Ze Germans

I'm guessing the large number of Czech and German visitors to Bulgaria are one reason it carries more of their beers than ones from any other country. When I was feeling down about what the Bulgarian breweries were offering, at least I could fall back on something from countries where the general beer standard is rather higher. And that even yielded a few new ticks. I didn't know that Dortmund icon DAB had such a range of beers, for one thing.

DAB Dark, for instance, was quite a surprise, but one I fully accepted and wanted to give a try. This is 4.8% ABV and pitch black with a white head. I don't think they call it a schwarzbier anywhere on this version of the can, but to my mind it absolutely is one: lots of dry, burnt-toast roasted grain set on a super-clean lager base. There's a lot of charcoal, but a tiny smoosh of softer caramel as well, to balance it out. It's beautiful, and deserves to be as famous as DAB's style-defining Dortmunder lager. I'm annoyed at the world for not showing it to me before, though I have never set foot in Dortmund, in fairness. When I do, I hope to be drinking this.

DAB also brews a Hoppy Lager, seemingly for Italy as all the can information was in Italian. This is 5% ABV and unfiltered, so an unappetising misted yellow shade. There's a strong citrus perfume, suggesting cloudy lemonade in the aroma. The flavour is just as zesty, and I'd almost believe that extract of lemon or grapefruit has been added in, but I'm sure the doyens of Dortmund don't play that way. The can says, in Italian, that nothing fancier than Cascade has been used to create the effect. It's impressive. Of course, under the hoppy zing, there's a classic Dortmund lager. Unfiltered can sometimes mean there's a touch of earthiness or grit lurking in the taste, but that's not the case here; all it does is leave the hop character intact and maybe give the mouthfeel a boost, it being slightly fluffy rather than perfectly crisp. It's beautiful stuff all the same. I can see why the Italians are trying to keep it all for themselves.

On a sillier note, I couldn't resist Schöfferhofer Watermelon Mint when I saw it. The brewery has a number of good-quality radlers, and this is another one: weissbier mixed 50/50 with a soft drink and coming out at 2.5% ABV. It's quite a bright pink colour, evocative of real liquidised watermelon. The aroma gives fresh mint first: a burst of toothpaste or mint imperials. The softer watermelon lurks under this, subtle and real, not the harsh green twang of concentrate. It's very fizzy, but that's about the only common feature of weissbier I could detect. Otherwise, it's once again mint to the fore with the juicy fruit behind. This is tasty and very refreshing, and I commend whoever came up with the idea. It's not very beer-like, though, tasting much more like a minty soft drink. I absolutely see a use for it, however.

Much of the beer shopping was done in various Lidls, and in one I found one of the Eichbaum "Steam-Brew" beers which as far as I know hasn't yet appeared in Ireland. This is Steam-Brew Wheat Pale Ale which is 5.6% ABV and has a weird aroma of tinned fruit and stale sweat. Of the two, I'm happy to say that the flavour concentrates more on the fruit, with peach in particular and then a slight lemon zest but no real bitterness. Still, the savoury, salty, sweat thing never quite goes away, and adds an unpleasant oddness to the picture. I don't know what they had in mind when they designed this recipe, but no other beer tastes like it, and with good reason. Overall, it's too sweet and quite cloying. Although there are features from good wheat beer, of both the German and Belgian persuasion, it doesn't join them up in the way that reputable brewers of these styles do. I'm not surprised that this is another dud in a generally poor series, but at least I know not to bother with it if it appears here.

I flew home via Frankfurt, which is not one of my favourite airports in general, but I discovered that it now has a "craft beer" bar, which at least shows that they're making an effort. Of course, in the way of these things, it needs must be tied to a single large brewery, and here it's Radeburger, the subsidiary of Dr Oetker which owns Allgäuer, Tucher, our DAB friends, and the self-consciously craft label BraufactuM, which I'm surprised to see they're still running with, a decade later than big craft brands convinced anyone.

Yet here they are with BraufactuM Pale Ale, and it is an archetype of the massive industrial brewery trying to make beer in the cool 1990s American mode. The amber-coloured liquid has an aroma of sweet flowers and a little pine resin. It hints at classic US pale ale but doesn't venture into that bold territory, neither in the aroma nor the flavour, which is very plain. I got some sweet strawberry notes of the sort you sometimes find in Irish red ale, and a little of the resin from the aroma, but that's it. The brewery talks a big game, calling it a fruchtbomben and telling us that Comet, Callista and Herkules are the hops. It's not, and the hops don't matter. It has the weight of a good American pale ale, and is all of 5% ABV, but it simply does not deliver the goods. On the journey out I drank a can of Spaten at the gate between flights, and I would have preferred to do the same on the homeward leg instead.

We're not home yet, though. I have one more set of Bulgaria-acquired beers to tell you about.