One-twelfth of a tree

Beer made with a proportion of waste bread in the grist isn't new. Babylone IPA from Brussels Beer Project was the first to come my way, back in 2015. Rascals did it, St Mel's (RIP) did it, and now Wicklow Wolf has done it, teaming up with macrobakery Brennans to create Sliced Can, a 3% ABV lager. As if solving food waste wasn't enough, for every dozen cans sold they'll also plant a tree.

The beer looks like a very normal mainstream lager, being perfectly clear and golden. There's a proper lemongrass aroma, and while it's light-bodied, it's not horribly watery as I feared it would be. Even more surprising is the rich malt element in the taste, bringing a Helles-like cake and candyfloss effect. The herb and citrus hopping complements it, though neither lingers long on the palate.

Without the novelty recipe, this would absolutely pass muster as a tasty session lager, and I'm very impressed at the character and complexity on show, given the tiddly ABV. All this and it does good, too. Maybe I'll contribute a few more cans to that tree yet.

Bread of heaven

To Longford today, and a couple of beers from Longford Town's St Mel's.

The first is a new hazy IPA called My Twist. It looks like hazy IPA from a brewery that either hasn't got the hang of it, or doesn't care how the hype breweries do it, because it's orange and translucent rather than yellow and opaque. Hüll Melon, Azacca and Amarillo hops should bring plenty of fruitiness but it smells quite dry, with an acrid aspirin bitterness. A light body is promised, and indeed delivered: no big New England fluff here, and it feels much less than its substantial 5.2% ABV. The flavours on that are clean, but quite understated. There's a pinch of limey citrus and some sweet oat cookies, but nothing really jumps out as distinctive. I found it thirst-quenching, easy-going and enjoyable. And if it enrages a few insufferable hazebros along the way, that's all to the good as well.

St. Mel's is the latest brewery to have a go at using leftover bread in its grists. There have been plenty of great examples of this, going back to the first I ever tried: Brussels Beer Project's excellent Babylone IPA. This one, SymbioBeer Project No. 1, is a Belgian-style golden ale of 8.1% ABV so natuurlijk I poured it into a Duvel glass. It didn't look like Duvel, however, being a much deeper amber shade -- barely golden at all. There are lots of sweet esters in the aroma; headachey, like clove rock or marker pens. And that's the centrepiece of the flavour too, hot above all, but sweet too: hard sugary candy mixing with cinnamon and clove, plus some slightly nasty solvent as well. The clean digestible quality of real Belgian golden ales is missing from this completely. Those brewers, famously, create the effect by using fully fermentable sugars, so it shouldn't be surprising, perhaps, that bread as an adjunct doesn't give the same results. 75cl of this was tough going. I humbly suggest giving IPA a go for No. 2 in the series.

There seems to be a new air of experimentation on the go at St. Mel's. I'm all for it, even if the beers don't always suit me.

Any good breweries?

I'm occasionally asked by a prospective visitor which are the good breweries to visit in Dublin, and I have to explain that breweries as drinking venues isn't really a thing in Ireland the way it is in better-developed beer cultures, largely due to our restrictive licensing regime.

But things are changing, little by little, and a couple of Saturdays ago I set out on what passes for a small-brewery tour around Dublin.

Rascals is probably the nearest thing we have to a brewery and taproom in the city at the moment, and that was my first stop. They had recently added the first beer from their pilot kit, daringly named Pilot Brew 1. It's a pale ale of 4.5% ABV, with added peach, pineapple and mango. It was served exceedingly cold, but even then showed a lovely fresh and juicy apricot and mandarin flavour. It gets bitterer as it warms, an extra pithiness which is at least in part down to the yeast bite. It gets more resinous too, with a certain oily dank in both the aroma and finish. Said finish is short though, leaving virtually no aftertaste. It's pretty decent: simple and no nonsense, with the fruit embellishment keeping its head down and letting the hops do the talking.

Pilot Brew 2 (subsequently titled Brown Sauce, and then Jamestown Brown -- make your minds up, guys) had just arrived and offered a delightful contrast. This is a dark and sticky brown ale, packed with molasses, dark treacle and bitter liquorice. It's an old-fashioned and serious beer, a million miles and a thousand years from milkshake fripperies and DDH IPA TLA alphabet soup. Again it was too cold, but again the texture really benefited from a bit of warming up, becoming chewy while no less bitter. Half way down the pint I was shocked to learn it's 7.8% ABV: there's no heat and no stickiness. A clean herbal bite finishes it off. Great job, overall.

Rascals also brews the local versions of the Toast franchise, adding good oul' Brennan's bread to the grist. The IPA is called Bloomin' Lovely, and the recipe's debt to Brussels Beer Project's Babylone is immediately apparent from the deep ochre colouring. The bread gives it a lovely full texture but the flavour isn't malt-forward. Instead there's a gorgeous fresh hop perfume, all rosewater and honeysuckle. This builds into a full-on Turkish delight effect as it warms, while also retaining a kick of bitterness in the finish. The UK version is a mere 4.5% ABV to this one's 6%, so your mileage may vary if you're drinking that instead, but I liked this iteration a lot: delightfully different to most any other Irish IPA.

Last one from here is Whiskey Sour Stout, a gentle 4.8%-er. The emphasis is very much on sour, with a real attenuated balsamic bite going on. There's a little crisp roast, but that's about as stouty as it gets. The bourbon begins to emerge as it warms, bringing a more rounded vanilla warmth, but it's still all about that sour tanginess. Sour stouts are something of a rarity, and I wouldn't count myself among the style's major fans, but one every now and then doesn't hurt.

From Blackhorse to Connolly on the Luas, and the next stop was Urban Brewing where I met my old mucker Dr John. I hadn't been to Urban in ages so pretty much everything in the line-up was new to me.

John had been on the Mandarina Session Pale Ale but wasn't enjoying it. From a taste I could see why: there's a harsh and cloying perfume flavour; a sting of nutmeg and raw clove. For something that's only 4% ABV and meant to be refreshing, it really didn't work. Points in favour for the happy Fanta aroma; marks off for the mucky yellow appearance and poor head retention. I don't think this was technically flawed, just that the recipe didn't work at all.

I had much better luck with my first beer: Urban's Schizandra & Bergamot Saison. I don't think I've ever seen a schizandra, also known as the five-flavour berry, and I've certainly never tried it in a beer. The result is a beautiful deep golden colour and 5.5% ABV. There's an enticing honey aroma leading to a light, clean and dry saison, one with a massive hit of freshly-crushed peppercorns. I completely forgot it was a fruit beer because it absolutely doesn't taste like one. It's not madly complex, but the one thing it does is right up my alley, flavourwise.

Dark beers are a rarity at Urban, but this time they had a Porter available. Not a very good one, though. There was a lot of metallic saccharine in with the chocolate, making for something simultaneously too sweet and too bitter. On the plus side, the texture was decent, and it had plenty of heft at 5.6% ABV, but that's about all it had going for it.

A Session IPA to finish, sessionier than most at just 3.9% ABV. Like the pale ale before it, it's a worrying shade of orangey grey. The flavour opens well, with tangy citrus peel, but deteriorates quickly into a harshly bitter metallic thing, similar to the Porter, which I didn't enjoy. It is clean, and could even be described as refreshing, it's just not kind. A session would be out of the question.

Urban does seem to specialise in brewing a handful of absolute diamonds in amongst many much lesser beers.

From there it was a short hop along the Liffey to JW Sweetman where I finished my tour with a pint of their excellent porter on cask. Before long we should be able to continue the journey out to the new Porterhouse Brewery, once they're ready for visitors in Broombridge. Dublin has a way to go yet as regards brewery tourism, but it's getting there.

Project expansion

EBCU business brought me to Brussels in mid-April. The Thursday night rendez-vous was at Brussels Beer Project, and I was looking forward to returning. On my previous visit in 2015 the taproom was still in set-up mode; now it's in full swing with a huge range of their own beers on tap and bottled, merchandise and takeaway at the front of the shop and seating available amongst the barrels out back.

I began my explorations with Jungle Joy, a blonde ale with added mango and passionfruit. This goes heavy on the fruit juice but stills retains its essential beeriness, offering a fun and refreshing blend of bitter and sweet notes. The stated ABV is a substantial 6.6%, yet it's light and approachable. I can imagine it getting a little sickly after a while, but a small taster really brightened my evening.

The fruit buzz continued with Rise Again, a grapefruit pale ale. This is a pleasant clear amber colour with a heavily dank and resinous aroma. Sweet sherbet begins the flavour and is quickly followed by the herbal resins, finishing on a sharply metallic aspirin bitterness. The grapefruit doesn't make much of an identifiable contribution, being utterly dominated by the big hops, and that's probably for the best. It is just a little too heavy, overall, turning cloying and sticky very quickly.

There were four intriguing-looking experimental beers on the menu and I decided to get them as a flight to try them side by side, and save myself some walking.

#Exp0040 was described as a "smoked blond milk stout", which I'm sure the brewers found highly amusing. It arrived a clear golden colour and smelling very dry and smoky. As expected, the flavour was strongly smoky too, and quite acrid with it. There was no lactic side, just a slight stickiness. Overall it's just an average effort at a smoked ale of the sort any mediocre home brewer could turn out. Experimental indeed!

Moving on, #Exp0043 was described as a tangerine Belgian ale. There's a strongly spicy perfume from this amber-coloured job, and it tastes primarily of talc: all powdery flowers. A gentler and softer mandarin note hovers in the background. It's OK, but not the best tangerine or Belgian-style beer I've ever had.

Next in the sequence is, predictably, #Exp0044. This is an American-style pale ale, 5.7% ABV, and absolutely spot-on for the style. It's punchy and zesty first, with a juicy orangey middle and a bitter grapefruit finish. Pure, no-nonsense, quality.

The final one, #Exp0046, was listed as a "cherry sour" which I thought a bit odd for a Belgian brewery. Maybe "kriek" has too many fuddy-duddy associations for the cool kids of craft. Anyway, it's hardly sour at all, going very heavy with the cherry syrup. I got a hit of cheap red wine on the front, and then just sticky sweetness until the end, accompanied by an artificial metallic bitterness. All very substandard.

Back to the regular line-up, then, and I couldn't resist trying the vaguely Irish-themed Captain O'Connor, a red ale with seaweed. It's only 4.8% ABV and not terribly full-flavoured, but I liked what's there: crystal malt sweetness with a spicy salty kick, reminding me of salted caramel. Simple and enjoyable.

Staying on a low alcohol vibe, there was Red My Lips, a session ale. This is a dark orange colour rather than red, and tastes of hard candy with a bonus hop spicing. The texture is light and effervescent, and overall it's clean and decent, a little on the sticky side perhaps (the theme of the evening), but not overpoweringly so. I could well imagine a session on it.

Last orders brought You Want Me, the double IPA, though a light one at just 7.5% ABV. It's a bit light on flavour too, showing just some mild jaffa and a slight pithy bitterness. It's not heavily textured, boozy or sticky, which is all to the good, even if it does veer away from the style spec. I was really looking for something with more poke on which to finish my visit.

I did manage to squeeze one more Brussels Beer Project offering in late that evening on a visit to La Porte Noire, the renowned subterranean bar that had hitherto escaped my attentions. Soleil Levant is 5.7% ABV and brewed with jasmine and orange blossom. I got much more than that in its flavour and aroma, however: a veritable bouquet of honey, elderflower, apple and apricot. There's a considerable, and by now predictable, sticky weight to it, but it was fine as a sipper.

A mixed bag, then. So it goes with Brussels Beer Project, and probably always will. I like their commitment to turning out lots of specials, even if they aren't always brilliant. The taproom is a great place to explore what they're up to, in small doses. And there's always the reliable Delta, Dark Sister and Babylone core beers to fall back on.

More Brussels explorations tomorrow...

Brussels brewing

In Brussels for the Autumn 2015 EBCU meeting, I didn't mean to visit every operating brewery in the city. It just kinda turned out that way. I trod a path similar to the one Steve did here during the summer, though with more of the breweries actually in action. It's interesting to observe just how fast the brewing scene in Brussels is currently moving.

First stop as soon as I reached the city was Brussels Beer Project which had opened specially for delegates just ahead of its grand launch a week later. The taproom, on the edge of the city centre just beyond Sante-Catherine, is open Thursday to Saturday and the intention is to pour the brewery's own beers alongside selected guests. In a room behind it is the shiny steel brewkit and a handful of wooden casks with experiments ageing within. The plan, the founders told us, is to make around 20 different beers a year, collaborating as much as possible and becoming an integral part of beer in Brussels. Bottles of the first few new ones were on display but weren't quite ready for drinking so we made do with the last of the beers BBP has been producing elsewhere over the last couple of years.

Delta IPA and Dark Sister black IPA I've covered before; suffice it to say that the latter was on particularly good form and I hope the recipe makes the transition to in-house unscathed. My first was Babylone, a dark amber coloured IPA of 7% ABV with a fun gimmick in that 30% of the grist is made up of unsold bread they collect from bakeries. (40% is possible, said Dimitiri the bar manager, but inadvisable.) The hops are a transatlantic mix of Chinook, Crystal and East Kent Goldings and the end result a gorgeously thick and spicy beer, oozing bitter resins as it sparks with black pepper. I'm not sure how much I could get through in one sitting, but I wouldn't mind putting that to the test.

But there was another beer to try, namely Grosse Bertha, a hybrid of the German weissbier and Belgian tripel beer styles. It could pass for either on appearance and the opening impression is soft and wheaty like a weizen, incorporating the de rigeur bananas plus the sort of green celery effect that German hops sometimes bring to these. However, it's also 7% ABV and carries all the heat and spice you'd expect from a tripel as well. It fascinated me for a while, standing with a glass on the brewery floor, flipping my perception between the two styles like a lenticular picture. The problem arose when it came time to finish the glass and move on to something else: the flavour is so big and busy that it actually becomes difficult drinking quite quickly, especially if it gets warm. Sharing 33cl measures of beer is, of course, a dreadful abomination, but you might get away with it here.

Naturally the trip incorporated a visit to the city's oldest working brewery, Cantillon. It's undergoing a bit of a supply-side crisis at the moment, and though the range of beers being produced has never been greater, a lot of it seems to be confined to the brewery bar: off sales are severely limited, in both variety and permissible order size. The issue is one of space, we were told, and a new warehouse currently being prepared will go some way towards relieving it. Meanwhile, just one new Cantillon for me: Haute Densité. You can read the convoluted history of this one here, and it certainly lived up to its name, being 9% ABV and incredibly heavy despite the high attenuation. There's the characteristic earthy lambic funk alongside a very uncharacteristic sweet honey flavour, as well as an intense beeswax bitterness. Yet all throughout, there's a mature smoothness that ensures its drinkability. A lovely twist on good gueuze, and I look forward to Cantillon getting more experiments like this out on the market.

From the oldest brewery to the newest (or at least the newest then; these guys have opened subsequently with no regard for my publishing schedule), En Stoemlings is a two-man operation in a tiny premises by Chapelle station, not far from both Gare du Midi and Place Fontainas. The name translates roughly as "the sneaks", recalling the time before their commercial operation was quite as above-board as it is now. They make one beer, 125 litres at a time, and sell 80% of it at the front door of the brewery. The beer is called Curieuse Neus and is a 7% ABV tripel, available in 75cl bottles and on draught in a handful of outlets, including Bar Recyclart around the corner under the railway tracks. The beer is... OK. Workmanlike. The ABV is on the low side for a tripel but it's still surprisingly heavy. The classic tripel spices are present and correct though a touch of hot marker pen phenols on the finish compromises it a little. Decent for a first effort and I'm sure it's merely the gateway to greater things.

That just leaves Brasserie de la Senne, a relative brewing veteran at this stage. My first encounter with their beer this time was at Pin Pon, a charming little stand-up bar in a renovated fire station on Place du Jeu de Balle. Senne makes a house lager for them, which is also called Pin Pon. It's 5.2% ABV, a perfect clear blonde and with a slightly waxy pils bitterness but not much else to say for itself. Not made for the geeks, but that's OK: they're allowed brew beer for normal people to drink.

Not being a normal person, a couple of days later I went up to the brewery. It was Finnish delegate André's idea, and Reuben and I accompanied him to keep him out of trouble. The journey is a long one on the 82 tram through the heart of the Molenbeek district almost to the north-west edge of the city. You duck in behind a car wash, along the back wall of a cemetery and the warehouse is there at the end, past the industrial laundry. It's a large and busy space inside but they've boxed off one corner of calm with chipboard sheets and installed a bar and tables. And a merchandise shop, of course.

I started with Brusseleir, badged as a "sweet IPA" which, it turns out, means something brown and portery with lots of chocolate in the foretaste followed by a mellow hop bitterness in the background, plus a wisp of coconut, because why not? It wears its Belgian credentials in the aroma: an earthy and estery warmth, as might be expected at 8% ABV. Overall a very classy blend of English and Belgian flavours, and sure to piss off the people who still think the letters IPA actually mean something, which is good.

We'll finish with a final Senne beer in the hallowed hall of Moeder Lambic Fontainas. Schieve Tabernak is a hazy orange ale, mixing in pleasant peach and apricot with a less welcome savoury yeast bite. Good potential, but it could really do with cleaning up.

It does, however, lead us neatly away from the breweries and into the pubs: always a highlight of Brussels. A full account of what I drank in them follows next.