Fruit tone

Two beers from Colorado fixture Ska Brewing today, both on a fruity theme.

The Raspberry Blonde is quite self-explanatory, being a blonde ale with raspberry. As the name implies, it is indeed a coppery shade in the glass, and very slightly misty too. The base beer has been comprehensively covered by the fruit addition, and it tastes very raspberry-flavoured rather than of real raspberry: think ice cream sauce or lollipops. At a very medium 5% ABV this is a broadly enjoyable beer but doesn't offer anything above the basics. Some may find it a little too sweet -- it does veer somewhat into the almost metallic tang of concentrated sweetness -- but it was within my tolerance levels. That they've somewhat skimped on the malt helps it here. I don't see myself rushing back for another can, however.

The next one promised something more interesting. It's stronger for one thing, at 6.5% ABV, and is an IPA with added Guava. They've called it Mesa Guava. It's a bright golden colour, with possibly a greenish tint to it. The aroma says "IPA" more than "novelty beer": there's a solid kick of zesty hops and a little tropicality, but nothing artificial that wouldn't belong in standard modern IPA. There is in the flavour, though. It's still a proper IPA at heart: there's a decent malt weight and a slightly spicy bitterness. The guava gunk is there too, but restrained, adding to the hops' fruitiness with its own ripe sweetness, though not dominating proceedings like the naughty raspberries above. It does taste a little bit Lilt-y, but in a fun and charming way. I don't think I've had many beers with added guava, but it seems like it might be a good choice when deciding to make this sort of thing.

A glance in my fridge suggests that fruit beer season is very much upon us. Expect more in this general line before the evenings start drawing in again.

Stranded

After writing recently about Eight Degrees coming back to form following a change in ownership, here's another Munster brewery of similar vintage with a new lease on life. Although, for Dungarvan Brewing, it's a case that the founders have moved on and there's brand new management, albeit not from a multinational trying to make a quick buck. Things had been quiet in the latter years of the old regime but now here's the first new beer of theirs to come my way in quite a while.

In keeping with the local naming convention, it's called Clonea Strand and is a Kölsch. 4.5% ABV seems about right, and the slightly hazed medium yellow is OK too. Wholesome grain and some celery or fresh spinach hops make for an attractive aroma, leading into a crisp foretaste. It begins to break away from the style strictures shortly after this and reveals itself to be not a lager at all. There's a certain funkiness and a meadowy floral bouquet which makes it taste much more like a golden ale from Britain, and this becomes more pronounced as it warms. I found it had quite a lot in common with the brewery's flagship Helvick Gold, consistently my favourite of the core range. This one's finish of honey and beeswax is also in Helvick at its best.

I have no idea what Dungarvan's new owner's plans are, or if he'll be taking the brewery in a new direction. If so, he's starting from where they are now and what they've always done best: approachable beers in well established styles. I'll be following along and I wish him luck.

Garden party

It has taken them a while. Almost eight years have passed since the Smithwick family opened the Sullivan's Taproom in Kilkenny, a brand home for their contract-brewed beer which would one day be a full-sized production facility. It's getting there now and the block-built infrastructure is in place at the rear of the building. Also back there is a good-sized and well-laid-out beer garden where, for the last two years, Sullivan's has been inviting guest breweries to set up their bars for a weekend. I went along to the most recent iteration.

Of course, it was also a chance to catch up with some new beers from Sullivan's itself, since I don't see them very often. Earlier this year they introduced a pilsner called Na Boii, named after the Celtic tribe after whom, in turn, Bohemia is named. It's the appropriate clear golden colour with a soft texture and plenty of sparkle, and the 4.7% ABV is appropriate too. The appropriateness ends there, however. The fermentation isn't up to snuff and the beer is full of esters, tasting primarily of green banana with a different sort of marzipan or cake sweetness alongside. I expect grassy Saaz hops, and would even forgive a smear of buttery diacetyl, but neither features here. There's nothing distasteful going on, and it's OK to drink, but if I were marking it to style it would fare poorly.

Sullivan's Pale Ale is rather better. It exists in bottled form, so I'm guessing it's produced by the main contracting brewer, Dundalk Bay, rather than on the on-site pilot kit in Kilkenny. That might explain why everything is dialled in better. It's a dark-ish amber colour in the glass and smells delightfully zesty. The hops soften on tasting, into the apple and grape of a fruit salad with a sparkle of lemon sherbet. That's balanced by a cornbread malt sweetness, making for some nicely satisfying drinking at only 4.7% ABV. Rather like its Sullivan's sibling, Maltings Red Ale, this is a well-made take on the style, accessible enough for the mainstream but with plenty of interesting character too.

The host had also tried their hand at imperial stout, and barrel-ageing it too, to create Tri-Capital. Information about it is near non-existent so I can't tell you why it's called that, nor what it was aged in. The tap badge does say it was barrel aged for nine months, with another handwritten note on the bar telling us it's 8.5% ABV. Dundalk Bay has a bit of experience in this space, creating the fantastic 8% ABV Romanov in 2019 and a 9% ABV imperial stout in 2021. Happily, this has more in common with the first of these, taking very dark chocolate and caramelised sugar and adding in a heap of boiled green vegetables for a very grown-up bitter stout flavour, just how I like it. The barrel aspect is understated, adding quite a subtle layer of vanilla to proceedings, and a little cheeky spirit heat. Fans of the kind of strong and dark beauties produced by Brehon Brewhouse on the regular would like this one too. It deserves a wider distribution than the Taproom.

And so to the guest brewers. I began at Hopfully, with their new Floatinghome Belgian-style pale ale. This is a tricky style to get right, and American breweries have tended to be better at it than European ones, in my experience. Hopfully has made an excellent go of it, however, holding back a little on the fruity hops, showing only some apricot and star anise, but going big with the Belgianesque herbs and spices: bitter marjoram and dill plus a kick of incense and exotic peppercorns. It's heavily textured for 5.1% ABV but retains a cleansing sparkle as well. Like the imperial stout above, it's great to find this too-rare flavour profile in an Irish beer.

The second Irish hopfenweisse of 2024 came courtesy of Lineman, called Organised Fun. I said in the context of the Eight Degrees one that the style is rarely to my taste, but this one very much was, and I think the hop choice was crucial to that. It's BRU-1 and Hallertau Blanc, the latter of which brewer Mark described as "poor man's Nelson". I can see why too: this beer has very Nelsony notes of flinty minerals and juicy Chardonnay grape. What's even better is what it doesn't taste of: clashing banana esters. There is a softness and sweetness that tells me it's not simply a thinly-disguised IPA, though I fully accept that I may simply prefer hopfenweisse when it's not brewed entirely to style, or when it's brewed by Schneider of Kelheim, who are still making the original.

That leaves just Dead Centre, who had two beers new to me. There was a New England-style pale ale called Tweet Into The Void, 5.5% ABV and hopped with Citra and Strata. That offered a very straightforward kind of decency, from the sunny opaque yellow colour to the zesty yet tropical aroma of lime and pineapple, to the juicy mandarin flavour. If I'm picking nits, there's maybe a little too much of the oniony, savoury side of the hops in the immediate foretaste, and right on the very end, but far from enough to spoil things. It doesn't do anything you haven't tasted a hazy pale ale do before, but I think I'd be perfectly happy with a pint of this in its native environment, down by the Shannon.

Another barrel aged imperial stout to take us out: Solar Eclipse, at 10.7% ABV. There's a slightly odd, but not unpleasant, charcoal aroma, then a flavour centred on chocolate and caramel but with sidenotes of oaky cork and a little umami-laden autolysis as well: soy sauce or shiitake mushrooms. The charcoal flavour becomes a tang of burnt grain in the finish. That sounds a bit off, but again it's a very good beer for the most part, the highlight being a hugely rich and creamy texture, making it for sipping only. It's ambitious, and certainly characterful. While the like of Lough Gill and The White Hag have really mastered this kind of beer, you have to start somewhere and I hope Dead Centre will be trying its hand at more.

With all the ticking done, pints followed, including excellent cask versions of Ballykilcavan's Cobbler's Castle and Wide Street's Plush pale ales. And after that there was tasty barbecue food down at Paris Texas before the train home. It was a fun and easy-going festival in a beautiful venue. Thoroughly recommended for next year, when there might even be a shiny new brewery to see.

On automatic

I've almost reached the point where I don't bother looking for flights home from Brussels now. There are better options from Schiphol and, oh yes, you get to spend a bit of time in the Netherlands. After the 2024 Toer de Geuze ended we had an overnight in Amsterdam to round things off.

I brought train beer for the journey, of course. In a Carrefour I found a bottle of something I had been looking for since I read Eoghan Walsh's Brussels Beer City: The Book, Scotch CTS. There we learn that it had its origins in the post-WWI craze for British beer and, with a twin stout, was created by the Brussels brewery Wielemans. In the late '70s Wielemans was bought by Artois of Leuven, which went on to form Interbrew, and latterly AB InBev. And yet the beer has survived all the corporate machinations: Belgium's answer to Macardle's ale. Today it's 7.2% ABV and dark brown with a highly treacly aroma. It's boozier than expected, there are much stronger Belgian beers which hide their alcohol better. But then I think the alcohol is intended as the beer's personality, because it has little else going for it. Poking around I found some lacklustre banana esters, a bit of caramel and a pinch of burnt roast, but even writing that out longhand is doing the beer a favour. It's hot and dull, more like a badly-brewed dubbel than my understanding of Scotch ale. Still, that's it ticked off the list, and it passed the time between Mechelen and Breda.

On then to Amsterdam where we had no particular plans, nor will to do anything out of the ordinary. Standard operating procedure landed us in Beer Temple first, looking for items of interest on its international beer menu. Herself went with a 10.5% ABV coffee stout by Perennial of St Louis called, charmingly, Barrel Aged Sump. This is very black and massively sweet, beginning with a sticky Tia Maria aroma. Subtlety is not a feature, but there is a certain complexity: hazelnut or praline and a long coffee cream finish. American beers of this sort aren't cheap at Beer Temple, but this one managed to be good value all the same. 

I had a rauchbier from Bamberg, from a brewer that appears to have been named by that Elon Musk guy: Blech.Brut 8 Bit. What? Rauchbier Special is the name: 5.7% ABV and a surprising, but nice, rose gold colour. The sweet lemon aroma was another unexpected pleasure, suggesting that some class of modern-hopped lager is the base (Cascade and Strata, says their website). Then it was a shock to meet the smoke side, a dirty, plasticky kippery effect I've tasted in plenty of attempts at smoked beer, but none of them from Bamberg. It did grow on me, becoming less severe as it went. Maybe with a full German measure I'd have actually enjoyed it by the end. The beer under the smoke is very good; I found myself wishing they hadn't tried the smoke gimmick at all.

The following day we paid one of our occasional visits to In de Wildemann where I was, believe it or not, hunting rauchbier again. Herself wouldn't go past the Cantillon on the menu, since we hadn't had any of theirs in Brussels. This is Sang Bleu, a geuze made with haksap berries, aka blue honeysuckle, aka yeah whatever, just pour it. This is 6% ABV and glows with purply goodness. The aroma is all cherry sherbet, that sweetness meeting some very ripe fruit. This is even more intense in the flavour, where squidgy mango allies with full-on damp farmyard, finishing with a cleansing tang of berry acidity. For all that, it's quite restrained and tastes very young: light-bodied and spritzy. It's a casual sort of serious fun, though still very much up to Cantillon's usual high standard.

She was back on the imperial stout after that: one from Uiltje called The Algorithm Pt 3. It's a frankly excessive 14.5% ABV and is another sweet one, smelling of vanilla, milk chocolate, fig paste and the sweet spices and herbs of Turkish coffee. Still, it's not too hot considering the strength, though appropriately full and smooth. There's a generous kick of espresso bitterness to balance the sweet excesses and the whole thing is really quite approachable -- a bit of a gentle giant.

Rauchbier. It's a disgrace that its taken me this long to try the new ones from Schlenkerla. I thought I might find them in Austria last March, but didn't. I was certain that De Bierkoning, central Amsterdam's top off licence, would have them, but it didn't. And it was a few days before I found one of them on the shelves at a local shop in Dublin. Groh. But Wildemann had them both, and that's what I drank.

First up was Weichsel which is a rotbier, the red lager style most associated with Nuremberg. In the glass it's a disarming clear copper colour with lots of stiff foam on top. The caramelised malt makes it smell of candied bacon. On tasting it's pure Schlenkerla magic: a fantastically clean savoury smoke with no hard edges. Indeed, it has a lot in common with the flagship Märzen even though it's only 4.6% ABV. And while I appreciated that, I felt I was diddled a bit as regards the base style. I'm on record as not really liking Nuremberg rotbier very much, but I still thought there should be a bit more of its caramelised malt and red liquorice in the flavour. As is, this might suit those drinkers who enjoy the flavour intensity of Schlenkerla Märzen but find it too heavy.

The other mainstream German beer style to get the Schlenkerla treatment is schwarzbier, with Erle. This is lighter again in alcohol at only 4.2% ABV and isn't really black; more of a cola brown with red edges. The aroma offers a wisp of beech smoke but not much else. It's surprisingly big-bodied and soft textured, to the point of feeling creamy and stout-like. Sadly, it has no real dark grain flavour that I could detect. It's possible that schwarzbier's delicate toasty dryness has been totally obscured by the irrepressible smoky phenols which are the long and the short of it. Even as a Schlenkerla superfan, I wasn't very impressed. It must be possible to make a smoked schwarzbier which balances both sides of the equation. Oh well. Curiosity is satisfied and Schlenkerla does not have two new classics on its books.

The procedure dictates that Arendsnest is the final call and it was a beautiful day for sitting out by the Herengracht, watching the world cruise by. I noticed some weeks ago that this pub, whose gimmick is an all-Dutch beer list, had added a cask stout to it, seemingly as a permanent fixture. I had to give that a spin, though was a little disappointed it comes in a small Dutch measure instead of a proper pint. It's only 3.1% ABV so is called Little Stout, brewed by Poesiat & Kater. It's another cola-coloured one, maybe more red than brown, but certainly not black. And it's no bog-standard roasty session stout neither. The taste is a psychedelic kaleidoscope of bright flavours, in which I found rosewater in a big way, but also marzipan, bergamot, chocolate and fresh lemon zest. It could almost pass for a black IPA, only for a grounding roasted bite in the finish which is unmistakebly stout. Spectacular stuff given the spec. My only quibble is a typically Amsterdam one: €6 for 25cl is extortion.

Somebody else decided they wanted a double-digit stout, and chose It's A Sin, a collaboration by Kees with well-travelled Estonian brewer Pühaste. It doesn't seem to have any claims on novelty, other than the huge 13.8% ABV, but it smells and tastes of chocolate in a big way. That may just be the Kees house style, now that I think of it. We begin with a fudge or chocolate fondant aroma: calorific before it even gets near your mouth. The flavour opens on a salty chocolate tang before moving on to sticky molasses, and then finishing surprisingly quickly with no heat to speak of. Maybe I should be grateful for small mercies but I thought it would have more impact -- that's certainly what was sought. A beer of this style and strength which caused me to write the word "unexciting" has gone wrong somewhere.

Gose has become such a debased style that I now buy straight and pure ones whenever I see them. Gooische has one with the no-nonsense moniker of Salty Sour. It's a beautiful bright gold colour though doesn't taste very sour. Instead it's built around a spritzy lemonade sweetness with no more than a broad and basic tang of acidity. The coriander is missing, as is the salt, so as a straight gose it's a complete failure. Still, it's pleasantly refreshing and only 4% ABV. Relabel it as a radler and we're away.

What's that next to it? Could it be a stupidly strong imperial stout? This one is from Kees again, but with Moersleutel: two Dutch breweries where I assume imperial stout flows from the watercooler and fills the fishtank in reception. It's called Smeerkees and it tops out today's selection of mad yokes at 14.9% ABV. Again it's not hot but you do get some proper complexity with all the alcohol: a crisp hazelnut aroma and a flavour of high-end chocolate, dry peanut shell and a gradually building liqueur warmth, one which never tips over into being uncouth. It's a calm and classy sipper, exactly what I want from a Dutch imperial stout. The only gimmick is that ABV: behind the numbers is a beautifully engineered beer.

For the final round I thought it was high time I chose something crazy for myself, and one is rarely stuck for choice at Arendsnest. What caught my eye was one from Uiltje called Pomme Pressure: a barley wine aged in Calvados barrels. This is a trifling 14.8% ABV and dark brown in colour. It must be just the apples which made me think of cinnamon and cake when sniffing it. The texture is off-the-charts thick and that dovetails with a very jammy flavour, sweet but with a kind of prune-ish tang and enough spice to pass as incense. The prune gave me more of an impression of quadrupel than barley wine, but either way it's an excellent beer, and shows a lightness of touch and subtlety despite the overall biggness. I assume the spicing came from the barrel, in which case I'll be looking out for more Calvados-aged beers of this ilk.

A mere bagatelle of a stout sits beside it: the 10% ABV Ze Smelten de Paashaas. A translation of "They Melted the Easter Bunny" tells you exactly what to expect here: chocolate, and lots of it. There's the salty flavour of milk chocolate in particular with a little wafer biscuit crispness. A surprisingly assertive hop bitterness manages not to clash with the chocolate and adds a useful extra dimension to what might otherwise be rather dull. Dutch Bargain is the brewery, and they seem to know what they're doing.

We left Arendnest and went to Schiphol. After two days of Toer de Geuze and some light shopping in De Bierkoning, redistribution of baggage weight was necessary at check-in and something had to give. The something ended up being The Sky is Grey, a vanilla imperial milk stout. Apologies to X-Brewing for not giving their beer the treatment it doubtless deserves. Swigged from the can landside at Schiphol it was still very good: not one-dimensional but with some red berries on the chocolate and candy, smoothly textured yet not hot, even at 11% ABV. I'm sure it's even better when poured into a glass.

And that's where the weekend concluded. My principal observation when sitting in the sun outside Arendsnest is that we should do this more often. Everybody should do that more often. Let me get my calendar...

The new batch

The thing that stopped me from doing something sensible with my Toer de Geuze weekend, like getting the train to Boon and staying there, was the presence of unfamiliar locations on the itineraries. I picked two routes which got me to all four.

The one whose beer I knew best was Lambiek Fabriek, having tried a number of them in the past and even chatted with the owners at a festival last year. I've mentioned before that I'm not a huge fan of their output, and it was instructive to learn that their warehouse in Sint-Pieters-Leeuw is right next door to a sewage plant.

It was one of those Toer set-ups which favours big bottles, so as a solo traveller on the day my options were a little limited. From the draught tap I began with Muscar-Elle: something of a beast at 8.8% ABV and created with the addition of Belgian-grown grapes. It's far from a typical grape lambic, however. It's a surprisingly dark amber colour and the flavour opens with a leafy bitterness that made me think of hops: the sort of effect that lambic brewers try to avoid by using flavourless aged hops. After that surprise, a weird savoury smoky spice, like chipotle or paprika. There is grape in here, buried deep, but it's raw and firm, not soft and juicy. It's still a lambic though, but not a great one, and very typical of how this producer tends to miss my preferences by a whisker.

They had small bottles of a beer they make for a local cycling club, called Sporty Geuze Origin-Elle. Even though it's a niche product, it gave off flagship vibes: 6.5% ABV and a standard shade of orange. Once again, the flavour wasn't where I wanted it to be. A wax bitterness jars with caramel sweetness and there's not much else. The spice level is minimal, only a single twist of black pepper and no nitre or saltpetre. There's a sort of stale sweatiness about the sour aspect which I found off-putting. I hope the bike folks like it, at least.

A rotating "mystery tap" was, I think, pouring Gros-Elle: 7.7% ABV and brewed with redcurrant and grape. This was very difficult drinking, which was unfortunate as the bus was about to leave. It's very vinegary, curdling horribly in the stomach. The currant is there, for sure, but much too harsh for comfort.

My curiosity about Lambiek Fabriek and where it comes from was thoroughly satisfied. I hate to complain about a start-up lambic-maker that seems to be doing everything right, and which definitely attracts a fanbase, but which rarely seems to make a beer I enjoy. Still, I was glutton enough for punishment, or optimistic enough, to buy a bottle of something else they made on my way out, and I'll get to that in a future post.

The next stop was Kestemont, in Dilbeek. They've been brewing here since 2021, and ageing beer for a few years longer than that, in a group of venerable farmhouse buildings clustered around a courtyard. It's a charming setting, even in the persistent drizzle.

They had a draught tap in the yard pouring 1 Year Lambic, a beer that looked even younger than that, being a rough murky orange colour. The flavour was similarly unrefined, with a hard-edged waxy twang; bitter but not sour. It lacks any of the complexity of older lambic and proved a bit of a chore to drink. I could see why the ancient Pajottenlanders began mixing it with fruit and the like, or simply leaving it in the barrel for as long as it took to start tasting acceptable. There was certainly no lack of flavour here, making it a promising proto-geuze.

And so to the "here's one I made earlier" moment: Kestemont Oude Geuze. It's 6% ABV and pretty much the same colour as the lambic. I found it disappointingly bland, with a clean sort of sourness but none of the spice or fruit which make geuze the best beer style in the world. The weird house character appears to be an unwelcome smoky phenolic phenomenon, which makes it distinctive and individual, perhaps, but doesn't make it good beer.

I say it's a house character because I also found it in Kestemont Oude Kriek, one made with the prestige Schaarbeekse cherries. Add a bit of phenol to that and you get an odd meaty, savoury effect, like the kriek-sauced rabbit beloved of Brussels tourist menus. I come to Schaarbeekse cherries for a richer, rounder sort of ripe red cherry flavour. This didn't have that, and instead seemed a bit cheap, with a kind of sugary raspberry-syrup tang from the fruit side.

For me, then, Kestemont files with Lambiek Fabriek as having their heart in the right place but not delivering the goods I want. I'll give them a bit of time and come back to their beer at a later date to find out if it has improved. On damp Toer Saturday, however, I squelched back to the bus a little disappointed. Still, there was a whole other day to come.

The contrast in the weather was enormous. We started an hour earlier on the sunny Sunday, with the bus leaving Denderleeuw station at 9am. First stop was Eylenbosch. There looks to be a bit of money behind this operation. It's all very slick, situated in another farm courtyard in old buildings which have been carefully and sympathetically renovated. They've only been here since 2019 and the spiders have barely got a foothold. That they claim heritage back to 1886 -- from the brewery whose brand they acquired -- is another indication that the people in charge here wear suits instead of overalls. 

The draught Eylenbosch Lambic (brewed at De Troch) was three years old. It was still a little rough, though not as downright offensive as De Troch's own raw product. Cloudy in appearance, there's a harsh, enamel-stripping bitterness at the centre of the taste and not an awful lot else going on.

Compare that to the Eylenbosch Oude Gueuze next to it, looking ever so polished and smart. This is a much better proposition, smooth and dense, though quite light in alcohol at a reasonable 5.8% ABV. Where De Troch geuze tastes to me of full-on concrete, this has merely a seasoning of dry flinty minerals, and then a charming champagne toast quality. It may not be the most complex geuze in the world, but it's very classy, and perhaps would work well for those just beginning their journey. From what I can see of how Eylenbosch conducts itself, it should have no problem getting it into drinkers' hands.

These were enjoyed at the tables set out in the yard for the event, and when it was time for round two it was the wife's turn for some Schaarbeek action. Eylenbosch Schaarbeekse Oude Kriek is a deep shade of purple, and again takes a counter-intuitive approach to alcohol and body. Here, it's 6.5% ABV yet light and drinkable. And it has the cherry character I had been looking for from the Kestemont one: real and luscious ripe cherry flesh, set on a rich and cakey Bakewell tart base. There's still plenty of the wild beer action that gets the nerds' juices flowing: an oldie mouldy funk at the beginning and a spritzy tart finish to cleanse the palate at the end. While it's definitely a fruit beer, it's a very grown up one, and quite delicious.

I decided to gamble. Last year I had my first taste of whisky-barrel geuze, though didn't think much of it. When I saw that Eylenbosch had one on the go as well, getting much point-of-sale hype around the yard, I figured it had to be tried. They've called it Whisky Symphony and it's a whopper at 8.5% ABV. The funk from the kriek manifests here as a kind of blue cheese effect in the aroma, and then it's a weirdly sweet, malt-driven, treacle flavour plus caramel. That might be OK on its own, but then there's the sharp geuze sourness which clashes badly and feels tacked on as a gimmick. It's the other way around, of course: the whisky is the gimmick. Regardless, it doesn't really work, and I retain my sceptical stance towards ageing lambic this way.

There's a whole other range of Eylenbosch beers, both spontaneously fermented and with tamed yeasts too. I look forward to working my way through them when the opportunity arises. But it was time to leave, with just one more brewery on the list.

Den Herberg is primarily a pub, in the village of Buizingen, adjoining Halle. It looks like a jolly sort of place, though one never gets to see them in normal mode during the Toer weekend. The brewery is down the back, and they had set tables along the side alley leading to it (the aptly-named Zenneweg), finding room for the de rigeur bouncy castle too.

Just one beer each, and I picked the most interesting looking one: a blend of 4, 5, 6 and 7 year-old lambics called Geus Genereus, because there's nobody so generous as the Belgians when it comes to ways of spelling geuze. It's 6.7% ABV and an opaque orange colour. The aroma is mildly spicy, which is pleasant, but doesn't prepare one for the huge amount of dry pepper in the flavour -- just my sort of kick. For all that, it's barely sour, and the old beer in the blend gives it a luxurious calm mellowness. The whole thing is restrained enough that a touch of crystalised candy sugar is detectable too: there's nothing as vulgar as "sourness" in here. Top work by the blenders.

Although not constructed in the same involved way, there's something similar happening in the flavour of Kriekenlambic, seemingly a straight 18-month-old kriek. Here the big spices meet a fruity jam effect making it taste like a classy relish or remoulade. It is admittedly sharper than the geuze, but there's a definite mellowness too, which tastes beyond its years. Though only 6% ABV it has a warming, comforting cake-like feel. And my favourite feature was the dense blood-red colour which tells you from the start that it'll treat you well.

The final score in the exploration of new lambic producers was a 2-2 draw. Eylenbosch and Den Herberg have certainly given me leads on more to explore and taste. With the Toer dropping off its final passengers and closing up until 2026, it was time to move on. We had plans...

Eylenbosch

Geuze Bus Tours: The Reboot

Five years! It's hard to believe that it was five years since I last spent a weekend trundling around the breweries of the Pajottenland. The world has changed a lot since then. For one thing, the Toer de Geuze has now shifted to even-numbered years. I didn't do 2022's first post-Covid Toer but was back for both days of this year's. I was particularly interested to see four locations that I'd never been to before and resolved to visit them all. But before we get to them, a handful of return visits.

Day one, brewery one, was Lindemans. They've scaled things back compared to previous years. Gone are the fairground rides and play-along sideshows, and from four bouncy castles they were down to just one (though huge). Stilt-walkers and smoke machines still brought a little of the carnival, but mostly it was just a big hall to drink in. OK then.

In Brussels last year I tried out their just-released Tarot Noir, an 8% ABV fruit lambic that was so horrifically sweet that I couldn't countenance its twin, Tarot D'Or. At Lindemans, that wasn't an option, and I hadn't even reached the main hall before a glass of it had been thrust upon me. There were no surprises here. It's supposed to taste of "exotic" fruit, and that turned out to be a syrupy-sweet mix of nothing identifiable. Mango, maybe, or apricot? Far removed from any notion of real fruit, anyway. And far removed from lambic too, with no sign of the base beer or even a sniff of sourness. Both of the Tarot beers are beautifully packaged and marketed rubbish.

At the complete opposite end of the spectrum, the brewery had just launched Lindemans Pure, an oude geuze aged for seven years in a single foeder. It's the sort of thing Boon does; Lindemans copying it suggests there's a healthy market for beers like this. It was an eye-watering €7 a glass, and arrived a very mature-looking amber or honey colour. There's honey in the aroma too, all bright and floral. 7% ABV isn't especially excessive, but does make it heavier-set than most beers like this, and it has a warming chewiness, without any of the zesty spritz of younger geuze. The flavour opens on a dark muscovado sweetness, leading into chalky minerals and a tang of zinc on the end. I wouldn't say it's entirely to my taste, and I doubt I'll be paying €20+ for the full bottle, but it does what it sets out to do. There's an enjoyable mature smoothness to it which demonstrates nicely how much effort went into producing it.

Lindemans tends to be where I try the Megablend on each Toer: the one-off oude geuze created by the participating companies. I had been very impressed by recent ones so was looking forward to Megablend 2024. Unfortunately it wasn't up to the stellar standard of 2021. This one is extremely dry and leans in to the mineral side of the flavour profile in a big way. It's a stony, gritty sort of taste, one I associate with De Troch in particular. In its favour there's a fabulous gunpowder spice in the aroma, and overall it does get more interesting as it warms, introducing lemon zest and softer breadcrust. My favourite Megablends were ones which tasted spectacular on day one. I think this year's may benefit from a little cellaring so I took one from the Lindemans shop before leaving, to do just that.

The schedule being the way it was, I ended up back at Lindemans on the Sunday and tried out the straight Lindemans Lambic. I'm not sure if it's regularly for sale, but it should be. I guess the Brettanomyces is strong with this one, because it's powerfully funky, beginning on ripe peach and mango then adding an edge of Camembert. On different sips I got apple skin, raisin and chanterelle mushroom for some weird, earthy, mouldy fun. Having something like this on the wider market could do wonderful things for the brewery's credibility; much more than that Tarot nonsense ever will.

Back to Saturday, and later in the afternoon we rocked up to Oud Beersel. They, too, had altered the format. It still felt like a beer festival, with an array of bars in tents, but it had all been moved off the street in front of the premises and down to the sloping garden at the back, where things were beginning to get a bit muddy. The array of beers was dizzying and, judging from the handwriting in my notebook, I may have overdone things a little.

New on the roster of Oud Beersel's idiosyncratically-flavoured lambics was Cherry Wood Infused Lambic. I've often criticised this series for not making the special ingredient prominent enough. Here, though, there's a massive amount of cherry in the flavour, tasting red rather than the hazy yellow it actually is. The effect is accentuated further by a heavy-set texture, and that's despite the strength being quite a reasonable 6.8% ABV. A harsh bitter finish is the only other thing I had to note on the day, but overall I liked it.

Also new was Lemon Verbena Leaf Lambic, which is exactly as strong but completely different, texture-wise, being clean and crisp, almost resembling a lager. The lemon verbena came through as more of a zesty citrus effect, rather than anything more herbal or perfumey. This, in the more typical Oud Beersel way, hits against the hard and earthy wax-like bitterness of proper lambic doing its thing. The two sides work well together.

Lambic brewers tend to eschew fresh hop flavours, except when they don't, and the third new offering was Nelson Sauvin Dry-Hopped Lambic. It is not my first encounter with this combination: now-defunct Roman brewer Revelation Cat had one at the Copenhagen Beer Festival in 2010. I liked that but I loved this. Again, at heart, it's a typically delicious lambic, with lots of my favourite spicy mineral gunpowder in evidence. This is set next to an utterly luscious fresh and juicy grape flavour, one which makes the beer ill-advisedly sinkable. I need to come back to this on a clean palate and hope I see it again soon.

Released last year, but new to me, was Beersel's Salted Tangerine Infused Lambic. Salted tangerine is an ingredient in Chinese cooking, which was news to my uncultured palate. This is another excellent peppery one, the spice contrasting with a much smoother base beer, along the lines of the Cherry Wood edition, and indeed the same strength. I don't know if I was supposed to taste actual tangerine, but I didn't. Unlike the others, it was poured from a bottle, so should be easier to get hold of for a retest.

Finally, something from the non-lambic range of Oud Beersel. Bersalis Wild doesn't give us any style designation beyond the gauche "session sour". The brewery notes that it's available solely in KeyKeg, implying that it's all meant to be shipped out of Belgium to less civilised countries. Still, they've given it three years of barrel ageing before that happens, and it really pays off in the overall smooth and rounded mature flavour. I got a pinch of pepper and hints of jaffa and lemon, so not a million miles from lambic. There's a full body to go with that full flavour, and while it is only 4.6% ABV I'm not sure a session on it would be appropriate. It deserves more respect than that, even if it's a poor relation of its spontaneously fermented stablemates.

Toer day one, mercifully, ended there. Day two was an hour shorter and altogether more sedate. It finished up at the joker in the pack, my least favourite lambic brewery, De Troch. It was business as usual in the pretty courtyard here: a bar stocked with fridges full of the super-sweet fruit lambic of the Chapeau range. There were two I hadn't tasted before and I drank them to be polite.

Chapeau Mirabelle looked interesting, if only because I don't know what mirabelle plums taste like. I bet they don't taste like this, though: cartoonishly syrupy with nothing I could assign to being real fruit. In its favour, it does have a very diluted version of De Troch's signature cement flavour, though dialled back to the point of being a pleasant mineral note. This is inoffensive, overall, which I'm chalking up as a massive win for this brewery.

The last roll of the dice for today was Chapeau Lemon. Surprisingly, this poured quite a dark amber colour, though it tasted of lemon cordial: sweet, with no actual citrus bittering. Any sourness here appears to come from the citric acid and I could find nothing of the base beer, for good or ill. It's not unpleasant, just very basic and un-beer-like, which is pretty much par for the course with the Chapeaus. The main thing is I survived De Troch without doing or saying anything unmannerly.

In the next post we'll visit the four brewers which I had never been to before.

A foot in both camps

I hadn't seen much from Munich's answer to American-style craft brewing, Camba, in quite a while. Then three arrived at once.

Chiemsee Hopla is where we start. I'm guessing they're actually pitching to the American market now, evidenced by the volume presented in imperial units on the front of the can. It's a pale lager of 5.1% ABV, hopped with Citra, El Dorado and Hallertau Tradition, hoping for the best of both worlds, I guess.

It's on the pale side, given the decent strength, and there's a little haze going on. The aroma is rich and malt-driven, which I wasn't expecting: not much hop in evidence, though the can is less than five months old. That malt aroma doesn't really come through to the flavour, and here the beer is subtly fruity with a tannic dryness, like peach tea, with Citra adding a pinch of barely perceptible piney sharpness to the finish. The body is substantial, meaning it's missing proper lager crispness, which is unfortunate. While it is cleanly flavoured, it could easily pass for an ordinary American-style pale ale. Not a complaint, just an observation. This is fine.

More fireworks were expected from Camba's Imperial IPA, the name evidencing another Americanism. This is 8.9% ABV and hopped with Columbus, Citra and Amarillo to 77 IBUs, suggesting it's going to be hella bitter. It doesn't look great, short on head and the medium amber body full of suspended yeasty clumps. Malt is promised in the description and it certainly smells sweet, with more than a hint of toffee hitting up against funky, ripe-fruit hops.

The two sides works quite harmoniously in the flavour. Yes, it's hopped in a huge way, with a spicy bitterness arriving first on the tongue. Immediately this is softened by the pillowy body and a marmalade and spongecake sweet side, with a zesty fresh mandarin element too. That mutes the bitterness somewhat, so it's not quite a 2010-style overhopped tongue-melter, but rather the balanced sort of extreme beer. I liked how it goes about its business, delivering bigness and boldness but with nuance and balance as well. It's not the first time I've noticed this in a German take on a new-world style, and it's always welcome.

Finally, I thought I was in for something uncharacteristically traditional when I came to Jager Weisse, a weissbier, and presented not in a can but a half litre bottle. That this wasn't going to be by-the-numbers was first indicated by the appearance, which has an almost kristall level of clarity, though that's not mentioned on the label. An aroma of banana? Absolutely not: this smells like an American IPA, of grapefruit and lemon zest. It transpires that Simcoe and Chinook hops have been used here, putting us perhaps in "hopfenweisse" territory, though judging by the aroma it's not one interested in harnessing the traditional weissbier aspects.

There is a sweetness to the flavour, and a tiny hint of clove ester, but that's as close to the profile as it gets. Otherwise the taste is dominated by the C-hops, low-balling the citric bitter side but emphasising candied lemon and lime jelly. As such, it's a rather jolly affair: not especially challenging but bright and spritzy, unserious but characterful, and as precisely constructed as one would expect from a Bavarian brewery. There is much to like here.

They've done a great job of matching American flavours with Bavarian quality. If these beers are landing in the US, I doubt the drinkers there will find anything too unfamiliar in them.