coffee side is more mocha than espresso, but that's a minor quibble. This would make for an excellent dessert substitute while also not going extreme with the alcohol.

Service at Two More Beers, it must be said, isn't brilliant. On my last visit, whatever local unfiltered pils I ordered arrived as a Pilsner Urquell. It's hard to be cross at that, but no tick. My wife's imperial stout arrived as a quadrupel from the same brewery: Kvadrāts by Teika. Ramping up the gravity to 11.1% ABV grants the brewer a certain licence to be slipshod, for while this tasted to-style, with ample amounts of raisin, plum and milk chocolate, it's also an unattractive soupy brown colour with no head. I got a very homebrewish vibe from its lack of polish, but it gets away with it by tasting decent. There'll be more from Teika in a subsequent post.

Not far away in Old Town Riga is The Banshee, a generic craftonian bar on the ground floor of a modern apartment building, all big-screen menus and bare wood. The first thing to catch my eye was a Latvian take on English Dark Mild from the Puta brewery. One might have thought that the brewer would have drank an authentic one before trying to recreate the style, but it doesn't look like they have. This is a very pale amber beer of 5% ABV. The aroma is fruity, smelling of ripe strawberries, including a mildly tart tang which conjures rhubarb as well. None of this is anything I would associate with mild. And it's not an enjoyable beer, style qualms aside. What were they thinking?

I needed something very different to follow that, so went for a beer from one of the few Latvian breweries we get in Ireland: Ārpus. They seem to have adopted Northern Monk's practice of very long and descriptive beer names, and this is Ārpus x Hop Hooligans QDH Nelson x Riwaka x Citra Lupomax x Simcoe Cryo TIPA. Honestly, that put me off trying more of them. Do I even need to say anything about it? It's very nice. Though definitely a triple IPA at 10% ABV, it's hazy and soft, whereas most TIPAs I've had tended to be clean but hot. The aroma is a spicy custard mix of vanilla and cinnamon, while the flavour features clove and nutmeg, pink peppercorns and cherry skin. The heavy texture lends it a sense of nogginess; a warming and wholesome winter drink. Most of all, it's fun. I couldn't pick out any of the named hops individually, but the combination works well.

I had more Ārpus haze on my next visit: Hopheart, a 6.2% ABV IPA hopped with Galaxy, Vic Secret and Mosaic. Despite its double dry-hopped claim, it's not actually hopped-up much. I got a little peach and apricot, but also lots of cereal and savoury caraway. It's run-of-the-mill stuff and not a beer to convert haze sceptics to the cloudy cause.

One more pub before we leave, and I needed to find a screen to watch Ireland's opener against Romania in the Rugby World Cup. The Thirsty Bulldog looked like it had a decent selection so I plonked myself there. On tap there was more Ārpus, this one called Hopchest, a double IPA of 7% ABV. This had the same faults as the previous beer, only more so. It's yellow and hazy again, and shows only a tiny hint of pineapple on the fruit side, plus a subtle layer of vanilla. The rest is a super-savoury combination of poppy and caraway seed, bone dry and quite unpleasant. There isn't even a proper level of bitterness to rescue it. Poor show.

Also on tap was Saules Eils, a pale ale from Aldaris, the Carlsberg subsidiary which brews Mežpils. It's 5.7% ABV and is another heavy, resinous job, big on malt sweetness and unsubtle hop bitterness. That makes it harsh in two directions at once, and it's very tough drinking as a result. Again, it's a style of beer I've drank plenty of over the years, although it's now resolutely out of fashion. It's not a good example of those, however.

We'll come back to the Old Town on Friday, but tomorrow we will journey further afield, to see what modern Riga has for us.