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...