Fully hopped

A quick catch-up with Waterford brewery Hopfully. When last seen they were wowing the RDS with cask porter, Helles and Bock. Today, they're back on much more familiar ground.

Swimsuit (the label: can we not?) is described as an easy pale ale, and by easy they mean hazy: it's a very murky pale yellow. The ABV is a modest 4.5% and it has been hopped with Vic Secret, Mosaic and Strata, which sounds like a promising combination. They give it an intense fruit salad aroma, all pineapple segments and peaches in syrup. The texture is a little thin, though helped by the New-Englandish fluffy quality. There's an initial rush of very sweet flavours, led by vanilla cream, with fruity chew sweets after. That fades quickly, and here I would have liked some of Vic Secret's trademark aniseed bitterness, but instead there's no real aftertaste, presumably because of the thin body. A vague lemon-candy bite is as punchy as it gets. This is OK, but unexciting. I think Hopfully is well capable of making more interesting beers at this medium strength point.

By Hopfully's standards, Fingers IPA is a low strength one: only 5.6% ABV. It's hopped with Citra, Mosaic and Comet, and is again hazy, this time an even brighter, sunnier, shade of brilliant yellow. The aroma is similar to the pale ale, though less intense, offering the soft fleshy fruit but not the encoating syrup. The flavour isn't as assertive either. We're spared that excessive vanilla sweetness, and instead there's a gentle tropical juiciness, hinting at mango, passionfruit and mandarin orange, without saying them out loud. It took me a moment to adjust to its subtlety, but when I did, I found myself enjoying it. This is no powerhouse of flavour, and at this strength it doesn't need to be. Instead, you get a mellow thirst-quencher, full of summer fruit and summer days; cleanly unchallenging, but still delicious. It's the sort of thing you might expect a brewery to put in its core range rather than the roster of one-offs. It would be good to see it again when and if the weather turns warmer.

The next round of releases brought Hangout, a pale ale of 5% ABV, described as "triple dry hopped". It looks like very typical Hopfully fare: densely opaque with a coarse and short-lived froth. Expecting a standard juicy aroma, I found that the tagline does seem to mean something: this smells intensely fruity, with generous portions of both sharp citrus and soft tropicals. The flavour doesn't quite deliver on that. For one thing, a very low level of carbonation mutes the hops somewhat. There's the heavy vanilla base of many a hazy pale ale, and while both the spiky bitter and juicy exotic notes are present, neither really sparkles. That's a little disappointing, and so to is the savoury, gritty finish, adding a rough and dreggy coda to an otherwise cheerful experience. The recipe, involving Nectaron, Mosaic and Citra hops, is worth another go, but there are a few wrinkles needing ironing out, not least the carbonation.

Penultimately, a new collaboration with Dublin's online off licence Craft Central. Superposed is an IPA -- hazy, natch -- with a down-under mix of Nelson Sauvin, Motueka and Galaxy hops. It's the usual opaque orange-yellow, and the head, while still loose, does hang together better here than in the previous. The carbonation is still very low, and the aroma quite savoury, blending the diesel notes of Nelson with the menthol and eucalyptus of Motueka. I wasn't expecting any tropicality in the taste, and didn't get it. The flavour is quite herbal, suggesting that Motueka is in charge, and I get warm clove, nutmeg and powdered cinnamon at first, with an orange-cordial sweet fruit track running in parallel. It's good, but it's quite unexciting, lacking the big hop fireworks. Fans of Nelson Sauvin in particular be warned that this does not offer the best Nelson experience going.

And finally a world exclusive. By coincidence, I visited the Hopfully brewery last Saturday, where they were getting on with their 2025 brew schedule and pushing the last of this year's lot out the door. I was too polite a guest to tear open the neatly piled boxes of bourbon-aged sour cherry ale, but did take special care of an unattended can of Closet: the new double IPA. This seemed a little on the weak side at only 7.6% ABV but it punches well above that, with a dense and almost syrupy texture allied with a powerfully sweet flavour. There's an even mix of tinned pineapple and fruit chews meeting a vanilla-custard base. It's interesting how it does quite similar things to Swimsuit, though the hops here are Galaxy, Amarillo and Citra. I guess it's the effect of the hazeogenic yeast, overriding the hops' subtle difference. Anyway, if the lack of oomph in the beers above is a concern, here's oomph aplenty.

Our national appetite for hazy and hoppy shows no sign of waning. Until it does, it seems Hopfully will be right there, serving the need. Citra, Mosaic and Comet is a combination that works well in this space, and would be worth trying again, in my opinion.

Stan's suitcase

Mr Stan Hieronymus visited Ireland in September and I was happy to be able to meet for a couple of pints in Dublin shortly after he arrived. I was good enough to take a couple of cans which he had shipped over off his hands, to save him shlepping them around the country.

First, and perhaps least remarkable, is the 2024 Sierra Nevada Oktoberfest, this year a collaboration with Gutmann of Titting, Bavaria's most romantic-sounding brewery. It looks like a modern festbier, being a bright clear golden. The ABV is on the high side at 6%. That does the job of giving it a voll und süffig body, with lots of dense fresh white bread leading the flavour. The hops bring quite a spiky bitterness, beyond grass and salad and into quite an English profile, of earth and zinc. A tiny note of celery in the finish is the only confirmation that the hops (Hersbrucker, Loral, Saphir and Spalter) are definitely German. From that list I would have expected something a bit more modern, but this is as trad as they come, small can notwithstanding. It's certainly streets ahead of the orange and sticky Oktoberfest beer which I'm guessing too many American breweries still produce, but here in Europe, this isn't very distinctive and different. It's satisfactory.

The other can came from one of Stan's local breweries in Colorado, Lyric. It's a double IPA called Can Full of Gas and is one of those eggy-looking hazy double IPAs, the full 8% ABV. It smells quite minerally, with the sort of kerosene effect I sometimes get from Nelson Sauvin, as well as dry plasterboard grit and some softer lemon and lime candy. Nelson is indeed one of the hops used, along with Riwaka. It's full-bodied and slick, feeling barely carbonated despite the substantial head. There's a rawness about the hops; a concentrated leafiness that makes it taste a little dreggy. That gives it a hard bitter finish, before which it's pleasantly citric, with a faint smoky burnt note, presumably from whatever was making it smell like kerosene. There's a certain amount of lemon meringue pie sweetness mixed in with this, but the leafy bitterness prevails. I guess it's a decent example of this sort of strong super-hopped beer, but it's not really to my taste, feeling a little rough or unfinished to me. I'm sure it has its fans though.

Thanks for the beers Stan, and I hoped you and Daria enjoyed your visit to Ireland.

Europe in four cans

Flemish, Wallonian, German and Czech: these are the origins of the beer styles tackled in today's set, from Czech brewery Zichovec, in collaboration with Swedish, English, Dutch and French brewers, all as part of their Winter Affair Gossip series. That's from last winter -- I bought them several months ago for a knockdown price from the Craft Central bargain bucket.

I would like to think that pilsner is exempt from craft-style mucking-about. It certainly should be. When I see something badged as "Quad-Decocted Pilsner" it makes me fear that the beardy craft bros have had a go at it, but they are Czech, so maybe it's meaningful. The collaborator is not a brewer I associate with pilsner: Omnipollo. The result is 5.1% ABV and certainly looks like a Czech pils, of the unfiltered sort: pale amber and translucent. There's nothing surprising in the aroma, which is good. It's a solid balance between crisp and biscuit-like malt and the fresh salad leaves of noble hops. There is a twist in the foretaste, however. It's noticeably sweeter than pils tends to be, and weightier with it. The opening flavour is a kind of soft toffee or gooey caramel effect, and I guess that's what you get when you decoct and recoct a few times. The purpose of the process is to make richer beer, and this is definitely richer than I would expect from a pils, leaning towards bock or Märzen territory. The hops stay in the picture, though, lending it a dryness rather than a bitterness, arriving in the finish and helping clean away the malt excess. It's an interesting twist on pilsner. On balance, I do prefer the more hop-forward takes, and I should note that this can had gone two days past the stated best-before, so maybe it's hoppier when fresh. Overall, though, it's good clean fun and I was interested to find out what other spins on established styles Zichovec and friends had for me.

We stray even further from stylistic orthodoxy, and indeed obeying European labelling laws, with a DDH New Zealand Kölsch, for which Northern Monk is co-responsible. And in keeping with Northern Monk's involvement, it straight-up looks like a hazy IPA, and smells like one too; all vanilla and garlic. The flavour does not follow in that direction, I'm happy to say, but it's still a long way from what anyone could interpret as Kölsch. Were it entered in a homebrew competition it would be an instant fail. We'll leave the distraction of the label behind and evaluate it as a beer. And it's lovely. We're not told which Kiwi hops were used, but there's lots of tropical gourds and stonefruit: cantaloupe and mango most prominent, followed by lychee and then a drier coconut finish. It's a very tasty pale ale, or even an IPA, given the 6% ABV: there's a density and a warmth which absolutely reflects that strength. This one had five days left to run on the best-before clock at time of drinking but still tasted bang-fresh and gorgeous.

I'm not familiar with the collaborator on the Hoppy Witbier: White Dog, a client brewer from Dordrecht. Am I bad people for immediately associating the name with canine pavement fouling? Anyway, it's 5.1% ABV and, on first impressions, suffers from the standard witbier complaint that it's just not as good as the famous and very mainstream ones. Witbier is a style that resists small-batch interpretations. I note the word "Hoppy" on the front but it's nothing of the sort, being predominantly grainy, with a decent-sized dose of coriander herb and a little citrus which, to me, resembles real peel rather than hops. I don't think I can pin the shortcoming on the can's age either, as it's less than six months old. If the hops were ever there, they were subtle. At least I can say that this one is true to style, even if it's not a stellar example. The pint can suits the format: it's a quaffable gulper, to be served cold onto a parched throat. The coriander gets a little sickly if it's allowed warm, but otherwise it's decent and largely unremarkable: witbier very much by the numbers.

French brewery Les Intenables co-brings us the final beer: Grisette. Though not quite limpid, it is the clearest of the lot so far, almost a white-gold shade in the glass, though with a worringly loose head. It smells cleanly farmhouse-y, of hard pears and white plums. Nice. As expected, the carbonation is low, especially for something in a Belgian farmhouse style, but it works, giving it a cask-like subtle softness in place of the usual overactive tongue-burning fizz. That really helps the subtle fruit side come through in the flavour, although here the pears are stewed sweeter than in the aroma and dusted with some fun cinnamon and pepper. It's gently flavoured, gently sparkled, but really nicely done. Grisette may be meant for quenching miners' dusty thirsts but this example is too interesting and complex to rush. Of course, 4.8% ABV is far too strong for a grisette, but I'm beginning to think that style fidelity was not a cornerstone of the Winter Affair Gossip project.

It was a pretty good set, all-in-all, apart from the tricky style of witbier, but even that was workmanlike and decent. I have a longstanding soft spot for when detail-oriented German breweries apply themselves blousey New World beer styles. I think I can extend that to the Czechs and whomever they've invited into their brewhouse for some experimentation on the day.

Mutually fruity

Bit of an unusual move from me today. Collaboration beers aren't exactly rare on this blog, but I tend to group things together by the production brewery. Today's are centred around one of my locals, Rascals, but are all beers they've made with other breweries, and all share the Rascals fondness for whacking in the fruit purée.

We start at HQ, and Pash 'N Fruit. A note of appreciation goes to that single hanging apostrophe which I'm reading as a tribute to a certain Los Angeles-based 1980s hair metal band who have the same unorthodox orthography in their name. Something for the dads, there. Collaborating on this New England-style IPA are Lervig and The Garden, only one of which is named after a song on Use Your Illusion I. And of course there's passionfruit in it. The can blurb describes it as a "refresher", but it doesn't look like one, being a dense and soupy orange and a sizeable 5.4% ABV. The aroma is quite gently fruity, suggesting a lightness and coolness of the refreshing sort. There's a certain slickness to the texture but it's not soupy and the mouthfeel is light overall. The passionfruit completely dominates the foretaste in a very unsubtle way, starting on a fresh sorbet zest and building quickly to a more artificial metallic-tasting concentrate. There's no room for any IPA characteristics under this, and frankly they've a bit of a cheek calling it one. Equally, it could pass as one of those non-sour "sours" that remain inexplicably popular. While I'm getting the digs in, I can't see how it took three very skilled and creative breweries to create something so basic. It's not a bad beer, and I don't get any of the common problems with contemporary cloudy stuff. But it's nothing fancy either. 

The Garden returned the fruity favour with Rosehip & Orange Sour, although Lervig weren't invited to Zagreb. There's a cliché about this sort of beer looking like carrot soup but it really really does. It's a modest affair at 5.4% ABV and is one of those highly attenuated beers where one suspects that the yeast has chomped through all the interesting stuff. I don't eat a whole lot of rosehip but there's nothing in here that suggests its involvement. Flowers and/or fruit are thin on the ground. There's a broad and vague vegetal funk in the aroma and then a tangy acidic flavour, like a kettle-soured blonde ale without any added ingredient. Again, they say it's "refreshing", and the blandness would be forgivable if it were, but it's not. This is weighty enough to taste sweaty and harsh. Usually the problem is that they're sickly, but this doesn't have enough fruit character for that, nor any proper sourness. The result tastes flat and dull. Collaborations are all about experimentation, and it makes sense that some of them simply fail. This is one of those, unfortunately.

I don't have the matching other half of the final one because I reviewed it back in June. Rascals paired with Mad Scientist to create Loco in Inchicore. The return leg in Budapest has given us Go Loko, allegedly a gose, and I guess the letter from Leipzig's lawyers hasn't yet arrived, because this is brewed with vanilla, cinnamon, rhubarb and raspberry in a way that gose very much isn't. Loko indeed. It's a dense and murky purple in the glass, smelling sweetly dessert-like, of trifle and compote. It's 5.8% ABV, which is hefty, and it has a body to go along with that, aided by the vanilla to create a sweet and smooth sensation. The flavour charmed me instantly with a surprise kick of ripe black cherries -- real, not concentrate -- and even a twist of cakey dark chocolate for the Black Forest effect. It's supposed to be sour, and there is salt in the ingredients, so while I accept it's an absolute affront to common decency to pretend this is gose, there is a sour bite in the finish. That prevents the gateau aspect from turning cloying, giving it more of a cherry yoghurt effect. I like a cherry yoghurt and don't mind drinking one as a beer. More than anything, this is fun. Tying it to your Großvater's salty sour style was a mistake; it's its own thing, and more enjoyable for that. The fruit pops, the sourness zings and the vanilla pushes up the intensity of all of it. Gloopy purple beers of this sort rarely do it for me, but I think I've finally found one that works. 

This sort of beer gets a bad rap from boring people like me, and rightly so, quite frankly, for the most part. That last one gives, me pause, however. Rhubarb and raspberry, with vanilla and a sour culture? It merits further investigation, is all I'll say.

Clock this

I'm used to Irish breweries having a long gestation, from the first announcement by some ballsy entrepreneur to actually being able to drink a pint they brewed can be a long stretch, and often the second part never actually happens. So I was agog at how fast things moved with Changing Times. The news that a consortium of prominent Dublin publicans had bought the old Kepak warehouse in Glasnevin and were planning to set up a brewery in it only landed last July. Since then we've seen Franciscan Well co-founder Shane Long and former Trouble and Hope brewer Mark Nixon become associated with the project, and now only four months later, there's actual beer pouring.

The consortium of owners includes The Palace pub in Temple Bar, and that's where I went on the day after the high-profile launch to try out the first two. Any excuse to visit such a fine establishment.

Daydreamer is the lager, described on the badge as "snappy". It's a very pubbable 4.2% ABV and arrived extremely cold, with a €7.60 tab -- priced on a par with other independent beers. There wasn't much to say about it at first: lots of fizz and a tiny amount of haze on the pale yellow body. Given a moment, there's a pleasant cracker crispness (snappiness? sure, why not), and a moment later brings some Germanic hopping. That adds a different sort of crispness: crunchy green vegetables. With the pint half empty and warmed a little, there's a threat of butteriness in the aroma but the flavour stays clean and dry. This has the basics of decent lager, and certainly isn't a clone of the cut-corner big brands. At the same time, however, it's no connoisseur's lager and only hints at the fun you can have with good pilsner, Helles or the like. If the mainstream lager drinkers aren't completely tied to the familiar labels, this offers an alternative of acceptable quality. I'm guessing that's what it's meant to do.

Launching alongside is the pale ale, After Hours. They've put "hazy" on the badge, but it's not really much cloudier than the lager. Sorry, hazebros: nothing for you here. It's 4.2% ABV again, which puts in a competitive space with Little Fawn, but it's nowhere near that quality. The aroma is broadly about American hops, with a certain amount of pine resin, though nothing overboard. The texture is thin, and fizz is again central, something much less acceptable in a pale ale than a lager. In the flavour, the hops make a valiant effort to be heard, but can't quite manage it sufficiently. There are token quantities of juice and dank with minimal bitterness, so it fits the hazy profile in the most basic way but, to me, comes across like an Ambush that's been run under the cold tap. It's not offensive, bad, or poorly made, but it tastes cheap and dumbed-down. This sort of beer was radical in Ireland a decade and more ago. These days, I think even mainstream pale ale drinkers will find it lacks character. I wouldn't be fully confident that it's a trade-up from fresh Hop House 13.

So... I don't really know who these beers are for. I can't see any drinkers of the big brands making the switch, when they've already turned down the pre-existing alternatives. And this goes even more for the third in the range, Clockwork stout, arriving soon. Equally, there's not much to attract the seasoned drinker of microbrewed beers. I see After Hours working as a distress purchase, but I think most of us would prefer a Little Fawn, Ambush, Scraggy Bay or Galway Hooker. It's disturbing to hear already of independent breweries' taplines being removed from pubs which are part of the brewery consortium.

A brand new brewery means lots of new potential, but I'm not seeing that realised to any great extent in the first two beers.

Get 'Er Drank

A big thank you to Ger 'Er Brewed which sent me today's beer, free and unbidden. I hadn't seen these ones on sale here in Dublin so it was nice to have the opportunity to try them. Several have since arrived in good off licences around these parts.

The occasion seems to have been the launch by Get 'Er Brewed's brewery, Our Brewery, of a series of bottled barrel-aged beers, but we'll start on the cans, and a pilsner called Pressure To Pick, created in the hoppy Italian style. It's a little hazy in the glass, pouring a dark gold colour, suggesting more than its mere 4.3% ABV. There's not much aroma, which is fine, but the brightly bitter hopping I was anticipating in the flavour does not materialise. Instead this is rather plain and grainy, suggesting the golden syrup of something Czech style. The hops are mild and grassy, which fits that spec also. There's a decent body for the strength, and it's perfectly clean, just not the craft take on the established style I was expecting. A big brewery could have made this.

Also low strength, only 4.2% ABV, is The Crunch, a brown ale. I like brown ales and always welcome a new one into rotation, but this suffers a bit from that understated gravity. It lacks body, and that has a knock-on effect on the flavour, which I think is a little muted because it doesn't have the malt base to work from. That's a pity, because what's there is excellent: an absolutely classic blend of soft caramel, milk chocolate, and creamy coffee. It deserves a creamy texture to go with that, but doesn't get one. Still, again, it's fine, and a very easy-drinking and approachable beer. I can't help thinking about the beer it could have been with a bit more body, however.

The hoppy ones consist of a pale ale and an IPA. Modern Love is 4.2% ABV. The hops are Cascade, Citra, Simcoe and a type of hop extract called Trident Salvo. It's an attractive clear gold on pouring, and smells quite tropical, though there's definitely an edge, too: Citra biding her time. The yeast they've used is called "Juicy", and that's certainly the effect it has given the flavour. Not quite real juice, though: something more like Capri-Sun or 1980s Fanta; echoing the taste of orange juice, but at a significant remove from the real thing. Sweetness is the core attribute here, with a little honey from the Maris Otter malt, and then whatever the fruitbomb hops are doing. The bitter punchline from Citra is never delivered, with the grapefruit element in the flavour dusted liberally with sugar. I guess if you like your pale ale to taste like a children's soft drink, this has the goods. I would have liked more balance.

Do You Wanna Funk? enquiries the IPA. This looks similar to the pale ale but is 6.5% ABV, and this time two types of the Salvo stuff have been used: Trident and Sultana, with Riwaka thrown in too. With that and the return of the Juicy yeast, I was expecting fruit. Sure enough, the aroma is like Skittles, but the flavour hits different. Here is that bitter edge I was looking for in the pale ale: a sharp pine effect that I would have thought much more likely in the beer with Citra. That intensifies as it goes along, becoming a hard wax tang by the finish, seasoned with piquant pepper. It's invigorating and enjoyable in the way old-school US IPAs tend to be. The sweetness is there to a certain degree -- a seam of mandarin running under the resin -- but I think the main thing the New-England-ish yeast has done is boost the body and give the hops more room to work within. They haven't specifically called this a West Coast IPA, but it fits the specs nicely, I think. The name is silly but the flavour is classic.

The last can wasn't a freebie, but purchased in Craft Central last week. Once in a Lifetime is an oatmeal stout of 5% ABV, including two American hop varieties: Columbus and Centennial. That's promising, though I had qualms about the colour, which is definitely on the brown side, even red (sorry, no photo). Those hops come through on their promise in a delightfully floral aroma, a characteristic which continues well into the flavour. You get a base of dry cocoa, zhushed up with rosewater and a squeeze of slightly bitter citrus on the end. That's fun, but what lets it all down a little, once again, is the texture. The deal with oatmeal stout is it should be full and smooth, and while this is not watery, it's surprisingly light. I'm not judging it to style, but it would definitely be improved by being bigger and darker, and I think there's enough elbow room in the strength to allow that.

On to the fancy bottles, then.

I extended the benefit of the doubt to their putting a lager, Humble, in a green glass bottle. 17 months in a Chardonnay barrel could mean that the hopping is irrelevant. But no: the absolute bang of skunk off it, as soon as soon it was opened, was horrific. It got worse on pouring, and Chardonnay was not to the front of my mind when I went in for the taste. It's certainly not wanting for hops: the flavour goes big on bitterness, flinty and dry, flecked with zinc and granite. You have to wait for the wine, but it does arrive in the finish, softly vinous and vanilla-ish. This is... odd. I liked it, but it wouldn't be for everyone. Neither barrel-aged beer fans nor lager purists will get their money's worth, but it definitely gives insufferable nerds something to stroke their wispy-whiskered chins over. Exercise caution, but give it a go. I can safely say that nobody on this island, nor possibly even the one next to us, is making a beer like this.

Flemish oud bruin is not a style I've seen an Irish brewery tackle before, or at least not deliberately. And it's not one I seek out from Belgian breweries either, preferring the lighter briskness of its cousin, Flanders red. This one, Low Land, aged for 17 months in wine barrels, is a stonking 8.2% ABV, which is one of the problems I have with the style generally. That makes it heavily malt-laden, chewy and gooey like a steamed pudding dessert, but without the fun chocolate. There's a little fruit, emerging more so as it warms (it will; you'll drink it slowly): dried currants and grapefruit peel. The mixed-fermentation sourness and old oak character are present, but held in check by the malt weight. I've had much worse oud bruins than this, but it still didn't suit me particularly. Dark and warm; fine. Dark and sour; OK too. Dark and warm and sour? Unnecessary.

The next one is wild, hi. Untamed is described simply as a wild ale. They don't tell us anything about the fermentation process, but after that, it was aged in a foeder for 27 months. That seems a bit much but it hasn't done it any harm. It's a pale gold colour and smells both sweet and funky, of candied lemon peel, orchard floor and pale dessert wine. Its texture is light and spritzy, despite the substantial 7.5% ABV. The flavour leans in to the apple quality of the aroma, tasting quite like a dry farmhouse cider: juice, oak and lots of earthy, mouldy, tasty, autumnal rot. Though fabulously flavoursome, it's subtle too, showing plenty of refinement. Version 1 of beers like this (and the label is marked as such) are almost always a bit ragged around the edges. Not so here.

The other big bottle was Séasúr, described as a mixed fermentation saison. It's a strong one: 8.5% ABV and quite a dark amber colour, presumably from the inclusion of toasted rye in the grist. For barrel-ageing it's had 18 months in white Bordeaux casks, and there's a distinct, concentrated, white grape effect in both the aroma and flavour. There's plenty of alcohol vapour as well, resulting in a smell like dried-in spilled white wine, which isn't very alluring. Coriander and orange peel are listed as ingredients but don't really feature in the taste. The oak side of it is a little tacked on as well: unsubtle vanilla adding another sort of sweetness to what should be quite a dry beer. I opened this as a pre-dinner spritz, but really it would work better as a dark, after-dinner affair. I had hoped for more spice and more sourness, but this really doesn't play that way. A bit like the lager, it's interesting and different, and enjoyable enough for that. I've tasted this kind of thing done better, however.

The Lithuanian farmhouse styles are new to Irish brewing, I think, first represented by this keptinis, Razma. We're going strong and dark again, with an ABV of 8.8% and a garnet colour. Whereas traditional Lithuanian brewing tends to produce beer to be consumed fresh, this has been left for 18 months inside rum barrels. I suspect that authenticity was not a concern. The spirit element is very strong in the aroma: I wouldn't have guessed rum as there's a significant malt component, but definitely distilled alcohol. The flavour goes in a different direction completely, calling to mind red wine or sweet vermouth. I guess it's the oak that's dominant, but there's a lovely layer of sour cherries and rum-soaked raisins: a mature and luxurious fruit side. That comes with a boozy heat, and the finish in particular is verging on harsh, with its hot dash of spirits. Overall, though, this is very nice. It defies classification a little, but to me the Flanders red or oud bruin genres are what it resembles most. The production process may have been traditionally Lithuanian, but the finished product is all about the barrels.

It's nicely appropriate that we conclude this excursion on an imperial stout, the pinnacle of the brewer's art, according to all those rating websites. Terra Nocturne is an 11.4% ABV example, aged 20 months in bourbon barrels. It seemed a little thin as it poured, finishing without much head, though densely black in colour. The aroma is roasty to the point of burnt, but enticing nonetheless, and there's a bit of marker-pen solvent in there too. I feared something severe, but the flavour is very nuanced, bringing hazelnut, chocolate, a little peat and some vanilla. The peat is an odd one, as only Maris Otter, crystal, black and brown malts are involved. I wonder is something microbial responsible for the phenols? It's no harm: the overall result is mellow and warming: a proper fireside-balloonglass job. Bourbon enthusiasts may be disappointed by the low bourbon quotient, but frankly they've had things their own way for long enough. 

What an adventure! This took about four weeks to assemble, and was a whole heap of fun. Although the beers aren't all perfect, there's more than enough to say Our Brewery has put itself on the map as one of this island's high-end barrel agers. I have no idea if any of it will ever get shelf space down in this jurisdiction, but I'm delighted that the Nordie beer scene has such a promising practitioner of the oaken arts in its midst. Keep 'er lit.

The international scene

I mentioned earlier this week that beer in Norwich tends to be predominantly local, or at least British, which is fair enough: that's what I went there to explore. A few imports did happen my way, however.

One of them, admittedly, was muled over by the Swedish delegates and shared at a lunch. This is Wit Impériale by Smedsbo Slott, about whom I know nothing and have nothing to tell you. I really should have asked one of the Swedes. I don't normally approve of messing with the basics of witbier -- good rarely comes of it. I thought at first that this was another poorly devised act of "creativity", it being 13% ABV. "A blueish tone and a scent of mushrooms" goes the brewery's official description, unhelpfully. It's definitely amber, not blue, and I didn't get any mushroom. My first impression from the aroma was that it's a hot mess, densely packed with solvent notes, ready to burn any body part placed near it. When I braved a sip, however, I found it rather more enjoyable, giving a rather jolly flavour of stewed apple and a brush of caramelised sugar. It's a long way from witbier as it is commonly constructed, but it works as a shareable sipping beer, perhaps best suited to a Swedish winter.

Hitachino Nest beer seems to have vanished from Ireland again, which is a shame. I spotted one of the range I'd never had before in the pub fridge at The White Lion, where they keep a modest but well-chosen selection of foreign beers. This is Saison du Japon, ostensibly their take on Belgian saison but using malted sake rice. That sounds intriguing but it turned out rather plain: 5% ABV and with pleasant enough notes of baked pear, but not much else. Saison should have something more interesting going on, be it farmyard earthiness or exotic spicing. This does none of that, staying reticent and respectful, like a Japanese stereotype.

Finally, at Bier Draak, I spotted a bottle in the fridge which I have been meaning to get onto this blog since it became a cult beer a couple of years ago. I'm reasonably sure that a friend from Maine brought me some Allagash White a few years before this blog started, but I had no memory of how it tasted, nor any idea why it's suddenly so popular. Now I have one of the two answers. I mean, it's a good beer. What I liked most was the smoothness: it really slips back silkily in a way that encourages serial quaffing. There are no sharp edges; none of the spikes of coriander spice or citric zest that add character to its Belgian counterparts. There's a pleasant element of candied lemon in the flavour but I got little complexity beyond that. It's not a beer for complexity, though, being more about the feels than the taste. I understand the attraction of something which places few demands on your attention and offers no challenges to your palate. Creating that without turning out something bland is an impressive feat.

Three beers from three continents, but all derived from recipes that originated in Belgium. That little country still holds an important place in the world of contemporary beer.

Norfolk enchants

In my previous post, I went meandering around the city of Norwich drinking cask beer aplenty. There was more to my weekend in East Anglia than that, so here's more of what came my way beerwise on the trip.

Following a long day of hard strategising in an extremely Dad's Army village hall in Great Ryburgh, next to the vast Crisp Malt factory, we EBCU delegates were bussed deeper into the countryside, to the smartly-kept walled farmyard (very Pajottenland) which is home to the Barsham Brewery. What they make here is mostly quite traditional and English, with a couple of nods to more modern beer types. At the neat taproom, I began on cask.

Norfolk Topper is a pale bitter: your standard 3.8% ABV, and claiming citric qualities in its flavour. I didn't get much of that, finding it primarily dry, with a honeyed sweet side and a hint of beeswax bitterness. Still, it's far from bland, and all the flavours are bold, if not exactly brashly American. It still retains lots of traditional charm, and while it's not something I would go very far out of my way for, I understand the attraction of having it as a commonplace local beer and would love to be able to boast of such.

It all went a bit brown after that. Next out was Oaks, an everyday bitter at 3.6% ABV, and possibly due a reduction to 3.4% as that's where several established bitters have gone, to save on tax. Again I picked up a dryness, which appears to be the brewery's signature quality, and here it's quite bitter too, like a very strong mug of tea. There's a little toffee from the crystal malt and a mild green apple complexity. This beer isn't about complexity, however. It's a simple and unchallenging pinter. Even I felt a bit young to be drinking it.

For a bit of welly there's Bitter Old Bustard, abbreviated to "B.O.B." on the elaborate pumpclip. Arguably, this is just another brown bitter, but I was very impressed by the beautiful limpid garnet colouring. The heft goes all the way up to 4.3% ABV, and it feels far stronger, its density accentuated by a flavour of treacle and raspberry jam. Again the dryness and tannins feature, though they're not as pronounced as in the previous two. This is all about the malt, and showcases it beautifully. It's not a coincidence that Barsham is a regular patron of Crisp's manual floor-malted product line: Maris Otter the old way.

They also had a keg stout on the bar, and it would have been wrong to pass that up. Dark Hour is 4.6% ABV with a flavour loaded up with chocolate. Actually, more cocoa, of the drinking variety: I immediately thought of scarlet tubs of Cadbury's Bourneville. There's a slightly zinc-ish bitterness from some subtle hopping and a little burnt toast emerging as it warms. It's a very good effort, simply done, but with enough going on to be interesting. I like when a brewer doesn't simply try and ape a mainstream brand, but gives some thought as to what the style is good for.

There were a couple of Barsham beers at lunch earlier in the day, and my introduction was Stackyard Hazy Pale, a kegged pale ale trying to be as down with the kids as one can on a farm in the Norfolk countryside. It doesn't really work. It's not especially hazy, for one thing; it's only 4% ABV and is astringently bitter, with sharp lemon peel as the principal flavour. Apart from that, yeah: a bang-on juicebomb m8. As an English bitter, it does pass muster, and they shouldn't really be trying to present it as anything else.

Via a bag-in-a-box there was also Stout Robin. Looking back, it seems a little odd that they have separate stouts for cask and keg. This one, too, is 4.6% ABV, and I found it a lot roastier than the other one, giving the house dryness a strong showing. Coffee dominates over chocolate, and there's a slight oiliness to it. That contributes to a long finish, with all the main elements continuing to do their respective things on the palate for some time after swallowing. I couldn't say whether this was a better recipe than Dark Hour, or simply that stouts work better on cask (even in a bag) than nitrokegged. There's a wholesome warmth to this one that left me wanting more.

Lunch the next day, back in Norwich, came with a selection of local bottled ales. The catering didn't run to glassware and everything was consumed from paper cups, so excuse the lack of my usual poor-quality beer photography.

I mentioned Mr Winters as one of the most interesting breweries I encountered on the cask quest, and there were two more from them here. Curveball is a quite straightforward American-style pale ale, orange-amber coloured and hitting the proper style points of grapefruit and resin. A touch of papery oxidation lets it down, and I blame the bottle format for that.

We also had Vanilla Latte from the same brewery, a stout where the name says it all. The aroma is very milk chocolate indeed, and then it tastes mostly sweet, unsurprisingly, with just enough balancing roast to keep it on an even keel. It's difficult to wow me with a milk stout, and I wasn't wowed by this, but I fully respect it as a beer which delivers everything it promises to.

Another previous Norfolk highlight, Moon Gazer, also had a beer amongst this lot: a ruby ale named Nibbler. I found it hard to believe that this was only 4% ABV, so warming and wholesome it was. There's a satisfying pudding-like depth to it, with accompanying dark fruit and booze-soaked cake, plus a bonus tangy bitterness providing an unexpected high note. I would have liked to have tried this on cask, where I bet it's even rounder and more luscious.

But for every two good breweries you need a wonky one. Step forward Wagtail. I genuinely didn't know that their beers on the table were from the same producer, as the branding is quite different (inconsistent, one might less charitably say). Both are strong ales in the 6.6% ABV zone.

The Devils [sic] Door Bell had some promising notes of caramel and minerals, but an over-riding off flavour of marker-pen phenols. I'd broadly guess that it was fermented too warm rather than picking up any specific infection but, regardless, it wasn't any way pleasant to drink. Donkey Kisser was even worse: there was nothing promising here, just sharp vomit acidity in the foretaste and then dirty, murky funk in the finish. I have no idea what went wrong here, or even if it was what the brewer meant it to be, but either way, I found it utterly charmless. Maybe Wagtail does better beers, but whoever picked these two sub-homebrew disasters for our lunch dropped the ball badly.

Although cask and tradition dominate in Norwich, there are a couple of pockets of Craftonia, two of them under the same proprietor. The newest is a pub -- possibly a micropub -- called Bier Draak. Continental and continental-style beers are the mainstay, and I opened my account with Ampersand's Camphillsner pilsner, served from a Lukr side-pour tap, Czech style. It's a beautifully constructed example of a pilsner, giving me vibes of Keesmann Herren Pils, with its almost creamy texture and zippy fresh-cut grass meeting spicy rocket hop notes. Even with all that going on, it maintains a pristine cleanness, tasting authentically central-European without so much as a glance at western affectations like haze or ignoble hops. Very impressive stuff from a Norfolk brewery.

So I was pleased when cans of their their west coast IPA, Double Down, were passed around. At 6.4% ABV, this is a little on the light side, and the flavour is strangely sweet and caramelly. One could argue that the extensive use of caramel malts in early US IPAs of the modern era justify the description, but it's not really what counts as west-coast these days. It does have some resins in the flavour, but they're sweetly floral, not bitterly piney. I did like the peppery aroma, and it's not a bad beer per se. It's just not quite what it's meant to be, and not quite anything else either.

Bier Draak is an offshoot of a market stall in Norwich's markets, Sir Toby's. O to live in a country where such a thing can be licensed to serve beer, but here they have a small number of taps and a bench to perch on if you want to hang around. I found Abbeydale's Pilgrim on keg, a long way from its Sheffield home. This is a pumpkin-spiced ale which does about the bare minimum, delivering mild cinnamon and not much else on a broadly sweet base. Definitely one for the pumpkin beer haters to get their money's worth from. I was neither thrilled nor offended by it. A bit of seasonal novelty is no harm.

At Norwich station on the way out, Reuben picked up a can of Brewgooder's Fonio Session IPA. I hadn't heard anything from this charitable contract brewer in an age, and don't know if they're still hosted at BrewDog. Here they are using the latest, trendy, climate-disaster-resistant grain, and have named the beer after it. Fonio, in my limited experience, imparts a distinctive fruity flavour, but here it seems to have been buried under standard American grapefruit-exuding hops, and there's a little metallic aspirin too, an effect I tend to associate with alcohol-free pale ales. Overall it's quite a normal 4.3% ABV IPA: its unorthodox ingredient and the ethical stance of the producer don't change its characteristics in any significant way.

We'll leave the last word for today with the Emperor. Emperor's Brewery is based out of Leicestershire, though the internet tells me the beer I had was brewed in Sweden by Dugges. It's a straightforward 13.1% ABV peanut butter jelly imperial porter, called Kessel Run. I had it at the end of one night, seeking something I would still be able to taste. I could taste it all right. The jelly is unmistakably raspberry, mixed in stickily with a tonne of chocolate from the high-strength base beer. I couldn't taste any peanut through that, but it wasn't lacking in flavour. The intense sweetness was hyped up even further by an incredibly dense texture and lots of boozy heat. It's a beer to have one of, ever, but I can't complain too much as I knew what I was getting when I went in. Never tell me the odds.

That wasn't the only imported beer I had on my visit. I'll cover off the handful of others in my final post from Norwich.

Norwich by pub

It was CAMRA's turn to host the autumn meeting of the European Beer Consumers Union this year, and the powers that be in that august institution picked Norfolk as the destination. It's famous for its barley, you know. The county town of Norwich also has plenty of beery attractions, including lots of very pleasant pubs. Why, you'd nearly think you were up north.

Reuben and I didn't have to stray too far from our Premier Inn to find our first one: The Rumsey Wells, owned by the Adnams brewery. I'm a longtime fan, and this was my first time drinking on their home turf. On cask, unusually, was a Landbier that Adnams has brewed in collaboration with Londoners Five Points, called Distant Fields. It's copper coloured and has what is for me the signature Adnams taste: dry tannins with immense thirst-quenching power. There's a little noble-hop character alongside this; some dried grass and aromatic herbs, but it didn't do much else to convince me it's a German-style beer. The flavour, a full body, and low-level cask carbonation made seem far more like a high quality bitter to me. That's fine. It's what I'd want in an Adnams pub.

In the opposite direction from the hotel on Duke Street is The Golden Star, a charming little corner pub which I never would have guessed is part of the Greene King estate. Here I had a first encounter with the Moon Gazer brewery from rural Norfolk. On tap was Pintail, a 3.9% ABV pale ale with Pacific hops. It poured a perfectly clear gold and had a marvellously floral aroma, reminding me of summer gardens awash with lavender and honeysuckle. The texture is a little sticky and the flavour syrupy sweet, but not excessively so. The hops don't stand up too well to this, but provide satisfactory amounts of tropical fruit, coconut and a balancing rasp of leafy green veg. It all works very well together, in a classically English way: packed with complexity but in a very drinkable format.

Reuben opted for a house beer: Greene King's Watch Room. They call this a golden ale but it looked quite amber next to the Pintail. It's a plain affair, which I more or less expected from the brewery, not that I ever pre-judge. It's medium sweet, offering a quick shot of fruit candy before a rapid fade-out to nothingness. Inoffensive seems to have been the goal here, and it has achieved it.

With a note to look out for more Moon Gazers, along we went. Approaching the city centre from the north, one comes to St Andrew's Brewhouse. This looks like quite an upmarket pub and restaurant, of the sort that would fake having its own in-house brewery. It's legit, however, offering tours and open brewdays, as any good urban brewpub should.

They brew a porter named after part of the city: Tombland. Brewpub beers aren't always perfect in quality but this one very much was. The flavour is based around delicious milk chocolate with a lacing of delicious coffee roast. That's the fundamentals covered early on, and then there's a flourish in the finish of black cherry and plump raisin. I don't know if this is a permanent part of their line-up but it should be. 4.8% ABV puts it in the Goldilocks zone of having sufficient heft but also being moreish and sessionable. I would be in regularly for it if I lived locally.

Regardless, we moved on again after one pint, having been summoned by colleagues to The Murderers. It's a weird choice for a pub theme, with its portraits of Lizzie Borden and Burke & Hare. I hoped the beer would be more tasteful. They were pouring, perhaps appropriately, Darkness Falls, a "black beer" by Oakham. I wonder why they didn't give this a more normal style designation. Fear of mild, perhaps. Anyway, it's 5.2% ABV and roaring with tarry bitterness, overlaid with medicinal herbs and old-world spices, like a Fisherman's Friend lozenge. I got liquorice too, helped by it being sticky and black. It's not mild, then, but is gorgeous. Someone at the table called it a "session Baltic porter" and I pass that assessment along to you by way of recommendation.

On the Saturday, the local CAMRA branch offered us a tour of historic Norwich pubs (they're not allowed call them "crawls"), and that began with more porter, at The White Lion. I'm a sucker for cherry in these, and went straight for Mr Winters Cherry Porter, Mr Winters being a brewery on the northern edge of the city. This is 5.8% ABV and lays the sweetness on thick, with plenty of jam and sticky chocolate sauce. While it's not awful, you do need a high tolerance for sweet beers to appreciate it, and I fully respect any drinker who has no time at all for this sort of thing. I had no trouble getting through a pint, though wasn't rushing to repeat the feat.

Reuben went for something rather tamer: Three Acres's Ruby Porter: arguably a better crawl tour-starter at 4.2% ABV. Strangely, this poured completely black, so not ruby in the least. A highly roasted aroma goes with that, and there's a similar sort of herbal effect as we found earlier in the Oakham beer: aniseed and freshly cooked spinach, though not at the same intensity. Two kinds of bitterness make it very grown-up tasting, but all the better for that.

The second pub was The King's Head. We had actually ducked in here slightly earlier and grabbed a swift pint of Shortts 2 Tone mild in the sparsely decorated front public bar. This put in a pretty good performance, being 3.8% ABV and another chocolate-centred beer with a more serious herbal hop complexity. There's was a very slightly earthy, funky quality to it, and also some lighter nutmeg spicing. I found lots to explore, and the finish lasts impressively long for such a low-strength beer. It could be accused of being too complex for a proper mild, but certainly not by me.

A little while later we were back with the crawlers tour group, in the slightly more plush back room. I picked a stout from the well-chosen cask line-up this time: Dark Horse, from Elmtree Beers. I was very impressed by how creamy they've managed to make this, giving anything nitrokegged and/or lactose infused a run for its money. It's 5% ABV, and the flavour may not be very complex, but that's not an issue when it's as well integrated as this, with a subtle dark chocolate bitterness juxtaposed with high-end praline. Pure class in a glass.

Next to it is Old Brown Mouse, a bitter from Three Blind Mice brewery. Going from the name alone, I had taken this to be a brown ale, and it does meet quite a few of the specs there, being brown for one thing, and caramel-tasting for another. There is a proper English hop bitterness in the finish, however: tangy and mineral-tasting. I probably need more than a taster to assess it properly but it seemed pretty good to me, whatever the style.

Stop three was The Ribs of Beef, a rambling, multifloor establishment with a riverfront terrace which was nice to look at but it was very much not the weather for sitting out. On the bar there was Nene Valley Brewery's Egyptian Cream stout. I had noticed this on keg back at The White Lion and was pleased to find a Real version of it here. The branding turned out to be more interesting than the beer, and it's quite a plain milk stout, managing a baseline level of chocolate flavour, rendered extra sweet by a kick of vanilla. I expect beers like this to put an emphasis somewhere, be it on the sweet candy or sharp roast, but this steers a boringly middle course. It's easy drinking but uninspiring.

That was quite a contrast to the beer two taps over: Encore by Lacons. This is one of those bitters which the brewery has daftly decided to call an "amber ale". It's a long way from caramel-centred American amber ale, however, being sunset gold in the glass and with a clean and spritzy lemon zest flavour. Light carbonation gives it a sherbet character, and there's just enough malt to balance the hops, while also giving them a base to work from. If there's an American style this should be compared to, it's the better sort of pale ale, and that's even allowing for it being only 3.8% ABV. Like Pintail, this was a very welcome sneaky hop bomb.

Our requisite wonky-walled tavern was the unspoilt Adam & Eve -- one of those that would fit the bill perfectly when a film production needs an archetypal traditional English country pub. I did go a bit modern with the beer, however: Mr Winters again, and a Mosaic and Citra pale ale called Twisted Ladder. Even though it was on cask, it has a bit more welly than is traditional, at 5% ABV, and that gives the zesty citric bitterness plenty of elbow room. Even at this late stage in the evening I was describing it as sessionable, enjoying the clean lemonade-like vibes it was giving me. New World hops don't always work well on cask, but however they've treated them here has resulted in something tasting genuinely American, but with cask smoothness thrown in too.

The pace quickened at this point, and it felt like we were only just in and out of the penultimate stop, The Wig & Pen. It's not a tied house, but they seem to keep Woodforde's ales in stock, primarily. I had their Trail Ale, an amber-coloured bitter of 4.3% ABV, created for a promotional event they run each autumn. This is primarily hop forward, though not punchy in the American way, but more sedate and English, with lemon and peach set on cool tannins, for a kind of iced tea effect: comforting and refreshing. Over 200 pubs take part in the Ale Trail event, and I reckon I could drink this in a fair few of them before getting bored. It did strike me as more of a summer beer, but I guess punters need less encouragement then to get out and drink.

We were back in the Wig & Pen the following afternoon for their Sunday lunch. The next Woodforde's beer to try was Bure Gold, another 4.3%-er, and looking quite similar to the previous one as well. But while that was dry, this is softer and fruitier, with lovely fresh notes of grape and gooseberry, suggesting New Zealand hops to me, though they're actually American. This is another beautifully constructed beer, drawing on modern and traditional elements in exactly the right proportions.

Reuben scored another Moon Gazer here: Hare Today. This is only 4% ABV but they've hopped it up much more assertively. I got a distinctive citric bite from the foretaste, and then oily hop resins in the finish. Given the low strength, it's very nicely rounded and satisfying to drink, even in small quantities. Those rabbits really know how to do hops.

But back to the previous evening, to finish our non-crawl at The Leopard, perhaps the most consciously-craft of these very cask-oriented pubs. It's still a proper cask pub, though, and I opted for Black Iris's Ngaru Nui, a full 6% ABV IPA with Nelson Sauvin hops. I thought I knew Nelson quite well, between its tropical moments and the times it tastes like the smell of a refuelling jet. This was different, with spices at the fore: herbal rocket, leading into full-on black pepper. It's odd, but very tasty, and I would like to come back to this at some point when, well, the things outlined above hadn't just happened beforehand. Suffice it to say for now, it's well worth seeking out, especially for the Nelson aficianadoes.

The weekend wasn't all cask, though. In the next post we'll be seeing several of the same breweries again, through alternative dispense methods. Don't tell CAMRA.