Transcontinental wegbier

This week I've been writing about my recent trip to Warsaw. When making the travel arrangements, I was astounded to discover that there's only one direct flight from Dublin these days, and it arrives at midnight, which is a nuisance from a transport and accommodation perspective. I opted instead to fly with SAS via Copenhagen. It didn't hurt the decision making that Copenhagen airport is a beer destination in its own right, and recently voted Europe's best in a poll by EBCU.

With a short stopover on the way out, we only had time for one, at the Mikkeller Bar. Here they were serving several from Vermont brewery Hill Farmstead and I picked Brother Siogné, billed simply as a saison. I knew it wouldn't be, though, and I was right. This clear golden beer has an aroma of spiced pear. It's lightly sour has a touch of both geuze and gose in the flavour, including oak spice and savoury herbs. Apparently it's made with lime, hibiscus and blood orange, but I couldn't taste any of those individually, though I would well believe they each make a contribution to the expertly integrated overall taste: one based around wild yeast flavours and mature wood, rather than fruit. This is a light 5% ABV, and nicely refreshing, even if it doesn't bear much resemblance to normal saison.

Beside it is Mikkeller's Organic Brown Ale which is a little on the strong side at 5.9% ABV but somehow manages to convey the weight of an even stronger beer. The flavour coming with that is a massively loud hit of coffee-bean roast and a powerful bitterness which I found off-putting. I like brown ale to be smooth and comfortable; this one is the opposite, and I deem it a failure.

We were back here again on the homeward leg, and Hill Farmstead for me again. It's another purported saison, called Civil Disobedience, and is a complex blend of multiple beers in wine barrels. This goes full steam for the lambic profile, and in particular the lemon zest sourness it opens on. Warm apple sauce and nutmeg spice follows, with a sprinkle of pink peppercorn in the finish. I had no objection to the small measure the server warned me about, because it's not a beer to rush. Fantastic work by the brewery, shoring up my firm belief that their beers should not be passed when available.

Mikkeller's collaboration with Budvar intrigued me when I saw it on the menu on the way out, and now I had the time to drink one. #YearOfTheLager is its wanky name, and it's a very clear gold colour. The Czechs didn't do their quality assurance on the head, because there's basically none, which isn't a good start. The mouthfeel is very heavy and there's a strong malt flavour, suggesting decoction mashing to me. On the other side, the hops are extremely floral to a concentrated level, passing a summer bouquet and heading for the medicine cabinet. There's diacetyl too, in enough quantity to taste like the custard filling you get in donuts. Big malt and floral hops make it taste like a description of světlý ležák, but actual Czech pale lagers have a balance and subtlety that this foghorn of a thing lacks. It is very much a product of tiresome craft-beer creativity. Budvar is named on the can as window dressing, and frankly I think less of the brand because of it.

The hazy beer next to it is a Mikkeller session IPA called Ripple Effect. This is rather less ambitious, and is a better beer as a result. There's nothing fancier going on than a zip of fresh lemon zest set on a clean base. It's sweet enough to give me a slight impression of Lemsip, though equally that could be interpreted as a wholesome homemade lemonade. Regardless, it is doubtless fully sessionable, being 4.7% ABV, and offers the drinker plenty of reward for very little effort on their part.

Copenhagen Airport also has a To Øl bar, which is really more of a pizza restaurant, called Neighbourhood. It's a bit cramped and the prices are eye-watering even by Danish standards. Also I'm not really a fan of To Øl's beers. Whose idea was it to come here again?

On the left, across the table from me, is Reuben's Brokilde Brown. This is a punchy 6.5% ABV and looks filthy: a muddy ochre shade. It doesn't bother with the chocolate and coffee of most brown ales I know and heads off on an American kick instead. The citrus aroma is far fresher and cleaner than the beer looks, and the flavour continues in that direction, leading with zesty lemon or sherbet and setting it on a crunchy rye bread base. It's an odd construction, and not really to style as any kind of brown ale, but it works.

I figured I was playing things safe with 45 Days Vienna, the brewery's Vienna lager. They wouldn't dare mess with that, would they? They didn't. To me, this tasted like an expert home brewer following the style specifications exactly. It's a clear amber colour and starts with a dry and crunchy biscuit base from the toasted malt. At 4.7% ABV, it's light-bodied without being thin. Behind the dominant malt, there's room for a little balancing noble hops, bringing a pillow of salad leaves into the picture. As well as being an excellent interpretation of Vienna lager, it also serves as a reminder of why the style is so worth drinking in the first place.

As well as the airport bars, flying SAS also gave us access to the special beers Mikkeller has been producing for the airline for some years now. I've had a couple of these over the years, always hazy IPAs, and the current one isn't an exception to that. It's called Scandinavian Clouds and is 4.9% ABV, which is weak for the style. The haze is fairly light and it's otherwise a dark shade of orange, looking a touch oxidised, if I'm honest. The flavour, built from Simcoe and Citra hops, is very savoury, tasting of spring onions and sweat. An orange-squash stickiness is the only counterbalance to this, so no softness or fresh juice. It's a bit of a mess, and I'm not accepting any excuses about altitude and its effect on taste. This is wonky beer at any height.

The last beer I have to mention is a Polish lager, consumed at Warsaw airport as we began the homeward leg. There's actually a sizeable range of bottles and cans at the airside craft beer bar, but after two days in the deep end, I was happy with something cold and golden on tap. Królewskie, from Heineken's Żywiec Group, is exactly that. And I think it's better than Żywiec itself -- a beer described to me by a local as "Heineken in Polish national dress". This is 5.2% ABV and malt driven, with a satisfying rounded body, a crisp finish, and instead of tinny fake-tasting hop extract, has no real hop character at all. It could probably pass as a Helles in Germany. Europe has thousands of industrial lagers; this is one of the better ones.

With craft beer as we knew it ceasing to be as popular as it was, and the multinationals flexing their muscles anew, I wonder will we see fewer outlets like these in the coming years. Me, I'm happy as long as the airport has something decent to quench my thirst while I'm waiting. I'm not planning to make an evening of it at gate 109.

Non-local colour

As mentioned in Tuesday's report from the Warsaw Beer Festival, there were a handful of non-Polish beers available at the event. A couple of mixed fermentation Belgian options piqued my interest, ones I had never seen for sale in Belgium, so was willing to shell out the €10-odd requested for a taster from the bottles.

I don't think I'd even heard of Geuzestekerij Odilon, from whom I tried the Schaarbeekse Kriek. This was their 2024 edition, but tasted older. The whole deal with the Schaarbeekse is it's the most cherry-tasting of cherries; this beer emphasised the funk of damp wood in the aroma, and has a powerful tart acidity in the flavour. Actual cherry only appears towards the end, with a hint of marzipan. I know it's a cliché that lambic causes heartburn, and that's not something I normally experience, but the intense sourness here was enough induce it. This example of kriek is to-spec, and might suit those who prefer the more extreme sort, something I associate mostly with 3 Fonteinen. It's not exactly to my taste, and certainly not at a tenner a sip.

What initially attracted me to this bar was the presence of Antidoot, a non-Pajottenland, and therefore non-lambic, Belgian wild beer producer which nevertheless has been mentioned in reverential tones within my earshot. The only beer left by the time I got there was an oud bruin called L'Obscur, this one a 2021 vintage. I'll say up front that I tend to find oud bruin too vinegary, and while this was another beer that wasn't to my taste, I can't accuse it of the vinegar thing. The style's strong points are its sweet/savoury date, tamarind and spice notes, and this had plenty of those, including black pepper and a hint of smoke. It turned sweeter in the finish, adding cherry and fig paste to the picture. It lacked any tart or mineral zing, but so does every other oud bruin, so while I can say, again, that this wasn't for me, it's an excellent example of what it is.

To Germany next, and there was an appearance by the new Schlenkerla Grodziskie. This is a fun departure by the Bamberg smokery, taking on Poland's national style of pale smoky wheat beer. The consensus in Poland is that it's not a proper grodziskie, being a cool-fermented lager. The lager attenuation combined with a low gravity, finishing at 2.9% ABV, results in a rather thin beer with a bit too much fizz. It is wheat based, but that doesn't pull its weight in giving the beer substance. It excels, however, in the specifically Schlenkerla aspects, from the lip-smacking light smoke aroma, on to a flavour of freshly grilled bacon. This might not please the grodziskie purists, but the Schlenkerla drinkers get some fan service, and something to drink in between doppelbocks.

Our festival run finishes in Burton-on-Trent. Laura from Burton Bridge Brewery, which has taken on the mantle of Burton's brewing heritage after AB InBev hollowed it out and Molson Coors shut down the remains, brought a couple of beers based on old Bass recipes. They're sold under Burton Bridge's Heritage label.

Masterpiece is their recreation of White Shield, formerly the last of Britain's old bottle-conditioned IPAs. It's been a bit too long since I drank that beer for me to judge it on accuracy, but it is very good. There's an old-fashioned dryness that's been bred out of modern, American-influenced, IPAs, making it crisp and exceedingly drinkable for 5.6% ABV. Don't look for fresh hops; instead there's a subtle hint of vegetation and green apples, with a good measure of tannin. Doubtless it will upset a few drinkers who think they know what IPA ought to be; I liked that it's keeping an important part of the style's history alive and accessible, as well as being a good beer in its own right.

There's perhaps less reason for the existence of Burton Bridge DBA. This is their recreation of Bass, a beer that AB InBev has suddenly, and likely briefly, started putting a bit of marketing and distribution welly behind. I have had that quite recently, and I think this has the edge on it, in the complexity stakes. To me, contemporary cask Bass lacks the signature Burton sulphur, but it's here in spades. There's also a full and wholesome fruitcake profile which takes it beyond the basics of bitter or pale ale. Maybe it's a different, and calmer, beast on draught, but for a purported old-school bitter, this is quite the flavour bomb.

For entertainment as much as education, this tasting session also included a Burton ale brewed by a Polish brewery at the festival. Nieczajna Burton Ale is true to this largely defunct beer style: 9.4% ABV and a dark amber colour; thickly textured and warming. The tannin theme from the genuine Burton beers continues here, and there's a similar dark fruit flavour to the bitter -- sultanas and glacé cherries. It's good, though I couldn't help thinking it also shows why this style has disappeared: there's nothing you wouldn't also get from an English-style barley wine, and they have a more explanatory name. Still, this is a pleasant way to drink oneself through some lesser-known beer history.

That's all I have to say about the festival, other than a big thanks to the organisers for the free ticket. If I were returning, I think I would stick to the earlier hours to try and avoid the crowds. I will definitely be back, to see and to drink Warsaw properly, however.

Warsaw packed

The 2025 Warszawski Festiwal Piwa wasn't my first Polish beer festival in a football stadium: readers may remember my extolling of one in Wrocław back in 2019. This one, though impressive, wasn't as much fun, and I think a lot of that has to do with holding it in October rather than June. Sitting in the shady stands on a warm afternoon is pleasant in a way that shivering in them on a chilly evening just isn't; and while Wrocław spreads the brewery stands across the concourse outside the ground, Warsaw crams them in to three floors of indoor space that really wasn't designed for such a thing. It was densely crowded, difficult to navigate, and short on places to perch one's glass, never mind sit comfortably. As a result I probably didn't get through as many beers as I otherwise would have, you'll be pleased to hear.

There was, however, no shortage of interesting beers to try from the 1100+ menu, and a general youthful energy about the place that can be lacking at beer festivals here in the post-craft era. I'm not sure it was entirely wise to open my account on a chilli oatmeal stout, but I did, though opting for the 10cl option -- smallest of the three standard sizes available across the event. This is Naga Jolka, from the plainly named Piwoteka brewery. There's not much spice in the aroma, but the pepper kicks in properly soon after tasting. The 7% ABV base beer is nicely smooth and quite sweet, but you don't get long to enjoy it before the chilli heat hits, and starts to build. I enjoyed it, though I always have to warn readers that this is a personal quirk of taste, and if you don't like chilli stout in general, this one won't convince you otherwise.

We will be covering several black IPAs today. There were lots of them available, and it was only a concern for diversity of coverage that I didn't systematically try them all. First out is Proszę Ja Ciebie ("I'm Asking You") by Browar Zakładowy. Riwaka and oats feature in this, though it's very much a classic black IPA, albeit a dark brown one. There's an enticing herb and spice aroma and a light tarry or smoky bitterness before the hops go full IPA and break out the fresh citrus and stonefruit. I don't require the bright topnotes in one of these but it's a very pleasant surprise when I get it. This 6.6% ABV example balances the dark and light side of the style spec in magnificent fashion.

That emboldened me to go straight for a second one: Dziki Wschód's Mroczny Blask ("Dark Shine"). It's a weaker affair, at 5.5% ABV, and nothing like as impressive. The roast side is good, and there's a substantial bitterness which tastes of savoury thyme and basil, with a dose of oily aniseed, for a Fisherman's Friend effect. What's missing is the fresh hop bang. As I say above, a brewery can get away by simply adding extra hop bitterness to a dark ale, but the best black IPA shows some level of fresh new-world fruit or flowers. This one was OK to drink as a serious and bitter dark ale, but even if it hadn't been immediately preceded by a top-notch black IPA, I'm not sure I would be singing its praises.

A rye IPA follows, called Żytko, by Browar Kazimierz. In my experience, these are usually amber-coloured but this one is strangely golden and offers a juicy aroma with a slightly sharp edge. The flavour is juice first and pith second, but still all citrus. That means the rye doesn't make much of a showing: no grass and no pepper. There's a little New Englandesque vanilla, keeping it within the bounds of contemporary IPA fashion, but if that's what I had wanted, there were plenty of better-labelled options. I liked drinking it, but the disparity between what I expected and what I got took some of the shine off.

I spent a while perusing the menu of Stara Szkola -- a brewery named not for its brewing methods but because it's in an actual old school. It seems to specialise in wild beers with wilder botanicals, which all looked fascinating. Unfortunately, very little of the fun beers advertised on their board were actually available when I visited, so I settled on the rather plainer Koryciński lager. Koryciński is a type of traditional cheese although there's no indication that any kind of cheese-adjacent farmhouse methods or ingredients were used in it. It's very good, however, having an exceptional clean crispness despite some haze, and lots of spicy, grassy bitterness with a generous shake of white pepper. It's a kind of hopped-up kellerbier, I guess, and though unfiltered and most definitely rural in origin, has a rare precision which makes it a delight. I'm now feeling quite regretful that I didn't go back later, to check again if the more involved beers were on.

From a beer steeped in national tradition to one that most definitely isn't. A lot of breweries had ice bocks available, and many of them were "iced" versions of their other beers. And of course, it's October, so here comes AceBrowar with its Iced Naked Mummy pumpkin beer, in a "coffee and cream candies edition". Just a small one, please. Though it's a hideous murky brown, this turned out to be quite tasty. The texture is smooth and creamy, befitting its 13% ABV. It smells like a carrot cake and tastes like coffee cream chocolates, so pretty much exactly as described, once you discount the pumpkin as contributing nothing. A little more autumnal spice would have been beneficial, though there was plenty going on besides, and no harshness or excessive heat. While very much an unashamed novelty, as an after-dinner sipping beer, it works very well. Bonus points for me never having tasted anything quite like it before.

We return to drinking classic styles next, with the delightfully-named Sick Boy Brewing, and Reverie, their Flanders red. 30 months in Tempranillo barrels for this one, finishing at 6.5% ABV. It's a light and zippy chap with tart red cherry notes backed by some sweeter raspberry. There isn't much of a contribution from the oak, but too many breweries ending up making these harsh, so I approve of an error on the side of caution. There's nothing here that you wouldn't find from an accomplished Belgian brewer of Flanders red. Simple as that.

Next up, something described plainly as a "dark Brett beer" which sounds like just my sort of thing. Darek Otwórz is from Moczybroda in Poznań and is 5.3% ABV. We're on the spice and perfume end of the Brettanomyces spectrum, with cedar wood as the dominant flavour. Add a sprinkling of cinnamon to that, a little ripe peach and some light caramel, and you have a fascinating and delicious beer; another one where I've not tasted its like before. Even though there's loads going on, it's not overly busy and all the various elements are suitably restrained. I approve of the concept and would like to see more breweries trying it out.

I was trying to be careful about the consumption of imperial stouts as there were loads of them. Also, the choice of either 10cl or 30cl wasn't ideal: I would have liked an option in the middle for these. Anyway, I succumbed to temptation with Black Celebration #4 from Browar Sarabanda, a Warsaw-based client brewer. It's a good example, if a little lacking in distinctive features: good for the drinker but harder for the writer. So, a sweet chocolate and caramel aroma leads on to a fairly bitter flavour, of filter coffee and sticky liquorice. That settles after a mouthful or two, and more of the caramel side begins to come through. Maybe it's the context, but it reminded me a little of Baltic porter, in the effortlessly tasty way it balanced sweet density with herbal bitterness. Regardless, it's a very satisfying drinker, making excellent use of its 10.2% ABV.

I felt I needed some hops after that, and Hopkultura's bar seemed to have the goods. I opted for Firestarter, a 6.5% ABV New Zealand-hopped hazy IPA. It's a workmanlike presentation; perhaps not the best of what the Kiwi hop characteristics or New England IPA style can do, but the bases are covered. A fresh stonefruit aroma starts us off, while the flavour mixes a heavy dankness and sharp grass with a slightly incongruous vanilla buzz. The hops reassert themselves in the finish, adding a peppery bite. While there aren't any nasty off flavours here, I don't think the hops are a good fit for the style. I wouldn't drink this again, but it wouldn't at all put me off trying more of Hopkultura's range.

Time for another black IPA, I reckon. zGryfus Black IPA is a collaboration between Gryfus and Sady and is a big 7% ABV, with a heavy texture to match. Despite this, it's dark red in colour and smells of Turkish delight, so I was expecting to love the flavour too. That turned out to be a little more muted; bready rather than hoppy, and lacking in punch or any significant bitterness. There's a certain growing tarriness instead, and the floral side does put in an appearance at the finish, so it's nearly brilliant but just misses the mark. I am being overly critical, however, and was happy to find another very good black IPA, even if I had to adjust my expectations somewhat following the first sip.

Pivosky had a full menu of differently-hacked Baltic porters, and while I generally don't agree with doing that to classic lager styles, it did provide an opportunity to test my prejudice. And so I picked Imperial Baltic Porter: Cannabis Infused, because I do like a bit of peppery hemp character in a beer, when it's done well. This was a strange one, however. There's a weird herbal thing going on -- not cannabis but a range of medicinal plants of the sort you might find in a Victorian-themed toothpaste or shampoo. "Root beer" is in my notes, likewise cinnamon and clove, but there's more to it than than. Though 10.5% ABV, the base beer is quite light, and there's no stickiness, which is a mercy. I knew this was a gimmick going in, but didn't know quite what kind of a gimmick. It's OK, but once it's done its thing in the first taste, it has little else to offer.

On one lap of the hall I spotted a cherry black gose and made a mental note to go back for it later. When I did, I discovered it's called Big Balls, and is by Harpagan. This is a mere 4.6% ABV, and I suppose I should have expected it to not resemble gose much. The watery cherryade aroma shouldn't have been a surprise, nor the obvious cherry syrup behind it. The rest was good, however. I've had black "gose" before, and the mix of dark beer chocolate and roast with the thirst-quenching savoury spritz works very well. And so it goes here. The end result is something that's as silly as its name, but fun too. If you don't have a sense of fun about such things, it's best avoided.

For the rest of my time at the festival, I was a guest/prisoner of the extremely hospitable Jedlinka brewery. First came a much-needed palate cleanser called Jedlinka Lite: a lager of 3.2% ABV. It must be quite a challenge to make a good lager at this strength, but they've pulled it off well, giving the beer a light and wholesome haze and adding a lemony kick from some Citra hops. That builds into an assertive but not harsh waxy bitterness and leaves an aftertaste of lemon meringue pie. It is multitudes more complex than beer like this usually is, and would make for a perfect fridge-filler, especially in summer.

Jedlinka also contract brews Thai Lager, created for a Thai entrepreneur based in Germany. This is a 5% ABV job and uses "Thai ingredients" of which I couldn't find the details, but I suspect lemongrass is heavily involved. It has a straightforward lager-grain aroma with just a hint of citrus. The texture is smooth, supporting quite a sweet malt-driven flavour. I'm guessing they've held back on hops to let the added ingredients shine through, and that's in the form of lime zest, crystallised peel and grapefruit marmalade. The bready depth of the base beer prevents this from tasting out of place: it's a bonus seasoning more than a gimmick, and it creates something very enjoyable.

And my finisher was from their PortHard series: described as a sherry-barrel aged ice wild imperial Baltic porter. I'm not even going to try and unpack all of that, and if "wild" is meant to signify some mixed fermentation, I definitely didn't get any of that. The main feature is a spiced wine or vermouth flavour, mixing with rough and sappy oak and retsina-style boozy resin. Freeze-distilling has brought it to 20% ABV and there's a definite back-of-the-throat burn which comes with that. Somehow it all manages to hang together into a coherent experience, and still taste like a dark beer rather than a liqueur or fortified wine. However, it was probably for the best that I ended proceedings with it.

That's my full compliment of Polish beers, but there were a handful of foreign ones too, via some importers and agents. I'll come to them next.

Capital idea

A beautiful country with a thriving beer scene, Poland is one of my favourite places to go drinking. I was delighted when the European Beer Consumers Union, to which I am a delegate, chose Warsaw as the venue for its regular autumn meeting this year. I had never been to the capital city and here was an opportunity to get that ticked off. On the downside, I didn't get to see much of it, for reasons I'll get into, but it's high on my list for a return visit and some proper exploration.

PINTA, the giant of Polish craft brewing, has a couple of pubs in the city, and we started in one of them. Unsurprisingly, it's in that global-Brooklyn style, all bare brick and tacos. My opener was one from local client brewer Magic Road, called Only Dry Stout. It's a sessionable 4.5% ABV and nicely roasty to begin, but this builds as it goes to become ash-dry with a kind of instant-coffee staleness added in. Its problems are compounded by a mis-step on the sweet side, which is somewhat harshly saccharine. Taking a broader view, it's not a bad beer, and I'm being overly-critical because it's a style I'm very familiar with, and know what I like. They've made (or commissioned) an OK stout but I think it's over-engineered and trying to do too much. That's craft beer for you, I guess.

I noticed approvingly that Poland still has the slightly daft, playful notions of the early craft era. There is still, for example, plenty of pumpkin beers this time of year. Dyniamit! is PINTA's: 6% ABV and the appropriate shade of pumpkin-skin amber. It's light-bodied and has a fully appropriate brown-sugar centre. But the cloves. It is absolutely saturated in clove, to the point of tasting medicinal. That hits hard right at the front of the flavour and builds to create the anesthetising sensation of rubbing raw cloves on one's gums. There's no point even asking if there's any real pumpkin in here: there could be scorpion peppers and coconut essence, and you still wouldn't taste anything past the clove. It's... Christmassy, and quite silly, but I still enjoyed it, even if nobody else in the room did.

For the next round, Reuben and I went all-traditional. For me, Forever Young, a grodziski. I tend to associate this light and smoky type of wheat beer with summer drinking, but I don't think that's the reason I didn't enjoy this one much. For one thing, it's weak and watery, which is maybe forgivable at only 2.6% ABV, but plenty of other examples do it better. And for another, any smoky subtleties are drowned out by an inappropriately loud blast of hops. I don't know which varieties were used, but definitely something in the Sabro or Sorachi Ace school. Normally that's not a problem either, but the beer doesn't have the density to carry off strong hopping and ends up tasting plasticky as a result. I got more used to it towards the end, though any enjoyment was as a hop-forward table beer rather than the grodziskie I wanted.

It seems you're allowed take liberties with grodziskie in Poland; I suspect less so with the other national style: Baltic porter. Reuben's Porter Bay has only been around since last year but feels like something of a flagship. The flavour profile is absolutely classic, a tightly-woven tapestry of cocoa, cola spices and herbal liqueur bitterness on a clean lager base. This is still a sipper, and you can tell it's all of 9% ABV, but nothing about it is sticky or sickly or any of the other traps that strong dark beers can fall into. This is one for drinkers who demand complexity from their beers but have no truck with any of the mad-ingredient shortcuts that breweries (including PINTA, in fairness) indulge in.

Mid-October put us on the cusp of pumpkin beer season and Oktoberfest season, and there was still a festbier from PINTA pouring, called Prost! It was my last beer of the night and I don't have a whole lot to say about it. It is to-style, being a weighty golden lager of 5.8% ABV. There's little to no hop character and a grainy, white-bread base. Extra malt and possibly some quirk of fermentation has given it a kind of marzipan enrichment which didn't quite sit well with me, and that's as complex as this one got. It tastes like it was designed and brewed without enthusiasm, to fill a seasonal niche on the pub blackboard.

The following morning, the first day's meeting convened at Browar Warszawski. This is a large brewpub-restaurant in what I'm guessing was once the cellar vaults of an old brick building but is now in a lower courtyard of a modern office and entertainment complex. Heineken Poland has its offices above, though I don't believe it has any business connection to the brewery. Presumably the execs or their minions drink here, however.

The main bar had tap badges in place for about 20 different beers, and there are fermenters enough in the onsite brewery to support production of them all simultaneously, but only a handful were available on the day. As is my wont, I started on the Pils. It is a very pale example, looking watery, with a medium level of haze. That's presumably the reason for the soft texture and resulting lack of crispness, so it's very much on the kellerbier end of the Mittleuropa lager spectrum, rather than pils-proper. Where it excels is the hopping: snappily fresh noble varieties with a restrained bitterness make it more of a celery and lettuce job than spinach and cabbage. Despite this, the finish is long so you have plenty of time to enjoy it. Had I spent longer here I could very much see myself drinking more of it, and as such it's bang on the money for a brewpub house lager. It might not get people in the door, but it's quite likely to keep them there.

Marcowe is Polish for Märzen, and Warszawski's is another murky one, though amber this time. It's strong at 5.7% ABV, and very sweet with it, becoming difficult to drink after the first few sips. The sheer chewiness of it could be considered a plus point, for those who like their lagers big, but it didn't suit me. There's also a dried fruit complexity, all sweet sultana and citrus peel, giving it a certain fruitcake character. This is unrefined and wholesome material, but too sticky and too much work to drink for my taste.

On a quick tour through the brewing side, we got a taste from the tank of one beer which wasn't on the bar but frankly should have been. Chiemny Lager is a dark lager which they describe as closest to Munich dunkel in style but I found it more Czech in character. Although it has the dark brown colour of either, it's only 4.5% ABV. The aroma is espresso and molasses and, despite the heapings of coffee flavour, isn't particularly bitter, but has a porter-like richness and smoothness instead. I'm sure the natural carbonation had plenty to do with how good it tasted, and it's a shame that the brewery kegs rather than tanks its beers, even though production and serving happen on opposite sides of the same wall.

The final beer here was Pszeniczne: don't ask me to pronounce it, but I do know it's Polish for "wheat". You see it on menus a lot. This one is presented as a weissbier and is on the murkier bright-orange side of that scale, with any Bavarian-style credentials ruined by its lack of a proper head. It's also only 4.5% ABV, which is weak for weiss, and there's not much banana character, which suited me fine. Instead, peach and lychee notes come through: a fruitiness which isn't to style but is lots of refreshing fun. Like the lager I started on, this is an accessible easy-drinker; unfussy but with plenty of interest. Good weissbier is rare; good brewpub weissbier is exceptionally rare; and I think that by tweaking the format sufficiently, Browar Warszawski has created one that's much more enjoyable than most.

The second day's meeting was in the back room of a bar called The Taps. The taps at The Taps were pouring fifteen beers, of which I had time to try two. Zierna Obiecana's Faza is a milkshake IPA -- not a style I choose with any regularity, but once in a while is OK. This 6.5%-er turned out to be a particularly good one. I'm not at all sure if they put any lactose in it, and that may be why. It's hazy but clean with it, lacking both heat and dessertish viscosity. Instead it's all juicy and tropical, and I picked out pineapple and passionfruit as hop effects before discovering that the recipe includes pineapple and pear. There's real coconut too, and this comes across subtly yet definite. I enjoyed its cleansing sparkle, as much for the pleasant surprise as the sensation itself. If we're now in a world where milkshake IPA is largely gloop-free, I may need to reconsider my stance on it.

I hadn't noticed that my second one, Černý Kalcifer by Křikloun was an import, but later discovered it to be Czech. The brewery doesn't have much to say about it, other than it's a dark ale of 5.2% ABV (12°) and uses six different malts. Turns out I don't have much to say about it either. It goes big on the roast, with a serious porter-like dryness being dominant. Sweeter dark malt effects don't really feature much, and there's an almost spicy herbal bitter side to add some complexity. Mostly it's full and filling, and I guess is designed for session drinking in winter. It's no kind of improvement on good Czech dark lager, though. Perhaps the brewery only made it this way as a novelty.

Across from where we stayed was a theme pub called The British Bulldog. One glance told me it wasn't the sort of place that would be worth going to. A second glance, however, on day two, revealed a sign on the exterior for "Tyskie z Tanka". Tyskie is the local flagship of Asahi, who also make Pilsner Urquell and promote it heavily in tank form. This was the exact same system of horizontal copper tanks, and even though the beer had been tapped a week and a day previous, it was still pretty good, if lacking in the complexity of Urquell.

Always on the lookout for a tick, I noticed the bar was also selling Książęce IPA, also by Tyskie -- I'm actually not sure that the Bulldog had any British beer at all. It was obvious that this came from a brewery more used to lager, from the clear golden colour to the precisely clean flavour. It's not lacking in hop character, though it's sweet and perfumey, with a zesty citric aspect that doesn't exactly spark with freshness, but isn't unpleasant either. There's an old-fashioned and resinous character to this which means it's unlikely to be mistaken for the work of a young and thrusting microbrewery, but it works, and doesn't taste like corners have been cut.

That's all the pub action you're getting. As it happened, the Warsaw Beer Festival was taking place, down at the Legia Warsaw football stadium, and most of my drinking time was spent there. I'll tell you about it next.

Styling it out

It would not do to be still drinking Oktoberfest lager in November, so I'm getting this one under the wire before the clocks change. Third Barrel Fest Bier was co-created with TwoSides, presumably mainly for the Oktoberfest celebrations at the TwoSides pub, Brickyard. But they've canned it too, saving me a trip to Dundrum. On the label we get AI's smudgey rendition of an old-timey Oktoberfest. I detect a certain old-timeyness about the beer too, which is amber coloured and a little hazy. That slight darkness translates to a fabulously rich malt flavour. Pale versions of this style, including the Munich classics, can be a bit syrupy, but while this one is a proper 5.5% ABV and sweeter than a standard Helles, it's done in a wholesome brown-bread way, making it extremely satisfying to drink. I see wheat on the ingredients, and breaking whatever daft German rule forbids that could have been the killer move. The noble hops have been laid on generously too, balancing all that bread with clean green salad leaves. I horsed through my 440ml in jig time. Maybe I should have gone to Brickyard for a Maß after all.

The brewery is playing fast and loose with the style category on its next one too. Harmonics is a double IPA, one of the unadvertised hazy ones, but only 7.5% ABV. Still, it looks well, being pale orange and with a properly thick and lasting head. The aroma offers a blast of the west coast, giving orange peel and grapefruit flesh, though with a spice from the yeast residue that's almost Belgian. It also lacks the fluff of New England-style. Presumably a function of the strength, it's quite light, built around citrus and fizz. There's a thin seam of vanilla, but that's as New England as it gets. The central flavour is all hop: the spice-forward grapefruit and pepper, telling us that whatever varieties they've used, they're fresh and added in quantity. Some lighter pineapple and peach arrives in the finish. The double designation doesn't really stack up here. It's a fairly easy drinker, avoiding any extremes of bitterness or heat, and anyone looking for serious punch will be disappointed. But as an IPA of whichever sub-style, it's top notch. Everyone should have a local brewery that turns out beer like this on the regular.

Quality work here from Third Barrel. The beers are very different from each other, but they've been designed and brewed to be exceptionally tasty in their own ways. Can't argue with that.

Cease pumping

My coverage of this year's JD Wetherspoon autumn beer festival is a two-parter, beginning with Monday's post. Today's concerns the event's second week.

At Keavan's Port, that began with the JW Lees offering, Born To Brew, a 4% ABV brown bitter. I wasn't expecting much, but what a stunner. There's not a trace of twigginess here, the lightly roasted malt notes serving only to dry the beer out and enhance its exceptional drinkability. Tannins are involved in that too, giving echoes of a nice strong mug of black tea. Sitting on top are freshly zesty hop flavours, thanks to classic American varieties Cascade and Centennial. It's beyond tea-with-a-slice-of-lemon and into flavoured ice tea or lemon sherbet. Above all, this is a spectacularly refreshing thirst-quencher, though there's sufficient complexity to hold your attention, too. English bitter at its best.

Young Henry's of New South Wales brewed a version of its Newtowner Pale Ale at Elgoods, with the ABV reduced to 3.5% from the original's 4.8. It poured rather lifelessly from the tap in The Silver Penny, which is a shame because the antipodean hops have given it a classic Aussie flavour profile, brimming with soft mandarin and fruit chews, balanced with a harder edge of lime peel and grapefruit zest. But none of it is as bright as it should be because the very faint sparkle isn't sufficient to propel the taste or aroma. Instead, after the initial citrus fun, it finishes watery. The low gravity also contributes to a harsh bitterness which needs a bigger malt base. All this beer did was make me want to try the proper version of it, before Elgoods started dicking around with the recipe. I bet it's lovely.

From Conwy, Chestnut Brown, a brown ale. The milk chocolate aroma tells us they're on the right lines. The flavour continues in that direction: all chocolate at first but with a growing background coffee roastiness that prevents it being sweet and gloopy. It was another fairly flat one, but that's less of an issue here because the malt dominance and smooth mouthfeel suit it well, aided by sufficient gravity to finish it at 4.8% ABV. This isn't an exciting or daring beer, although brown ales are rare enough that brewing one at all is perhaps a courageous decision. This is a nicely executed example, however, leaving little to be desired.

Next up is Purity, and my first beer from this Midlands outfit since it became part of the all-conquering Breal Group last year. It's a session IPA called Free Rein, 4.5% ABV, a slightly fuzzy golden, and hopped with Eureka, Mosaic and Simcoe. The Mosaic seems to be in charge as the primary flavour is its light melon and white plum notes. It's certainly easy-drinking and sessionable for sure, and -- hooray -- there's a fully hop-appropriate sparkle. But it's lacking in depth and, with cask ale, sessionability is never a justification for that. The malt base is barely present, while the initial hop buzz doesn't carry all the way through to the finish. It tails off in quite an unsatisfactory way. I couldn't tell if it actually has an aftertaste or if that's the residue from the Newtowner two beers ago. I get what they're trying to do here, and it is an accessible number, even if it tastes weaker than the ABV. But it needs a balancing poke of bitterness. Perhaps blending it with Newtowner would have given me the beer I wanted it to be.

With India, Australia and the USA, there was a bit of a faded-empire vibe from the international collaboration line-up (Wetherspoon: who knew?) but France also featured, and Britain didn't used to own most of that. The brewery is Nice's Blue Coast, and they sent Monsieur Paul Reilly to Bateman's to brew Blue Coast Ambrée, an amber ale of 4.8% ABV. It's on the dark end of amber, and maybe that's why the first flavour I noted was Ribena: a hedgerow berry tartness. Very dry and woody tannins follow soon after, while the initial fruit acidity turns sweeter and more jammy. I thought there would be more of dark malt's toffee and caramel but it's a very dry affair. I appreciated that it's different to the rest of the festival line-up, but that raw dryness made it a bit of an effort to drink.

At the same strength, two pumps over, Atlas: a blonde ale by Lancaster Brewery. Amarillo, Citra and Jester give this a resinous new-world aroma, though the flavour pulls things back to be altogether more English. There's a delicate peach and bubblegum fruitiness up front, turning more earthy and serious in the finish. It has a full and bouncy mouthfeel, so isn't one of those golden English ales trying to pass as lager. As it warmed, the bubblegum turned to fabric softener so I was glad there was only a half in front of me. It's a good example of its style, though, offering flavour complexity and a kick of bitterness, getting the balance exactly right. It's not one to sit over, however.

The next two I think were tapped the wrong way round: the amber one should be the amber ale and the pale one is, I'm guessing, Maxim Cashmere. I like a bit of Cashmere hop and thus was bursting with it, all rosewater perfume, pomegranate and peppercorns. It is not as other hops. The base beer is nicely full-bodied for only 4.3% ABV, helping carry the hop fun. This is fruity, flowery and spicy all at once, and highly enjoyable.

With its dramatic boys'-action-comic pumpclip, Evan Evans Storm Runner brought some drama to the bar counter. This is a 4.4% ABV amber ale, and quite a plain one: light to the point of watery and only vaguely fruity, with no more than hints of lemon zest and soft melon. It does have a tannic dryness, so is nicely thirst-quenching, but there's not much to hold one's attention while drinking it. The malt is inappropriately absent for the style.

My festival finisher was a pint of blonde ale by Orkney Brewery, called Wave Breaker. I think this is the right beer: it's certainly blonde. There's a light biscuit malt side, with a pleasant grain crunch, and then a sweet bubblegum or candy hop flavour. It all seems quite playful and innocent, except for a persistent pithy bitterness which at first I took for a leftover from the previous beer before realising, half way down my pint, that it's part of this one. It really adds an edge, and gives the beer some welcome bonus complexity and balance. It's still a blonde ale, but bolder and more distinctive than most. Like Lancaster Atlas above, it isn't chasing the lager profile and is very much its own charming thing.

I called a halt to proceedings there. Overall, not a bad showing, the curve having a handful each of beauts and clunkers, but lots of very decent drinking beers in between. And I appreciated only requiring the services of Keavan's Port and The Silver Penny to keep me occupied.

Next, the line-up for October to December's guest beers has been published, with more to explore in there.