Fruit and veg and ice cream

Time was, finding odd fruits, vegetables and spices in beer was a source of excitement for me. These days, I think we're largely better off without them. The wide-eyed innocence hasn't quite gone away, however, so when I spotted that Mad Scientist of Budapest had put out a beer made with spinach, I bought it immediately, against my better judgement.

My better judgement could see that Sippin' On Spinach And Juice is an "ice cream sour", so likely gloopy-textured and overly sweet. Still I was prepared to give it a fair shake. I wish I'd given the can a literal shake before opening it: what poured out was not homogeneous, starting on a watery green trickle, followed by thick pulpy gobbets, settling into the glass looking decidedly bilious: the dull grey-green of institutional vegetable soup, marbled by macerated leaf bits. It looks impressive, but awful.

The beer wasn't as sweet as I expected it to be, and is light-bodied too, reflecting its mere 2.5% ABV. A non-descript tartness is the first flavour manifest, possibly stemming from the kiwifruit in the recipe. There's banana too, and that's next, making it taste like a smoothie even if it doesn't have the density of one. It finishes quickly after that, with no sign of the spinach, nor indeed anything I could pin as ice cream. It's inoffensive overall, certainly once you get past the appearance. I hope I got some health benefit from it, because the taste didn't do anything much for me.

So it wouldn't be lonely, I picked another Mad Scientist beer in the same genre to go with it: Oolong Lagoon, made with peach, apricot and tea. It's only 2.2% ABV, and instead of vegetable soup, looks like carrot soup, which at least is a step upmarket. I was prepared for the thinness this time, and as before there's no vanilla or creaminess to impart the impression of ice cream. Oolong is the absent ingredient in this one: I couldn't find any part of it that tasted like tea. We're spared the banana, leaving just the stonefruit, which tastes tart, juicy and real.

The sour side is less pronounced in this, and while it doesn't have a thick, lactose-derived sweet aspect, there is a tinned-peach element, adding a certain degree of dessertishness. There's another abrupt finish, though the concentrated peach juice does make a return in the aftertaste. It's simple stuff, doing the basics but no more than that.

I really expected more drama from this pair than I got. The only really "wrong" thing here is the presentation of the spinach one; otherwise they're all a bit normal and plain. Their thin textures are where I really felt wrong-footed: ice cream should mean ice cream. I appreciated the modest level of actual sourness but I still won't be making a habit of drinking this kind of beer regularly.

Veering west

Time for another round-up of Irish hoppy beers. I'm not keeping count, but the west coast seems to be on the rise at the moment, whether that's a blip, a renormalisation, or the beginning of the end of haze's autocratic rule of terror. I know which one I'm hoping for.

First up it's The White Hag and the second in their Experimental Brew Series ("XBS V2", for all the tech bros out there): Grapefruit NEIPA. Wow! What will the boffins of Ballymote think up next? It's 4% ABV and very pale yellow with full-on haze, as one would expect. The grapefruit is not hop grapefruit, it's very real and bursting out of the aroma like a jet of juice to the eyeball. From that, I expected big grapefruit in the flavour, but the gravity lets it down. The first mouthful is watery and hollow, in a way that's totally unacceptable for an IPA invoking New England. The first flavour to arrive is dry and gritty dregs, then a little vanilla sweetness followed quickly by an unsubtle hop-leaf bitterness. The grapefruit is last in the queue, and while it's as fresh and authentic as the aroma, it lacks impact, so we're back to fizzy water in the finish. If the purpose of the experiment was to determine whether they should make more beers like this, my answer is please no.

A rare new canned beer from Trouble Brewing, Wouldn't It Be Nice, is a pale ale with New Zealand hops Nelson Sauvin and Wai-iti. It's a bright rose-gold colour and 5.4% ABV. A funky aroma of fermented grass starts things off, while tasting reveals quite a dry base, with more than a little tannin. The hops take a twin-track approach, with juicy tropical fruit in one stream, and then a bitterer vegetal side, all grass and spinach. I don't think it's as simple as one hop doing one thing and the other another, but the end result is nicely balanced regardless. There's a floral perfume finish for some added complexity. The dry side of it makes for excellent thirst quenching, and the invigorating bitterness helps too. This is classically constructed in the old-school fashion, and well suited to by-the-pint drinking. Though nothing fancy, it's quality all the way through.

Next it's Bullhouse in collaboration with Galway Bay, and the beautifully clear golden Old Crows. The ABV gets a boost to 5.8%, though that's probably not strong enough to class it as an IPA by American standards, which they have. The aroma is dry and spicy, like an onion bhaji, with a touch of kerosene. Heady. Crispness is promised on the can and it's as clean and crisp as it looks -- almost lager-like in its angular precision. They don't tell us what the hop combination is, which is a shame, because it's an odd effect. We're promised pine but it's a highly concentrated version of that, intensely bitter to the point of turning harsh and plasticky. I'm sure they meant it to be rock-n-roll extreme but to this old crow it just tasted unpleasant. I always preferred the west coast IPAs with a bit of a blush to their malt; by going fully pale here they have unbalanced the profile and it makes for tough drinking as a result. I'm reminded of the sort of tongue-burners produced by the IBU race of the 2000s. Try this if you have fonder memories of those than I do.

At the same strength is Third Barrel's Dead As Disco, also badged as a west coast IPA. I see maybe a bit too much haze for that to be strictly accurate, but it's an attractive sunset gold colour regardless. A resinous spice dominates the aroma, plus a sideline of tropical fruit which I wasn't expecting but is rather enjoyable. That spice leads in the flavour, a foretaste of peppercorns and capgun smoke. The fruity side of the hops arrives later and is only slightly citric, with a considerable tropical element. So with your lime and grapefruit, there's a bonus topping of pineapple and passionfruit. I'm not going to ding it for that: the effect may be an east-coast thing but it adds a very welcome complexity, and makes it a better beer than if it were just acid all the way through. The finish is clean, with just a hint of crystal malt caramel to round things out. This is pretty good. Though it doesn't show the precise bitterness of, say, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, it goes its own way, which is validly west coast but with an extra element of enjoyment too.

I'm taking a bit of a punt on the next one, as it's not specifically marked as "west coast" by the brewery, just "American pale ale", so I'm guessing west coast again. This is Renegade, created by Hope to mark the arrival of the NFL to Dublin, and siding with the "home" team for September's game, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Pennsylvania brewery Tortured Souls has been drafted in as collaborator, and the hops are an all-German mix of Hallertau Blanc and Solero. For all that, and 6% ABV, it's not an especially characterful beer. There's little aroma, while the flavour lacks the melon fruit I would have expected of H. Blanc and instead goes for quite harsh and green vegetal notes, cabbage leaf and kale, with a wisp of lemon zest on the finish. This may not have the full-on citrus and pine of the west coast, but it definitely has the punchy and uncompromising bitterness. The malt side is very low key, evidenced by the pale colour (10 EBC, fact fans) and quite a thin texture. Rather like the Bullhouse beer, I found it hard to get along with, and struggled with the unbalanced bitterness. I do at least feel justified in identifying it as belonging to the west coast genre.

No coastal indication is given on the latest from Ballykilcavan. Clancy's Cans #16: Gate Crasher IPA simply says it's "juicy", so I still expected it to be cloudy, and it was. It's quite a deep orange colour, and fairly fizzy, though there's a substantial body, especially for a modest 5% ABV. Fresh hop character is indicated by the pieces of hop leaf I found floating on the head when the beer was poured. The bitterness leads, however: an orangey pithiness, set on an expansive malt base. After a moment, the two sides coalesce into a sweeter orangeade or marmalade effect. It doesn't have the tropicality of most well-made hazy IPAs, and I had hoped the inclusion of Mosaic as a hop would have brought this. They've paired it with Amarillo, and even that isn't one I associate with this level of bitterness. I don't think "juicy" is an accurate description: it's very citric, sure, but in a pith and zest way, not juice. Maybe this belongs with the west coast examples too. 

At The Porterhouse one afternoon in September, I found two new Dublin-brewed double IPAs which I was keen to try. I started with Voodoo Child by Rascals. This is a clear amber gold,  putting us squarely on the west coast, though its 7.7% ABV barely counts as double in that context. Classic Mosaic, Amarillo and Centennial do their job, bringing bags of piney resin and grapefruit spice, overlaid with juicier mango before it's back to the pine for the finish. There's a little caramel sweetness from the malt, but only enough to highlight the hops, rather than  fight with them. This is very nicely done, showing lots of classic American hop quality given a modern kick which is fun without disturbing the fundamentals. Core range material, I reckon.

Two taps over was Disco Devil, new from Lineman. The ABV goes up to 9% here: nearly at the threshold of triple IPA. The aroma is innocently pithy, like Club Orange, and there's a bit of that in the flavour, but... The alcohol is well hidden, I'll give it that, and it took several mouthfuls before I twigged I was drinking a properly strong beer. The main flavour is quite dry, with crisp and husky sesame seed and a peppercorn spice. That's kind of it, though. In the finish there's the clean spirit burn which I used to associate with triple IPA before they went hazy, but no more hop character. It's all a bit basic and unexciting, lacking richness and resins. While it is clean and without flaws, this isn't how I like my double IPAs. As a caneable 9%-er, though, it can't be beat.

There was a late opportunity for redemption with the most recent Lineman release, Punctuate, a straight-up hazy IPA of 5.6% ABV. It looks like orange squash in the glass, so is broadly to style, while the aroma centres on a spicy dankness, hinting at citrus behind. There's not much of a fluff to the texture; in fact it's quite crisp, in a west-coast way, and is the better for it. Similarly, while there's a sweet element in the flavour, it's a sharper orangeade effect, not vanilla cream and (thankfully!) no sesame. Mosaic and Krush in the hop charge should probably have made it more tropical-tasting than it is, but there's only a mild seam of mango and peach, before we're back to the zesty lemon and grapefruit. Despite not adhering strictly to any sub-category of IPA, it works very well, being brightly and cleanly flavoured, balancing exotic fruit flesh against bitter pith, showing the most fun aspects of both. There's a spice complexity too, and yet it's not overwrought or busy, making for some excellent refreshment. Perhaps it's better suited to the summer, but I found it to be a ray of sunshine on a chilly day. Redemption granted.

Finally, the 12th anniversary celebrations for Galway Bay's Of Foam and Fury double IPA continue, with a Hazy TDH edition, wording that would have left us scratching our heads back in 2013. I can't actually recall what the baseline OF&F is like these days, so I don't know how much of a variation this is from it, but it is hazy, and a very modern pale yellow with that. It smells gloriously dank, tropical and citric all at once, thanks to the Simcoe, Mosaic and Chinook hops. The first surprise was the thin body: this was always a beefy fellow, but it's a bit watery in this iteration, despite being 8.3% ABV. With that comes quite harsh and dreggy hop bitterness, all tongue-coating acid and resin, plus a leafy, vegetal unpleasantness. There's a more enjoyable zesty side to it as well, arriving late in the finish after the hop dregs have faded. That's not much consolation, however. A hazy double IPA needs more than just a cloudy appearance; there should be a soft texture and some juice or sweetness too. Yes, this beer is derived from a very old-fashioned double IPA recipe, and it wouldn't be Of Foam and Fury if it had been completely re-engineered from the ground up. As is, however, it's missing the malt warmth of the original recipe, and isn't harnessing the benefits of modernisation. In 2013 we joked about the ridiculousness of overly-bittered double IPAs, wondering who could possibly enjoy them. Those who did have a new one to try here.

It does look like the American-style pale ales and IPAs brewed in Ireland are recalibrating. There's a new hazy amber sort that might claim to be west-coast, or might not, but doesn't resemble the clear crystal malt jobs of twenty years ago. I welcome the diversity, and will end by noting that it's not the style specs that count, it's how well it's done. Hazy or bright, let those hops sing!

Let there be stout

Winter is on the doorstep and isn't planning to leave any time soon. Time to get the stouts out.

Aldi kicks things off, tackling the Big G with its latest beer knock-off, Mulligan's. This copies the 4.1% ABV that Guinness Draught has in the UK, and is brewed at an unnamed British brewery, understood to be SEB Brewing & Packaging in Kent. It has a widget, and it's an eager little bugger, causing the beer to froth out of the can on opening, creating a much too thick head. There's a moderately sweet aroma, of caramel and treacle. The flavour carries that slightly sticky sense as well, but puts it up against an earthy, almost smoky, bitter side. There's a metallic, saccharine tang which becomes more prominent as the beer warms, though we're back to treacle again for the finish. It doesn't bear more than a superficial resemblance to the beer it's ripping off. It's more complex and flavourful, but not in a good way. The taste is quite jarring and a little difficult, as against the smooth blandness of Guinness and the other mainstream Irish stouts. It tastes cheaply made, lacking refinement, and even though it was sold for the minimum legal price, I wasn't happy to be stuck with another three cans of it. 

Going even more traditional is WhiteField. When they call a beer Irish Stout, they mean it. The 7.5% ABV here would be familiar to drinkers of pre-1917 Irish stout, even if it's far stronger than the norm today. There's a pleasing tactile sensation in prising off the cap and pouring a glass of pure black liquid, letting the cappuccino-coloured head form on top. The aroma is faint, but vaguely sweet, suggesting wholesome molasses and fruitcake. That element sits at the back of the flavour, adding a lighter touch to an otherwise quite serious profile. We are warned to expect smoke, and it's the heavy sort: bonfires and furnaces, almost acrid but stopping short of being unpleasant. There's a very wholesome roast, like brown breadcrust and charred beef, and then a dark and tangy liquorice and spinach bitterness. I'm pulling the various features apart here, but really they hang together beautifully, to create a highly satisfying drinking experience; filling and warming, as stout ought to be. This is proper stuff, and bears something of a resemblance to the stronger Guinness beers. I have a lot of time for this kind of thing, and would be happy if the words "Irish stout" denoted it more often than the lacklustre effort above.

Turning fully seasonal, next is Irish Ember, a "Christmas porter" from Brehon Brewhouse in collaboration with Bavarian brewery St Erhard, and presumably intended primarily for Germany as the label is mostly in their language. I'm guessing this was brewed for Christmas last year but it was still on the shelves in Martin's of Fairview where I picked it up a few months ago. It's another attractive pour, looking every inch the old-school porter. I couldn't find details of the barrel the beer was aged in, but from the honey-sweet aroma, I would hazard Irish whiskey. There are some sweet chocolate and coffee vapours too. The flavour opens on a woody, coconut effect, with overtones of dark-chocolate Bounty bars. It's definitely a dessert beer, and tastes stronger than its 7.7% ABV. The downside is the oak, which adds a harshness to the taste that I didn't care for. The chocolatey base beer and the sprightly spirit warmth are both excellent, but the wood sap element prevents it from being the majestically smooth winter beer it's trying to be. Regardless, it's enjoyable, and I can see it being well suited to dark evenings when something appropriately rich and warming, but not crazy-strong, is called for.

For crazy strong we turn to the Netherlands. Moersleutel has brewed Barcode: Nitro Blue with the assistance of Carlow Brewing, which knows a thing or two about making good stout. It's nitrogenated but without a widget in the can, so even after the recommended shaking and a vigorous pour, I got a flat-looking beer with a thin topping of brown bubbles. This system of packaged nitrogenation doesn't work. It's an especially strong fellow, at 14% ABV, and the aroma is very spirituous -- port and brandy barrels have been employed, and it really does smell like the latter. No carbonation makes it soupy thick, like drinking chocolate sauce. The boozy brandy spreads napalm-like across the throat, lasting for ages. I get the impression that a lot of flavour has ended up locked in to the liquid here, but what I found was dark chocolate, runny caramel, hazelnut spread, and a non-specific black liqueur. All of it is loud and simplistic, with no subtle topnotes or counter-melodies going on. In fact, it's all a bit basic. This could have been a good beer if they hadn't messed up the nitrogenation or, preferably, carbonated it. A beer of this strength will bring its own rich creaminess without any added nitrogen, and might be less difficult to chew through that way.

Stout, even in all its varieties, is a mixed bag. The geeks and raters fixate on the really strong ones; know-all pintmen regard 5%+ as dangerous rocket fuel. They're both wrong. 6-8% ABV is where the best work in stout is done, with barrel-ageing and odd ingredients not necessarily an enhancement. I'm glad we could get that sorted out early in the season.

Achtung, IPA!

For all the talk of the craft beer era having ended, one company who brought it to the unlikely locale of Bavaria seems to be clinging on. I have two examples from Crew Republic of Greater Munich* today, both in American styles, of course.

And of course they do haze now. Jackpot is the hazy IPA, a modest one at 5% ABV, and modestly hazy too. The aroma is an even mix of sweetness and citrus, like a creamy lemon dessert. It misses the mark on texture, being thinner than any hazy IPA ought to be, and reminding me of the early examples from Irish breweries, where nobody had quite got the hang of it yet. Though the citrus hops are still there, they bring only a token bitterness, which I guess is by design, but they don't bring much flavour either: none of the ultra-fresh spark, of juice and dank, that is the style's whole purpose. Instead, you get a limp and sickly vanilla sweetness and some floral-herbal bath salts, very much watered down. I fear Crew has not understood the assignment here, and made something which technically fits the specs for hazy IPA but is unconvincing to anyone who has drank one previously. The brewery was founded in 2011 and I think that they haven't fully adapted to beer's evolution since then. Maybe the next one will be better.

Drunken Sailor is a straightforward IPA, and the amber colour is altogether more 2011. There's still a little cloudiness, but not to New England levels. I hoped for more citrus but the aroma is all oniony, which gave it much less initial appeal. There's a proper American heft to this at 6.4% ABV, with that sticky toffee malt the old-school IPAs were based on. They then added a sparky citrus bitterness to that, but here it's more savoury -- the onions again -- finishing on a more orthodox hit of pine resins. This is absolutely true to the malt-heavy IPAs of the old west, but it's not an especially good example. Time may be a factor: they've put a 12-month expiry date on the can, and 11 of those had passed by the time I drank it. I suspect that there may have once been a fresher grapefruit or pine element to this, but it's gone now, resulting in a beer that tastes cooked and stale. Them's the breaks when picking randomly from off licence shelves. I wouldn't have it any other way.

There's promise here, and I am genuinely pleased that Crew are still at it, all these years later. I'd prefer if the importer shipped us more of their dark offerings however: we can do hops more freshly from our local breweries.

*Thanks to Andreas for pointing out that Crew Republic is now brewed by Bitburger in, obviously, Bitburg.

Block party

In August I returned to the Great British Beer Festival for the first time in ten years. I hadn't realised that it's also a full ten since I went to my local CAMRA festival in Belfast, although it hasn't taken place for a number of those. Last year it returned but I had a scheduling conflict, so I was determined to make it along this time, heading up north a day after returning from Belgium.

Gone are the days of the grandly-appointed Ulster Hall, and indeed the cavernous and draughty King's Hall. Now the venue is Banana Block, a bohemian entertainment space in the east of the city, within the same repurposed industrial complex as Boundary Brewing. Mercifully, gone too are the too-warm casks, with a properly effective stillage cooling system now in operation, and likewise no more antisocially loud live music. That made it much easier to concentrate on the beer.

The first one to catch my eye as I perused the list was Boddington's. Much has been written about AB InBev's revival of the classic Manchester bitter, now brewed at JW Lee's. Here's my chance to join the discourse. And... it's a disappointment. I never drank the classic Boddington's, only the nitrokeg version which survived into the noughties, but my understanding of this beer is that it was a) very pale, and b) very bitter. I further understood that Marble's Manchester Bitter is intended as a close recreation, and it is indeed both those things. What I received in Belfast was distinctly amber coloured and fruity flavoured, with noticeable strawberry and peach notes on a lightly tannic base. The texture is soft, not spiky. Above all, it isn't especially bitter. I mean, as a bitter it's fine, but is suspiciously close to what I remember about the JW Lees flagship. My theory is that this only works as a revival of Boddington's when it's poured beneath the distinctive canary-yellow pumpclip: that's an essential ingredient which was absent from the offer in Belfast.

I wasn't going to miss a rare opportunity to catch up with beers from Otterbank, and especially since The Magic Road took third prize in the festival competition, against two much stronger beers. It's only 4.1% ABV and is a rose-gold sour ale brewed with strawberries. There's a lot more complexity than that suggests, beginning with a technicolor aroma of peach and pineapple. There was lots of condition from the cask, meaning both aroma and flavour in spades. The sourness manifests in the latter as gooseberry with a softer touch of white grape and then a modest degree of sweet strawberry jam in the finish. It's easy drinking without being at all thin or sharp, and the multidimensional flavour makes for highly entertaining drinking. Definitely a deserving prize winner.

Otterbank also brought a session IPA called Grianán Gold, light even by the style's standards at 3.6% ABV. "Gold" suggests a paleness it doesn't have, being red again, and a little murky with it. The mouthfeel is on the thin side, which is perhaps to be expected, though it's another beer with excellent sparkling condition. I suspect there's been some wild microbial goings-on in this, whether intended or not. The aroma sparks with bonfires and gunpowder, while the flavour chooses bold peppercorns and oaky Rioja over hops. That makes it a little intense for the session, and not really an IPA, so you really need to leave questions of style fidelity aside. I still thought it was an excellent beer, however.

Top prize in the judging went to local outfit Bullhouse, collaborating with Lacada on a double IPA called Big Nellie. It immediately looked odd: an opaque pinkish shade, out of keeping for even the most deliberately murky of IPAs. Despite this, it's not in the least bit dreggy and has a superbly serious hop aroma, all citrus pith and weedy dank. The flavour goes big on juice, in the New England way: lots of jaffa orange, and then a fun hint of tropical coconut in the finish. Served on keg, it was especially cold, and I think that helps when the ABV is up at 8.4%. There was no heat or soupiness, just big hops followed by a clean finish. I'm not sure I would have ranked it higher than the third-place Otterbank, but it is fully deserving of a rosette of some sort.

I could have done better at exploring Norn Irish beers from breweries I didn't know, since the selection was superb, but my only new producer tick was Rough Brothers, their IPA. This is a clear amber colour and 5.6% ABV, drawing an immediate parallel with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. And it does have a certain amount of that one's resinous quality, but really not enough of it. A big IPA like this needs a matching punch of hops, and this didn't deliver, being clean and simple, but very unexciting. Had it been a point or two lower in ABV I would have let it pass, but I think I was within my rights to expect more. So, yes, you can make hoppy beer in the cask format, but you have to work a lot harder at it than this.

Time for more English beers next. I like a bit of rye now and then, and it seems to have gone somewhat out of fashion, so for old time's sake I picked Yomp!, an amber rye ale from The Park Brewery in Kingston-upon-Thames. It's certainly amber: a deep and luxurious shade of red. If that was supposed to convey a malty richness, it didn't: it's only 4.1% ABV and a little watery on it. Still, they've had fun with the hops, which say nothing in the aroma but explode on the palate with colourful flourishes of rosewater and lavender. The finish is dry and thirst-quenching, but arrives annoyingly quickly. I liked the basics of what they've done here, but subtlety doesn't suit it. I'd like to try a beefed up version; one with at least some discernible rye character, for one thing.

A Green Hop pale ale from Burning Sky? Well that's not something any sane person would pass up. Gimme. This is 4.2% ABV, a pin-bright clear golden, and... well... maybe it hasn't been the best year for hops or something. There's not much aroma, only the biscuit base for something else which never arrived. In the flavour there's a certain amount of flowers and grass, making it taste more like a basic Czech lager than an English ale, with a similar sort of quick finish. It's simple and inoffensive, but I found it rather characterless. I think this is another situation where cask demands more hops, especially if they're bespoke rather than industrially farmed and processed for maximum impact. It was worth a try, though.

Old ale is another rarity, and Sussex brewery Hand had one at the festival, called Kora. This is 5.8% ABV and a proper dark teak colour; lacking head but that's part of the character. The aroma is an enticing wintery mix of dark chocolate and red wine, while the flavour features espresso, toffee and honeycomb, on an appropriately chewy texture, very much designed for slow sipping. It would have been excellent were it not for the foretaste which is highly autolytic: a savoury soy sauce effect that clashes badly with the sweeter aspects. I guess that's acceptable within the style parameters; that if you're going to make a beer old, it is going to autolyse. I think it needs cleaning up, however. Enjoyment of the finished product is far more important than the process of making it.

That's all I had time for, and it was back to the station next. Luckily, John had nipped around to Boundary for some cans before we left, and was kind enough to share them on the train.

Monkey Tennis is a hazy pale ale of 4.5% ABV. There's little here which doesn't feature in a million similar beers, starting with the garlic aroma and hint of dankness. In the flavour, there's not much, but it has body enough to carry some vanilla up front and a kick of lime bitterness on the end. The lack of plasterboard grit was a bonus, but honestly I don't think haze works well at low gravity, and needs the big silky mouthfeel to function properly.

And finally a west coast IPA called The Best Kind of Correct, though I'm not sure that 5% ABV is any kind of correct for authenticity. It is at least clear and golden, and has a wonderful fresh and leafy hop spice aroma, suggesting resinous bitterness to come. Unfortunately, it fluffs the landing, and instead of pine and grapefruit there's a massive kick of raw white onion. That's sharp and clean in its own way, but rather savoury and sweaty at the same time. Maybe this, too, needs to be a bit less Irish about its ABV and go all in for the heft. Is stronger than 5% really so much of a hard sell for a brewery like Boundary?

I will leave the day's proceedings on that question. It was a fun day out. Thanks especially to Ruth and the squad of volunteers from CAMRA NI, as well as those who came from further afield for the event. I've been hearing nothing but doom and ruin regarding CAMRA since the summer, and this event was a reminder of what it does well and why it's worth rescuing.

Sweet and sour

Two recent releases from Belfast's Bullhouse today, beginning on their collaboration with Garage Brewing from Barcelona. It's been given the fitting Ulster-Spanish name of Aye Caramba and is a hazy pale ale. It's a smidge on the dark side for that: a rich shade of orange rather than custard yellow, though the aroma is as bright and juicy as one could wish for. It has the full and smooth texture of the style, not compromised by the low-ish ABV of 5%: there are breweries making stronger IPAs which lack this level of substance. The flavour doesn't quite go all out, however, offering only a mild citric juiciness and a slightly sharper note of fried onion. Still, it's very refreshing, with a cleansing fizz to offset its sweet side. While not a stand-out beer, it's a decent example of what it is, and sometimes that's enough.

The other one is a little more involved: a soured cherry ale called Splooosh. They make a claim to it being a table beer, though it's all of 4.5% ABV. I loved the deep purple colouring, topped with an electric-pink layer of froth. My assumption was that it would be sweet, but the aroma gives little away, smelling sharp and grainy, not really like cherries. That doesn't come through until the flavour, and it's no sugarbomb, leading instead with a dry and tart cherry note, all tannic and puckering. The fruit rounds out a little as the beer warms, and it's definitely recognisable as real cherry, but doesn't have the multi-dimensional quality of an oude kriek, for example, and here's where barrel-ageing would likely have helped out. I was glad to find a fruited beer that claimed to be sour was actually sour, and quite enjoyed the intensity, though more cherry character would have improved it.

No world-shakers here, but a couple of very decent beers. Bullhouse remains a credit to Belfast. You may have noticed the CAMRA festival glass I was drinking them from, and I'll have a report on that event for you on Monday.

Of wolf and boar

There's something a bit medievally heraldic about Wallonese breweries and their wild beast avatars. Today I'm visiting two of them.

Brasserie Minne is one I've encountered before, in Brussels bar Gist. The brewery itself is not far out of Marche-en-Famenne, where I was staying for this year's Brussels Beer Challenge judging. That said, it's still quite remote, and based in a very utilitarian industrial park, so I don't know who is making the effort to come and drink in the compact but well-appointed two-storey taproom. The company logo is the wild boar (sanglier, en Français) and it features heavily in their branding.

The flagship, as far as I can determine, is Super Sanglier, a blonde ale of 4.8% ABV, and a distinctly unBelgian one, I thought. It has a lightly floral aroma but none of the fruit esters or yeast-derived spicing that I would expect of a Belgian blonde, even at this low strength. Instead, it's thin and dull, lacking even the cleansing crispness of a lager. I'm sure the brewery cares not in the slightest for puns in English (who does?), but I found this to be a massive bore.

Sangl'IPA is Minne's take on IPA, and presumably pitching for the American style, with a new-world combination of Citra, Cashmere and Wai-iti hops. It's quite hazy, and looks quite dark in my picture but is really no more than a medium amber, showing fully yellow in the right light. An inviting tropical aroma starts us off, though the astringent bitterness in the first sip was something of a shock. That softens quickly, however, restoring the gentle mango character, with a lightly tart gooseberry finish. It's not terribly complex for 6.5% ABV, but what's there is enjoyable, bringing some summery refreshment to another otherwise dismal November afternoon.

There was a promise of something more interesting from Vinum, the grape ale. Minne makes several variants of this, and I had the newly-released 2025 Gewurztraminer version. The wine variety has a signature floral character, and here it's heavily concentrated, with an intense pear and lavender perfume effect. I couldn't help thinking it has something of fabric softener about it, which is unfortunate. It's a stonking 9.5% ABV and quite cloying, even in small doses. If you're a Gewurztraminer superfan it might float your boat, because the grape side is unmistakable. Otherwise, exercise caution with this one.

A barley wine to finish, and a change of animal. My Deer is another one that comes in many forms; this is the 2025 Cognac barrel-aged version, given 15 months of contact with the oak. It's 12.5% ABV and all of that comes out in an immediately hot aroma and foretaste. It smells more like red wine than brandy, and the flavour has an oddly off-putting redcurrant sour side. This lacks the mature smoothness that barrel-aged barley wine ought to have, instead offering a rough acidity mixed with a cheesey funk. Although its heart is in the right place, the execution careens randomly. I would strongly recommend leaving this for a year or two's maturation in the bottle, though am far from guaranteeing it will be any better after that.

I feel a bit ungrateful after that, having enjoyed the brewery's hospitality but only one of their actual beers. Try the tripel and the stout instead: they're pretty reliable.

We go south for today's second brewery, almost to the border with Luxembourg proper. The village of Gouvy is home to Brasserie Lupulus, its clean and modern brewery across the courtyard from a rustic-styled bar and restaurant in a converted barn.

Our hosts welcomed us with what I'm guessing is their flagship, Lupulus Blonde. No half measures on the strength here, with the full 8.5% ABV of the classics. Maybe because it was served very cold, it tasted nothing like that. It looked proper, being indeed blonde and very slightly hazed, even on draught. The outline of the taste is correct too, with crisp and grainy cracker meeting a bite of grapefruit peel, but all is low-key and dialled back. I found it refreshing after the journey, but I doubt that's the point of a beer with this degree of heft. A high level of drinkability is usually a positive, but here it creates a paradoxical hybrid of dangerous and boring.

Lupulus Pils was the place to go next. I don't know how far it gets from the brewery but it seemed to me much more of a kellerbier than a pristine pilsner. That's in its favour, as is the fact it's not one of those metal-dry Belgian-style pilses. Instead, there's a gentle Germanic greenness about the hopping, all salad and celery. The balance is superb, with an invigorating bite of bitterness and acres of clean, crisp grain. I tend to use pilsner as a kind of test of a brewery's ability, especially when drinking at source. This one passed with honours.

There's a nod to contemporary beer trends with Hopera, the Lupulus IPA. There's maybe also a quick wink to the Belgian way of doing things, with a little hard-candy sweetness, but otherwise this 6%-er is clean and quite west-coast-ish. There's a fresh and zesty grapefruit aroma, and a flavour based on wholesome biscuit with gentle citrus layered delicately on top. The hops are maybe a little too muted to fool anyone into thinking it's actually American, but it's very clean and accessible, with a preciseness to the taste which reminded me of how German brewers tend to do IPA. That's a compliment.

Before leaving, I took a random chance on Jolly Poupée without knowing anything about what it is. It arrived bottled, described on the label as "modern red beer" and with an ABV of 6.671% -- the brewery's postcode. Hilarity! I've no idea what makes this "modern", because it has a lot in common with many an Irish red ale, though the better sort. The base is very roasty, with strange but welcome notes of coffee. This contrasts with sweet summer fruit, and strawberries in particular, before the grain reasserts itself for a dry finish. That ABV gives it a lovely smooth richness, and on the whole it's rather enjoyable. Where it fits into the rest of Belgian beer is a bit of a mystery, but perhaps it's what De Koninck might taste like if it wasn't chock full of disgusting diacetyl.

Apart from a side trip to Rochefort, where they had no new beers for me to tick -- disgraceful -- that was all the brewery visits of the trip. One of the competition stewards did bring a beer he, as Oldskool Brewery of Eindhoven, had collaborated on with the Weiherer brewery near Bamberg. It's a Rauchweizen, and I was quite apprehensive about that since the only smoked weissbier I know is Schlenkerla's, and I don't think it works -- the savoury smoke clashing badly with the sweet esters. This one was altogether better, and I put at least some of that down to the cask serve, giving it a beautifully soft texture and a subtle flavour, untroubled by busy carbonation. It's very much a weissbier at heart, centered on light clove and banana notes, while the smoke is barely noticeable at first, but builds gradually on the palate as it goes. There was a lot of it to go round, and a lot of building was done, but it never became excessive or difficult, being more sessionable than expected, even at a modest 5.3% ABV. Masterful stuff, and not a beer I would have even thought possible.

I didn't fancy trying to get to Brussels airport and home from Marche-en-Famenne directly, so broke up the journey with a night in Brussels. With some of my fellow judges I trooped along to Lord Byron where we shared a bottle of their house beer. It's from Lambiek Fabriek, a brewery I check in with only occasionally because I tend to find their beers too harsh, and it's a geuze with added blood oranges, called Bloody Byron. And it's good! Although bright Lucozade orange in colour, the fruit makes only a minor contribution, adding a mild zestiness to the picture. Otherwise it's a straightforward geuze, with a sizeable quantity of brick-like minerality and gunpowder spice. None of the brewery's regular roughness is detectable, so perhaps it's time I gave them a proper reappraisal.

The evening finished, as all the best ones do, at Le Coq. My signature move here is to check the specials blackboards first, and that got me L'Annexe's Saison de Bruxelles. It is saison cromulence in a glass, with all the right elements in the right places: light peachy fruit meeting a dry grain rasp. What more could anyone want? As it happened, there was some Saison Dupont in circulation too, and that was an eye-opening comparison. Though the beers are broadly similar, Dupont's is just bigger flavoured, with more of the almost tart dry aspect. L'Annexe's could hold its own to an extent, but didn't have the beatings.

Finally, an unfamiliar beer from De La Senne: Tabula Rasa, a 5% ABV pale ale, brewed in collaboration with French brewery Cambier as a fund-raiser following a devastating fire. It's the pale hazy yellow of grapefruit juice, and tastes a bit like it too. The body is quite thin for the strength, despite the inclusion of rye, wheat and spelt in the recipe, and the citric bitterness is laid on heavily: a sharp workout for the gums. A couple of mouthfuls in, however, and I was used to it, and actively enjoying its punchy assertiveness. Amazingly, it's all done with French hops, tasting classically American. Regardless, it's another very flavourful and pintworthy De La Senne beer of the sort we've come to expect.

And that wrapped up another highly enjoyable few days in Belgium. I feel virtuous for having explored the southern reaches of Wallonia, though I'm not sure I'd recommend it to anyone but the most dedicated of Belgophiles.

Dennis Kort serving his Rauchweizen in Marche-en-Famenne town square