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.

Full immersion

I was back in England for yet more family business a couple of weeks ago. This time the destination was the most genteel city of Bath. It's not exactly known for its quality beer offer, but I think I made out OK, and had no trouble finding decent pubs and decent beer. Indeed, I didn't put much effort into it, which is why you don't have to tell me about places I don't mention.

Stop one was not an Austenesque tearoom but an Indian restaurant: Bikanos, across the river in Widcombe. I had a pint of Cobra, meh, and then noticed they had a draught beer not on the menu, so presumably the illuminated keg font is new. Eazy is a Camden Town beer I'd never seen before. The name appears to be a squirmingly awkward pun on "hazy", because it's a hazy IPA. 5% ABV seems a little on the high side for what England regards as easy drinking. They've more or less got the flavour basics down: an inoffensive blend of ripe mandarin and a rub of garlic, the latter to complement your naan. Its mainstream credentials are shown in the barely-hazy copper colour, fairly typical of hazy IPA made by breweries with no enthusiasm for something they've decided to brew in vast quantities. Where it excels, however, is in the texture. It's beautifully soft and unfizzy, adding to the flavour's richness and suiting the food particularly well. I don't know if restaurants are its main stomping ground, but I can see why they would be. These days, Camden Town tends to make broadly reliable accessible beers, and here's another one. Where next?

My lodgings were at The Black Fox, a sparsely-furnished, broadly maritime-feeling pub at the edge of the old centre. They like to stick with local beers and I had a cask pint of It's Gonna Be May from Bath's own Electric Bear. This is another hazy one, though properly easy at just 3.8% ABV. The texture is nicely smooth, making for a very sinkable pint. There was something very strange going on with the hopping: a coconut and fruit sweetness that hits hard in the foretaste and lasts all the way through. Turns out it's done using Sabro with Azacca, which makes sense. It works. This is undemanding, like the beer before it, but has bags more character. I don't know how far from Bath Electric Bear gets, but I'll be watching out for them. Modern twists on traditional British brewing don't always work, but on this evidence they seem to know what they're doing.

Not far up the street from here is Bath Brew House, which I visited last time I was in town, almost a decade ago. It hasn't changed much: still a bit of a drinking barn with a roomy beer garden out back. But their heart's in the right place as regards the beer they brew.

Seeking refreshment, I started on Valkyrie, their take on Kölsch, kegged. I wasn't expecting much from this but was wowed, right out of the traps. It's mostly clear and a slightly dark shade of golden, the recipe leaning heavily into Vienna malt, I'm told. While it's perfectly clean (and not all brewpub lagers are) it's not crisp, wearing instead a subtle yet delicious cookie-like sweetness. This matches an almost creamy low-carbonation texture. I found it to be a great session starter, but equally there's enough to keep one interested here for another pint or two straight after. Just watch out for that 5% ABV, English lightweights.

After that, I thought I would try my luck with another kegged one: Avena, BBH's stout. This is 6.2% ABV so I opted for a half, and was glad I did. In the glass it's a dirty brown colour, and without nitrogen the head looks quite forlorn. The badge doesn't advertise it as a milk stout, but it appears to be one: intensely sweet with the added tang of salt one gets from milk chocolate, building to an unpleasantly sweaty tang by the end of just the half pint. In its favour, it's not heavy so it doesn't get cloying, but it was still tough drinking for me. A little drying out with some balancing roast would have helped it a lot.

Over to the cask taps, then. Senator is a table beer, which is not something I've seen on cask before, I think. At 3.2% ABV it's not massively different from several mainstream bitters, I suppose. It's a hazy pale yellow and does have an excellently full body, given that very modest strength. Lemon cookies open the flavour, building in bitterness as it goes, and properly sharp in a stimulating, mouth-watering, way by the end. I got both crispness and chewiness from it, making it an excellent all-rounder: full-flavoured and not at all compromised.

Last time I hadn't noticed just how much of a rugby town Bath was, but it very much is. Bath Brew House made a special bitter for the 2024 Six Nations. They called it Victory. LOL. It's 4.3% ABV and amber-coloured. Brown bitter, then? Technically yes, but they've made a great job of it, packing in fresh and leafy green English hops, set on a superbly refreshing dry and tannic base. A tiny bit of peppery spice finishes it with a flourish. It's another very moreish beer, on the plain and unchallenging side, but utterly delicious in that way good bitter does so well.

A big ol' IPA to finish the session here: Hercules, labouring away at 6% ABV. This one doesn't seem to be in the English style, having big and bitter citrus notes up front, leading to harder resin and pine later on. It's a west-coast Hercules then. The zest keeps it drinkable and the malt side is restrained, not bothering with balance, and not really needing to. There's a certain spiciness which I would say is more English, but otherwise it's American all the way, and beautifully done. Here we have yet another fantastic drinking beer, though one with a hint of danger too.

Stout aside, I could have very happily started from the top once more for another round of everything, but it was time to move on.

That brought us to another pub we'd been in before, Bath's famous The Raven. I chose a porter from the wickets, named Captain Pigwash (yum yum), brewed by Potbelly in Northamptonshire. It's a bit of a sticky affair: a full 5% ABV with loads of roast plus a smoky, rather phenolic, twang. At times it felt like drinking a barbecue marinade more than a beer. I got through my pint in due course, but it's not one you can rush. I think I prefer my cask porters to be more easy-going than this, not that I'm in any position to be fussy about such things.

And in a reverse of the norm, herself went with an IPA of 5.1% ABV, called Falcon Punch, supplied by Essex's Brentwood Brewing. The name is from its use of the Falconer's Flight hop blend, which I haven't seen mentioned in a while, plus Mosaic and Citra. Mosaic has won that particular fight and the beer isn't punchy at all. Instead it's soft and peachy, with dessertish meringue pie overtones. Perhaps the Citra builds into more of a bitterness on drinking more than the taster I had. As a hop-forward cask ale it still did an excellent job. Brentwood has had a couple of beers in the Irish branches of Wetherspoon over the years, but this is the first of theirs that impressed me in any way.

From the outside, I liked the look of Sam Weller's pub, nestled in among the winding streets of central Bath, and inside it's nice too, plush and comfortable with boutique hotel lounge vibes. The beer selection was modest, and I picked one from Black Sheep, perhaps one of the Yorkshire brewer's attempts at cool craft beer which landed them insolvent. It was a 4% ABV session IPA called Respire. It's far from all-American in character, however, the zingy citrus sitting next to a very northern waxy bitterness of the sort I associate with Timothy Taylor Landlord or Marble's Pint. It works well, in a best-of-both-worlds kind of way. If you want to treat it as a modern, hopped up, US-influenced pale ale, you can do so quite validly, but it's equally a clean and clear Yorkshire bitter with plenty of characterful punch.

Finally, The Star. This pub was only on my radar because I wanted to check in again with cask Bass, especially with the looming danger of Carlsberg-Marston's getting rid of it. The Star specialises in jugs of Bass served on gravity, and I had a pint, and it was perfectly pleasant, though I don't really get what all the fuss is about with this beer, other than its history. The pub itself is as traditional as can be: a series of tiny rooms, one with a tiny bar counter, tiny stillage and very large jar of pickled eggs. It's all kinds of charming, and on a sunny Saturday when downtown Bath was thronged, is just far enough out to avoid any undesirable passing trade. What would such types know of cask Bass?

It also seems to be connected to Abbey Ales of Bath, and serves their flagship, Bath Bellringer. This is a golden-coloured bitter, shading to amber, and 4.2% ABV. For all that it's lauded throughout the premises, it's a rather plain affair, offering little more than a simple squeeze of lemon essence -- not quite intense enough to be zest -- plus some waxiness and pale grains which lend it an air of pilsner, to my mind. I was unimpressed, and any patrons looking for a simple and decent bitter would be better served with the Bass. Up your game, Abbey.

Before leaving, I had another British take on American IPA, this time from Asahi Fuller's Meantime Dark Star, and called Revelation. It's another goldy-amber one, and a full 5.7% ABV. It needs that to balance out the very heavy and acidic hop resins, sharply bitter at first, then tailing off into a long citric finish. It's a bit of an assault to begin with, but I got used to it quickly, and was fully enjoying the beer by the second mouthful. For all the hefty punch, there's a certain amount of balance on display as well, those hops somewhat calmed by a chewy, golden syrup malt sweetness. It takes skill to make something that's this big but not difficult to drink at the same time. A revelation, you might say, if you wanted to end your blog post on a trite note.

Ahead of this trip I'm not sure I would have considered Bath as a weekend destination by itself, having been quite satisfied with it as a daytrip when based in Bristol. There's lots to explore beyond the famous sights, however. I could have punched in another day or two, having barely scratched the surface of what ciders it has to offer, for example. That's for next time.

My dearest England...

We two have been intimately acquainted for many years now so it is with a heavy heart that I compose this melancholic missive. I cannot escape the feeling that, as we have come to know each other better, our relationship has changed. Perhaps it is a maturing, a sign that our youthful frolics are now properly put away to be replaced with a more cerebral mutual understanding. I hope so. But all I can say now is that things between us are unlikely to ever be the same again.

I began to suspect this when I visited you last summer, but it only really came home to me during our most recent meeting, little over a week ago in Brighton. It is my newfound belief, England, that to be a ticker in you is pointless and unfulfilling.

Please don't take this the wrong way -- I still have the greatest respect for your beers and will uphold to the death your reputation for making tasty and sessionable ales. It's just, so many of them are so similar to each other that I now find little joy in picking new ones arbitrarily in the hope that they will excite my senses and inflame my passions. Maybe it's my advancing age which speaks, but they so rarely do either.

Let us start, as I did that sunny Wednesday afternoon, in the rustic bare wood surrounds of The Evening Star. From the Dark Star range available I opted for Solstice, expecting little more than irrigation for my travel-parched throat. In fact, it's quite a beautiful hop-forward golden ale: full-bodied and satisfying, redolent with succulent peaches and nectarines. Indeed it eclipsed even the Hophead which followed, a beer which has truly delighted me in the past but proved rather watery on this occasion.

Over the following days I sought out as many of the Dark Star range as I could find. Original is a seemingly quite strong porter at 5% ABV, though tastes light with a pleasant roastiness to it, let down by a nasty metallic buzz on the end. Festival is a brown bitter, endowed most unfortunately with a flatulent egginess redeemed only by a fruity raisin complexity. Returning to the pale, there is Argus, a very bitter pale ale which wears its hops deep, offering the drinker little by way of flavour or aroma. Solstice and Hophead i would return to willingly, and while I didn't feel I'd wasted my time with the others, I did begin to suspect that perhaps sticking to what I know and like may be a useful rule of thumb in your company.

Beyond this local fare, the Evening Star was also serving Thornbridge Hopton. "Ah", I thought, "here's a brewery whose beers deserve special ticking attention, so distinctive and tasty are they, by repute". But, while there's nothing wrong with golden Hopton per se -- it's earthily bitter with a hint of jaffa oranges, chalkily dry and finishing on burnt toast -- it's not terribly interesting and certainly wouldn't have me singing the praises of Thornbridge by itself. At the opposite end of the tickable scale, elsewhere in Brighton, there was cask Bass. Not expecting much from this I actually quite enjoyed it: dry again, sulphurous as a Burton bitter should be, but balanced by a sticky caramel fruitiness. As a solid and drinkable beer, it's streets ahead of its stablemate Marston's Pedigree. That I accord equal status to these beers -- one artfully crafted in small batches, the other mass-produced under contract for a large corporation -- shows me that your beers are not be be judged by their rarity or the craft credentials of the brewery. An unsettling realisation for the travelling ticker, I hope you'll agree.

The other Brighton pub I spent a bit of time in was The Victory, a charming little L-shaped hostelry with a tempting range of draught beers. Hepworth Pullman was probably the best of them: a nicely hoppy golden pale ale with some tasty bubblegum notes. Much better than the tired by name and nature Arundel Footslogger: flat, grainy and completely uninspiring. I had finally forsworn my ticking tendencies for our future dalliances by the time I got Gatwick, offering them one last chance with Exmoor Gold on sale there. The sharp-tasting eggy-smelling beer decided me that sticking with what you like is definitely the most apposite behaviour when venturing to imbibe beyond the Irish Sea.

Of all the beers I drank on the trip, I enjoyed none so much as the two pints of Harvey's Best I had on separate occasions. I will be turning to this, and Landlord, and Adnams Bitter, and Proper Job whenever I see them. I now need a reason to stray to the other handpumps.

I must bring my ramblings to close, fair England, and bid you adieu until next month when we shall be united once more. And please rest assured that I still hold your beers in the highest regard and you have a great deal to be proud of.

Your most humble, obedient and thirsty servant,

The Beer Nut

In which I run out of adjectives

The bottle of Irresistable Premium Ale from Chichester's Natural Brewing Company came from a random shelf-sweep in Sainsbury's. There was very little of interest and I took this just because I'd no idea what it was. With the rather drab labelling I wasn't expecting much from it

Following a sniff and a sip I was struck by a descriptor which suits it perfectly but is probably damn all use to the rest of you: this beer is beery. I think my concept of beeriness goes back to very youthful experiences of things like Bass and Smithwick's, most probably from cans. Like cigarette smoke, it's a very grown-up taste and smell, and is obviously lodged somewhere deep in my consciousness. I'll try and unpack it using my own grown-up beer vocabulary.

Beeriness is very close to skunkiness -- it's a pungent hops thing, though hops of the earthy, funky, and rather dry variety, rather than the zingy fruitsome sort. But there's also a light caramel malt thing going on too, a sweetness that I'm putting down to crystal malt -- the driving force in much late-20th-century Irish ale. And then there's a mild mineral undercurrent as well, perhaps related to the famous sulphurous Burton vibe, but a lot less pronounced. Put these together and you have something that tastes and smells like beer. It's quite rare, in beer.

Dark gold Irresistable adds honey-ish herbal notes to this -- that sort of dry waxy honey flavour with an overlay of tannins which you get in bitter like Timothy Taylor's (and in a much bigger way in Landlord). It's softly carbonated and has a satisfyingly chunky body, with 4.3% ABV. All together this makes it a marvellously drinkable beer -- understated yet complex; light but filling. A real pleasant surprise.

On an unrelated note, as Barry mentioned on Saturday, we've just taken the first step in setting up a beer drinkers' union for Ireland. You can read more about Beoir and its first baby steps here. And if you have a serious interest in helping ramp up Ireland's craft beer revolution, then give us a tenner and jump on board.

Lights by name

It's bilingual puns again today, I'm afraid. Sorry.

Solas is a bar on Wexford Street in central Dublin. It's a very up-market modern sort of place, big into its cocktails and achingly hip soundtrack. In short, it's the sort of fashion-victim lounge I generally avoid like the proverbial. Oddly, however, it has a very slightly better-than-average beer selection, though leaning towards the wit-and-weiss school of daring, with just a couple of Chimays representing decent ale. Bizarrely there's a Bass tap, something normally only found in slightly ropy suburban drinking dens and those frequented by even ropier Taoisigh. But I digress.

The first tap in the row dispenses a house beer called Solas Lite. "Solas" is Irish for "light" in the illumination sense, so somebody probably thought this was hilarious. Anyway, I have no idea who makes it or what it's doing there. The staff were as bemused by the whole thing as I was. What they could tell me is that it's a yellow lager, it's very low strength (3.6% ABV) and it's dirt cheap: €3.60 a pint. Cheap unbranded beer is not something one readily associates with this sort of bar. In fact none of those three words really fit in with the stoli-and-prada brigade. Nevertheless, the proprietors are proud enough of this to have had custom glassware made -- the engraving just visible against a black background (right).

Unsurprisingly, the intrigue around Solas Lite is far more interesting than the beer. It's bog-standard pale and gassy as hell. The flavour, such as it is, is dry and there's a touch of diacetyl which suggests to me that it may actually have been made by a human rather than a machine.

Being upmarket, Solas doesn't have a Bud tap, but this is pretty close. The colour and strength are wrong for it to be a simple rebadge, however. And yet an owner who has specially commissioned a beer and accessories is seemingly not enough of a beer enthusiast to have ordered something interesting. And yet it's been around too long for it simply to be a disguised batch of something else that didn't turn out as expected. None of it adds up, and I doubt I'll ever get to the bottom of it unless someone out there knows.

Anyway, here presenting Solas Lite: probably the dullest enigma in the beeriverse.

Ulster Reds

Northern Ireland hasn't been dealt the best of hands when it comes to beer. The dominance of Diageo and Bass meant that for years bar patrons had little to choose from between Harp and Tennents; Smithwicks and Bass. Things are slowly changing, however, with Kilkeel's Whitewater brewery leading the charge. Belfast Ale is the flagship, a red bitter which I found a bit rough round the edges. It's definitely complex, with hoppy bitterness and lots of fruit, but the bold flavours tend to compete with each other, making for an intense but confusing experience. Nevertheless, this is a conscientiously fashioned beer which hints of a time ages past when all beer tasted like this.

Moving up the ladder there's Clotworthy Dobbin, named after a legendary Belfast brewer, apparently. It's similar to Belfast Ale, but much more coherent. Bitter in the extreme, though smoother and altogether more rounded.

Still in Ulster, but far north and west of Kilkeel, there's a brewery on the Donegal island of Árainn Mhór. I had a chance to try their red ale Rua, which is a cloudy, bottle-conditioned Irish red, weighing in at a whopping 6% ABV. The result is an exceptionally bitter ale, full of green-tasting hops. After the initial shock, it's quite a pleasant, sippable beer. The other flavours -- fruit, candy, spice -- do come out from under the bitterness eventually, however there's room for a bit more craft and subtlety in this one, just like its counterparts from the east coast.

Weiss of the North

I never thought I'd see the day when Hoegaarden was easier to get on draught in Belfast than in Dublin, but there you go. Things have certainly changed in the city where beer was recently limited to Guinness and Harp/Smithwick's or Tennent's/Bass depending on who controlled the supply to that bar.

Amazingly, in the Duke of York, where one can get Hoegaarden, Stella, and Carlsberg (among others) on tap, people were still drinking Harp. What's that about? Still, people were also drinking alcopops so I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised it's a low-taste zone.

On the higher-taste front, while in Belfast I discovered an English beer called Curious Brew. It's a strange little dark lager, with distinct yeasty-aley overtones. One to be savoured (and not chugged down in the hotel bar at the end of a ten-hour session and after everywhere else has closed, ahem).

And just for the sake of completeness (which is what this blog is about), I also added Eisbrau Czech pilsner to my list of beers tried (something I will actually add to the side panel one of these months). It's passable, in the mould of Budvar. And, er, that's all I have to say about it.