The cat and the barley

For my last entry in the Riga Chronicles, two of my favourite pubs in the city's historic centre.

Up by the northern perimeter is Kaķis Maisā, another roomy vaulted basement like BEERA. I didn't get to spend as much time as I'd like here, as the 4pm to 10pm hours make it seem more like a hobby than a business. On my first visit I had the entire place to myself. My beer of choice was a Baltic porter from local brewery Nurme, called Totally Nuts. The name comes from the inclusion of peanut and hazelnut in the recipe. I've said before that Baltic porter is one of those beer styles that doesn't benefit from wacky craft additions, and that remains true here, but the nuts are thankfully barely perceptible. While the aroma is a bit dry and dusty, like a peanut shell, there's lots of lovely portery chocolate in the flavour. It lacks lager crispness, and Baltic porter's signature liquorice bitterness, but does include an unexpected smokiness for a different kind of savoury effect. While it's far from a classic representation of the style, I enjoyed it.

On a return visit,seated outdoors, I absolutely had to try the "Irish stout" from Teika, Vecais īrs, pictured to the left here. It's 5% ABV and nitrogenated, giving it the creamy texture that's intended to create, and I guess the severely muted flavour which is the inevitable side effect. It's mostly dry and roasted, with a slightly sticky lactic tang, but not much of any of it. No coffee, no chocolate, no hops; nothing that the good examples of Irish stout show. If the aim was to copy one of the bland industrial versions then have a slow clap from me.

The headless bottled stout on the right is another Teika one, called Sērija | Ozols, being the oak-aged one in the Sērija series -- apple, cherry and chestnut are also available. Despite the lack of head, this had a lot more character, I'm sure at least in part because it's 11% ABV. The aroma is very alcoholic and quite sweet, suggesting red vermouth and coffee liqueur to me. Somehow it manages to be both light-textured and fizzy while also sticky, with chocolate and charcoal flavours gumming up the palate after only one sip. "Busy and weird" say my notes. I'm guessing it's been done with woodchips rather than a barrel, and that gives it the same amateur feel I got from the same brewery's quadrupel which I covered on Wednesday. This is not the way.

The final bar is one I discovered late in the trip but spent the most time drinking in. On the old town's south-eastern edge, with a view of the zeppelin sheds, is a small, smart, modern Scandi-style bar called Miezis un kompānija -- "Barley & Co." The diversity of the offer here is what kept me in.

That began with Atentāts from Prusaks, which is a tomato gose, a style I was surprisingly endeared to when I found a Ukrainian one last year. I expected it to be red but it's yellow, and doesn't taste very tomoatoey, but has the all-important cracked black pepper of a Bloody Mary. Beyond the initial gimmicks, there's a spicy floral kick, of lavender and honeysuckle. This is all quite subtle, and a decision to make it only 3.6% ABV tones down the novelties and ensures it's easy drinking. I could sink a lot of this.

And is she having an imperial stout again? She is. Estonian stalwarts Pühaste present Lummus, brewed with cocoa and lactose to 11.5% ABV. No coffee is mentioned but by gum it smells of it. On tasting, the roasted bitterness graduates beyond espresso and into burnt tar and heavy tobacco. I tend to think of lactose as making beers sweet and frivolous but it's not doing that here. Serious grown-up vibes -- the sort of chocolate that isn't for children -- is how this one rolls, and I liked how it does it. I didn't get to attend the Borefts beer festival this year, but this is exactly the sort of thing I usually go there to drink.

I discovered the bar going past it on a tram, when I spotted the words Cranberry Saison on the menu board from outside. It was only right and proper to actually drink that now I was in. Latvian brewery Hopalaa does the honours, and it's a whopping 8% ABV. A pinkish copper colour, it tastes just as it sounds, being thick and weighty, the dry saison base laced with white pepper and straw. Into that has been poured the syrupy cranberry, not loads but enough to be assertively present alongside the rest. After a few tentative sips I started finding it a little sickly, though I think that's more down to the high strength than the fruit extract. You get what's advertised with this one, take it or leave it.

I thought there would be more Lithuanian beer on sale in Latvia in general, but Dundulis's Džion Borna is one of the few I saw. They describe it as a "Samogitian wit" and is a recreation of a rural wheat beer with juniper, from 1935. 4.9% ABV, it tastes like a lacklustre weissbier -- watery, with mild banana notes. There's an almost missable berry tartness from the juniper, and a porridgey grain-husk effect. The whole thing is basic, inoffensive and, frankly, worthy of extinction. It's rare for me to find a commercially brewed historical recreation beer that I liked, and here's another for the nope pile.

We finish on another sour/stout pair. Mine is Loomi, from Montpellier brewery Sacrilège. The name references its use of black limes, which make it one of those beers with two simultaneous kinds of sourness. On the one had it has the crisp and highly attenuated quality of light geuze, the tartness smooth and very classy. And then there's a tangy lime citrus effect which is perfectly integrated into it, the way the Belgians do it. I'm guessing some Brettanomyces is involved, because for balance there's a gummy, peach-nectar funk, sprinkled over the top. This is a lot more interesting and complex than I was expecting, for something advertised merely as "a sour". What a pleasant surprise.

They must have known my wife would be in because that's another Pühaste imperial stout she's drinking, this one called Dekadents. Rum-soaked vanilla beans are the reason for the name, that and the 11.2% ABV. It's certainly luxuriously smooth, but like the previous one isn't madly sweet, tasting of boozy Tia Maria first, then a herbal bitterness late on. That's your lot -- it's no multifaceted sensory maze, but it's fully up to Pühaste standards, with no pointy edges and a satisfyingly lingering aftertaste. You know you've been drinking big stout here.

That's it for Latvia. The trip will resume on Monday, somewhat further to the west.