Cold and colder

One of life's greatest pleasures is going to exotic beer shops and browsing for strange and intriguing beers. Today's pair came from no further abroad than Melger's of Haarlem where both made me want to know what they tasted like as soon as I saw them. They don't have anything else in common, other than having been brewed in the Netherlands.

Cold Gold is ostensibly from the Habesha brewery in Ethiopia, but that's a subsidiary of Swinkels and this version comes from one of their Dutch facilities. It is indeed gold: perfectly clear and sparkly, though the head doesn't last long. It's a full 5% ABV and nicely weighty with it; a lager of quality, not a cheaply made one, and considerably better than Swinkels's own buttery flagship pils. The malt is very much to the fore, smooth and rich, like a posh treacle-infused brown bread. The hops aren't quite as high-end, just a tangy metallic bitterness, providing sufficient balance but not much more than that. That echoes in the finish and helps make quite a heavy beer remarkably drinkable. I'm guessing this is mostly intended for ethnic-themed restaurants and it does indeed have the chops to match food well. A pleasant surprise all round.

Icebock isn't always a great choice, but I see so few of them that new ones are always of interest, especially when they're not at eye-watering artisanal prices. Gulpener is one of the bigger Dutch breweries and this is the 2023 vintage of Gulpener IJsbock. It seems a little weaker than the norm at 10.3% ABV -- Schneider's is the full 12% for example -- but it looks the part: a deep mahogany brown colour. The aroma is a warming wintery cocoa with hints of cherry liqueur and vanilla pods, which is very enticing. All of that is in the flavour too, though it's rather more severe. The vanilla ramps up to an almost sickly level, backed by gooey milk chocolate and caramel. Huge alcohol vapours accentuate all this even further, adding a hit of marker pen solvent. The gentler fruit I found in the aroma is nowhere to be seen, only brown banana for a different, but no better, type of gooeyness. You would know that this was a strong beer rendered even stronger, and the process seems to have concentrated its bad side while removing the good. Doubtless it's intended to be a slow sipper but they've achieved that by making it difficult to drink. There's no fun to be had here, only sadness and toil.

In conclusion, the exotic beer shelves is a land of contrasts.