Passing for normal

Hungarian brewery Mad Scientist makes one of its sporadic returns to these pages today, with the two most normal-looking things from the most recent tranche of releases. The question before us is: how do they fare at making beer-flavoured beer?

What better test than a central European lager, though that should be the easy setting for a central European brewery. To assist, Mad Scientist has availed of the help of Radim Zvánovec, Budvar's global brand ambassador, who should know his way around the style at this stage. The result, worryingly, is called Bohemian Madness. It's properly golden and with a fine white head, although it's also quite hazy: definitely at the unfiltered end of this style. The aroma is sweet and a little syrupy, where I would have liked a fresh grassy bite also. I had noticed the can was a little squashy, and sure enough, the carbonation is very low here, with a cask-like fine sparkle rather than cleansing lager fizz. The flavour isn't too cleansing either, loading up on malt sweetness to almost toffee-like levels and utterly insufficiently balanced by any hops. Only a slightly harsh rasp at the back of the throat, delivered after the sugar has subsided, is the only clue that hops have been used at all. This is a very poor effort and it does no credit to Budvar to be associated with it, even if their name doesn't actually appear on the can.

Beer two isn't exactly a normal beer. It's a milk stout, and we all recognise what that is, but in the usual spirit of misadventure, Mad Scientist has added spruce tips and honey to Yvler the Creator, a beer that pours a beautiful shiny black with a handsome continental head of old-ivory foam. The spruce is surprisingly present in the aroma, adding a floor-cleaner grade of eye-watering pine and lemon zest, and a spritz of dry ginger-ale spice. I'm confident that the beer can hold that all in check, however, as it's a full 8% ABV. The texture is indeed thick, and there's a strong chocolate and vanilla dimension, as befits the style. I think I can pick out the honeycomb-candy of the honey too, but above all of this, there's the same sap and spice that dominates the aroma. It's disconcerting at first, but I enjoyed it. The bittering effect of the spruce helps balance the caramelly sweetness, or at least distracts from it. Although the beer coats the palate, the finish is as much Caribbean ginger fizz as it is smooth chocolate. The two sides don't meld, but the contrast is so stark as to make the beer shockingly enjoyable. This recipe was a gamble, but it paid off for me.

The point, then, is that Mad Scientist should stick to adding weird stuff to beers (and meads) because their heart isn't in it for anything straightforward. Lesson learnt.