Baltic amber

Amber lager: it's not a genre of beer that gets a lot of attention in the media. Nevertheless, in the parts of Europe where it's in the mainstream, breweries are plugging away at making it. Today's two are via the Polonez supermarket in Dublin.

From Poland comes Książęce Czerwony, a 4.9% ABV self-described (in English, at least) Vienna lager. The parent brewery is Asahi-owned Tyskie. It's a gorgeous clear amber colour in the glass with a generous but manageable head. The aroma is mostly crisp -- slightly burnt -- biscuit, with a distinctively Germanic hop grassiness. It's even more grassy to taste, almost astringently dry with it, to begin. That's set on a light and clean lager base, ensuring that drinking this is never challenging. There is a balancing sweeter side from the dark malt: not quite full-on caramel but with a note of brown sugar and warm cookie. There's nothing in any way spectacular about it, but it's very good: lots of wholesome, well-balanced flavour in a very straightforward and easy-drinking package. I've mentioned before how much I'd like dark lager to be more commonplace in these parts. This is a perfect example of what I'm talking about it. This should be distributed out beyond the speciality imports market.

There's less colour to Valmiermuiža Gaišais, Valmiermuiža being a small Latvian brewery whose beer has inexplicably made it to Dublin. The beer is properly amber, like a piece of amber jewllery. It doesn't look stronger than the last one but is all of 5.2% ABV. It smells much sweeter: no grassy hops here, only a somewhat artificial sugary aroma. The flavour continues that way, though it does have a balancing bitterness to offset the treacle: a slightly harsh mineral bite, on the metallic side. I don't like sticky-sweet lager, and if that's necessary to prevent this being one, I'm OK with it. There's still plenty of syrup and toffee in the flavour, making it chewy and a little difficult. I couldn't chug a series of these like I could with the previous one. Past the half way point, with a few extra degrees of temperature on board, it does start getting a bit difficult. This isn't the amber lager for me, needing a little more dry roast and a little less sweet malt.

Funny how the multinational industrial brewery makes the better beer of this, admittedly, randomly chosen pair from different countries. Make u think tho.