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To Urban Brewing, where strictly speaking there were more beers than I had time for. I had to deploy the seldom-used flight protocol: just wee glasses, thanks.

The first was Czech Pale Lager. The description wasn't more forthcoming, but it's 5% ABV, so I guess it's a 12° ležák, in Czech terms. It's properly clear and golden, and well able to hold a head, even in the taster glass. It seems the brewer has studied how Pilsner Urquell is loaded up with diacetyl but gets away with it, and decided that they want a piece of that action. The bang of butter off yer wan, starting on an aroma that's pure Kerrygold and candyfloss, and quite off-putting with it. The flavour begins clean and plain, but after a second the sweet side comes roaring in and does not stop. Urquell offsets this with generous amounts of Saaz hops, and while I detect a certain grassiness here, it's nowhere near a counterbalance. Maybe with a proper measure I would have got used to the butter, but this sample would get some seriously constructive feedback on the lager basics if it showed up at a homebrew competition.

Next to it is the tautological Weissbier Hefeweizen. It's not very hefe, being only barely hazed. It's a decently strong 5.1% ABV but feels very light and is simply spoken. There's a mild smear of squashy banana and a pinch of clove spice, but all quite low-key. After the diacetyl onslaught of the previous beer it was something of a relief. You get a proper weissbier flavour profile and generous champagne-like fizz, but in a light and easy-going package. I missed out on the Urban Brewing terrace this summer, but this would have been the ideal beer to enjoy on it, from a proper half-litre vase, of course.

Urban's English IPA is 5.6% ABV, so White Shield, then? Not quite. It feels a bit like an American brewer's idea of English IPA: "they don't really put hops in them". This beautifully bright rose-gold chap is heavy and grainy, almost leaning to the syrupy Special Brew side of malt-forward. There's nothing I'd call hop flavour, exactly, but there's an effect, a dry metallic rasp with a tannic bitterness and a silage funk. Letting it sit on the palate, it suggests some marmalade and lime pith, but that's faint. Still, it's not bland, and the mineral tang lasts pleasingly long into the finish. It's wonderful that Urban has decided to make one of these: few would. However, I'm not going to be demanding it as a regular. There's a reason this kind of beer went out of fashion, once hops had got better.

The flight landed with Cherry Saison. I thought this was going to be pink but it's a much more grown-up dark copper colour, and 5.1% ABV. A slightly liqueurish sweet cherry aroma starts us off, contrasted by a surprise spice in the foretaste. This tastes like lambic! It has a gunpowder pop, followed by more traditional saison straw and burlap dryness. The lambic theme continues and concludes with a hard waxy bitter finish. Cherry? I'm guessing whatever ravenous savage of a yeast they used put paid to any actual cherry flavour. But this is a beauty nonetheless. Some "oooh, I'll have the cherry beer" punters will be getting a shock. Serious mixed-fermentation heads can nod solemnly, secure in the knowledge that Urban Brewing is still our space. Sometimes.

Four beers on a flight and five on the menu: I had to pick one at the start as my finishing pint, and I went with the German Pils. There's a little haze here, but that's OK, and the head is appropriately fine and frothy. I was three beers past the Czech lager, but the diacetyl fairy has visited again, and here it's much less excusable. A bit like in the English IPA, the hops are more dry and mineral-like than actually flavoursome, and they don't stand up well to the central butterscotch. I thought that 5.3% ABV would add richness but it's just stodge, taking further from any sense of crispness that ought to be the hallmark of German-style pilsner. This isn't a bad beer, but as a small-batch take on German pils, it's not a great effort.

Big props to any brewpub that doesn't have a hazy IPA on the roster in this benighted day and age. And that saison is exactly the sort of surprising playful fun I enjoy from this brewery, and high-turnover brewpubs generally (we'll miss them when they're gone; support your local), but maybe lager isn't Urban's milieu, and putting them out two at a time is not a good idea.