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.