Belgian purge

All going well I should be just back from Belgium when this gets posted. It'll take a while to process through what I found to drink there so while I'm stringing those words together I thought I'd clear the Belgian beers that had been hanging around the house before I left. I'd built up quite a backlog of them, thanks to the good offices of my other half.

I started with Sheldebrouwerij's Hop Ruiter. It's a few years since I last had anything from them. This one is described as an "IPA tripel" and they're far from the first brewery to have elided those two styles -- I believe that honour belongs to La Chouffe. Appearance-wise, this could pass as either, being a hazy orange-ochre colour. 8% ABV and an aroma full of bright incense spices definitely say "tripel" to me. The flavours tilt the balance back again with mouth-watering honeydew and nectarine, fresh and juicy as you like. The quintessential spicy Belgian yeast is still there in the background, and builds towards the finish, but it definitely does a complementary job rather than conflicting. There's no real hop bitterness, nor big alcohol heat, making for a smooth and well-integrated experience. My balanced assessment is that it's a tripel wearing an IPA hat for marketing purposes, but that's allowed when it's this tasty.

Moving on to a set from Brussels Beer Project, another operation I haven't written about in a while. First up is Black Bird, a "black rye saison" brewed in collaboration with London's Anspach & Hobday. I wasn't sure what to expect with this and, after the first sip, I wasn't sure what I'd got. It's 6.1% ABV and as well as the rye, Carafa Special I and II and other malts, it has a suite of big-hitting US hops including Chinook, Centennial and Colombus. The aroma is a bittersweet mix of forest fruits and the flavour starts rather plainly with a porter-like creaminess, then dries off the palate very suddenly before the arrival of jammy strawberry and a green rye-grass rasp. The complexity is a little like that found in O Brother's amazing black IPA Bonita, though much toned-down by comparison. I had to work to find the various flavours and if I were drinking it without paying close attention it would probably end up seeming quite dull. Though there are of course elements of saison and rye ale and black IPA and porter in there, it doesn't really make much use of any of them.

The next beer is a double IPA though I'm immediately questioning its credentials at only 7.7% ABV. The name is I Like It Bitter and it backs that up with a claim of one hundred IBUs. This is the "Mosaic & Equinox Edition", which implies that there are or will be others. It seemed a bit flat on pouring, while also looking pleasingly gloopy. There's bit of a mouthfeel all right, though it avoids being unpleasantly hot and heavy: just filling enough. Both the aroma and the flavour tantalise more than they satisfy. The former has a mandarin flesh juiciness and gunpowder spice buried deep within, and I found myself inhaling great draughts of it to try and get the full effect, to no avail. Savoury yeast burr fuzzes out a lot of the same fresh orange-tropical notes in the flavour, and there's a sickly tramps'-beer sweetness that slows down the appreciation of it. I can sense those top-notch hops at work, but big, strong and yeasty is not an environment that suits them. Were White Hag ever tempted to make an imperial Little Fawn, this beer is a clear indication of why that's a bad idea. You want a clean light base for your spritzy tropical hops. This tries to supercharge them with malt and fails miserably. It's not even especially bitter.

I did a bit of a double take when I read the details on the back of Stereo Lips. On the front they call it a "hot rye IPA" and turning the bottle around this is unpacked, revealing rye, smoked malt, smoked chilli, vanilla and a combination of Cascade, Chinook and Sorachi Ace hops. That's a daunting line-up of potential flavours, though in a Twitter poll, 52% of you deemed it "not scary". It looks innocent enough, a deep orange colour with lots of fine fizz and a big fluffy head. Sorachi wins the aroma, pumping out its signature oily citrus peel vapours. This is a major component in the flavour, but it's matched by a hard plasticky taste which I think may be down to the chilli: I've encountered it in badly-made chilli beers before, though this time there's not even any heat. The smoked malt, rye and vanilla are AWOL as well. When the bitterness subsides there is a soft grape and elderflower fruitiness which is the saving of the beer. It's not bad, overall, but I think it could have been achieved with a much simpler recipe. That it's a three-way collaboration is possibly not unrelated to this.

With my appetite for smoke unsated, I looked forward to something more forthcoming from Smokey Li, brewed by Préaris and using Lapsang Souchong tea instead of your actual smoked malt. It's pretty convincing too, golden and sweet with a distinct and fresh tang of smoke. I'm reminded a lot of the classic clean stylings of Bamberg's finest. Rather than smoked ham it tastes of very crisp bacon, the flavour tailing off with a pleasing dryness. The amazing bit is that it's a gigantic 8% ABV and there's not an ounce of heat or malt weight to it. I could drink this all day, but that's probably not a good idea.

The next beer is tantalisingly one of a set. There's a tripel and a blond which I don't have, but this is La Corne du Bois des Pendus Black: 8% ABV and declining to give itself a style, other than, well, "black". It's not even black, either, more a reddish brown. The topping is a steady mousse, not dissimilar to the head on a stout, and it has the same sort of dense creaminess. The flavour is in that direction too, though very much on the sweet side, with milk chocolate and rosewater, building to a heavy perfume that sits uncomfortably on the palate. The sweetness increases as the beer goes, turning to saccharine, aftershave and some half-memory of lurid milkshakes from my childhood, made from chemicals that are doubtless illegal now. Anyway, it's not great. More than anything, I kept thinking it's unBelgian: this is not how Belgians normally make beer.

Moving on to a handful of beers from Caulier, a Wallonese client brewer which confusingly shares its name with an unrelated Wallonese brewery. I hadn't encountered many of their beers before and they only came to my attention now when they opened what is apparently a rather grand bar in Brussels Central Station. Hopefully by the time you read this I'll have been in for a gander myself, but I directed the missus to it a while back and she picked these up for me therein.

Caulier Brune makes much of its "low carb" credentials, which is a bit worrying as Belgian brune is supposed to be heavy and sweet, isn't it? This one is a rather pale red-amber, though smells fun: all wintery roast chestnuts, sweetmeat and treacle. It's not as busy on tasty but is perfectly palateable, and not far from an Irish red ale really: lots of fizz, some candy sugar, summer fruit and woody maple syrup. I was happily slurping it back and letting it quench my thirst when I noticed it was 6.8% ABV. Yikes! It doesn't taste anything like that powerful. I suppose this one should also get a ding for lacking Belgian yeast esters, but to be honest I really didn't miss them and was happy for the bonus cleanness instead.

The brewery's "premium" range all have a big 28 on the label. 28 Imperial Stout was next, an even bigger hitter at 12% ABV. It even smells heavy, a frightening mix of burnt toast, molasses, rubber and tar. Like the beer that preceded it, it's calmer when tasted. Not sweetness-and-light by any means but a more integrated blend of plums, tawny port, treacle and pipe smoke (Latakia, specifically, pipe fans). According to the label this was all achieved with nothing more than water, malt, hops and yeast, but the Caulier website says that this one also includes chilli and coffee: naughty to not say so on the bottle. Though I don't detect coffee notes beyond what's normal in a big imperial stout, there's is a growing heat in the pit of my stomach suggesting the warming caress of the chilli pepper. It's perhaps a little over-boozed but is great as a slow sipper. Pair with a decent cigar.

You didn't think this post was going to end, did you? I certainly had my doubts. But here's the last beer for today: 28 Brett, the 2013 edition, if that's relevant. It's 7.5% ABV and, when I finally wrenched the cork out, an ochre red-brown. The Brettanomyces yeast hasn't been too overworked in there over the last four years as it's still very sweet, tasting of hard orange candy and fruitcake in particular, with a pinch of oily coconut as well. The earthy funk is more present in the aroma than the flavour and from the initial sniff I thought I was in for something very like Orval, but that resemblance goes no further than the vapours. There is a faint Brett tang in the finish but it's more sour than farmyard, giving the beer a Flemish-red edge. Overall it's a bit of a bruiser: the substantial quantity of residual sugar means it's another one to take time over and share. On balance, though, I think I'd like my Brett beer to be Brettier than this.

That concludes the Belgian beers for now. There's plenty more where they came from, however. There always is.

Wickla!

I left off yesterday's post on the Irish Craft Beer Festival with one from Wicklow Wolf. This post delves deeper into the garden county to find more of what its growing number of brewers are turning out.

The newest is in the west of the county and goes by the name of Beaky Dargus. It's a crew of home brewers of Polish extraction, turned semi-pro, and launching at the RDS with a good-sized range of quite daring beers. Mostly quite strong ones too. At the bottom of the scale was I Am Single, a Cascade-hopped pale ale. It's light and offers a decent, straightforward hop bite, though does finish a little soapy for some reason. Their stout is called Black Beak Juggler and is a substantial 5.5% ABV. It doesn't taste it, though, being lightly textured, quite dry and with a touch of putty flavour. I suspect that this more mainstream end of brewing is not enjoyed by the team as much as the more outré side.

And that begins with Golden Melody, a golden ale at 7.5% ABV. Among the complex elements here are a similar soap to the pale ale, but also light toffee, a subtle melon juiciness and a smooth mineral soda finish. It's far more thirst quenching than it ought to be, and shows a nuance in its strength that reminded me of the way Belgians handle this kind of stuff. But then the brewers decided to pop it into a Scottish whisky barrel for a while, producing something they've called Turf Cutter, and with good reason. The base beer is almost totally lost under a massively phenolic peated-whisky flavour and aroma, with a dose of corky oak to go along with that. Subtle it ain't, but if smoke is your thing this'll get those endorphins flowing. And biggest of the lot is One Man Orchestra, described as a "whiskey barrel aged imperial Irish coffee milk stout" and there's really not much for me to add because it does all those things. I was expecting it to be hot and dense at 10% ABV, and bursting with vanilla too, but it's not. Instead there's a gentle but pronounced coffee flavour, a lacing of creamy lactose sugar and just a small measure of whiskey for effect. It's a mannerly beer, its flavours all very well integrated and beautifully smooth drinking. With this ability to do big, strong and barrel-aged well, could we have Ireland's De Molen on our hands? Time will tell.

Much fuss was deservedly being made about the long anticipated return of O Brother's magnificent black IPA, Bonita, but they also had another more toned-down new beer to offer at the festival. The Preacher is a session IPA at 4.6% ABV and based on their previous release, Max. Sensibly they've lowered the bitterness somewhat and this lets a lovely lemon citrus flavour shine through in it. A chalky mineral quality opens it before the hops start to build, the lemon turning to sharp and invigorating rind by the end. It still takes a moment or two for the palate to adjust to the bitterness, but the beer becomes very nicely gulpable once it does.

The county's eponymous Wicklow Brewery had Gingerknut on tap when I rolled up to their bar. This is one of their regulars but it had so far eluded me in Dublin. It's a simple little chap, a hazy orange pale ale at 4.4% ABV in which the ginger flavours are used to great effect, bringing a gentle old-fashioned spiciness, like ginger biscuits, without any of the extreme heat or dryness found in beers with more aggressive levels of ginger. Nicely accessible, this.

The management are particularly pleased with how Black 16 stout turned out. This is an oatmeal stout of 4.9% ABV with added coffee and vanilla. For me, the latter of these additions was far too dominant: a super sickly blast of vanilla that absolutely drowns everything else out, almost completely. I reckon there's a good stout, even a good coffee stout, under here, but it turns out I have a vanilla sensitivity. Your mileage may vary.

Finally for now, there was a gose on the go at Wicklow as well: Pineapple Head, brewed with pineapple, of course, but also with raspberries, and clocking in at a tiddly 3.6% ABV. As if to compensate for not appearing in the title, the raspberries make it their business to take over the beer, starting with a sharp pink twitch in the nose. I didn't get much of a pineapple flavour, though the raspberries are there, as well as a sort of general perfumey fruit sweetness. This is balanced nicely by the savoury effect of the salt and coriander. While it's a sweet fruit beer at heart -- reminding me more than anything of the sweetened fruit lambics of Belgium -- it manages to avoid getting cloying by still being a gose, employing all the refreshing edges that brings.

Our virtual tour continues tomorrow to points further south.

Funny place to bring a dog

Drinking in the RDS on St Patrick's Day is a proud Dublin tradition. Or at least it was until the early 1960s when the spoilsports in government made it legal for pubs to open, removing the necessity to feign interest in the Irish Kennel Club's annual dog show in order to take advantage of its refreshing licensing loophole.

This year the custom returned, in a manner of speaking. After four years in the docklands, the upstart little brother of Ireland's biggest beer festival has moved in next door to its sibling. To a bigger house, too. The 2015 Irish Beer & Whiskey Festival was held in Hall 1 at the RDS, a grand space with plenty of seats and room for the amateur drinkers to stagger safely.

It wasn't quite the extravaganza of limited-run beers that the September festival tends to be, but there was plenty to keep me occupied. Eight Degrees, for instance, was showing off Enigma, a 6% ABV pale ale made with the eponymous hops, a real Australian rarity. It reminded me most of Nelson Sauvin, in its milder, gooseberry manifestation. There's a melon rind quality too, and some red apple: all the dry, tart fruit, in short. It's decent drinking but could stand to be more complex.

The other new one from the Mitchelstown machine was Polar Vortex, a 5.8% ABV pale ale brewed with Cascade, Simcoe and Citra. I got a lot of resinousness from this and it's even a little acidic. Only the big malt body saves it from harshness. Rather than the hop explosions we've become used to from Eight Degrees, this is altogether more rounded and nuanced, something I certainly appreciated about it.

White Hag was present at the festival in a big way, bringing a nice comfy couch for the crew to lounge on behind the bar. It was a long five days of festival, after all. New beers included The White Sow, a 5.2% ABV milk chocolate oatmeal stout. It sounds more interesting that it turned out to be. The milk chocolate is right there, smooth and sweet at the centre of the flavour, but that's about the extent of what happens. My attention wandered, even when sipping a sample. They also had a version infused with fresh coffee at the bar and that simply replaced one single-dimension flavour with another.

I was much more intrigued by Searbh Rua, described as an "imperial sour red". Wut? Well, it's 7.9% ABV, and very definitely red. But the first sip reveals it to be massively sweet. It certainly makes up for the stout's shortcomings in its complexity: I got raspberries, cherries and even chocolate in the first few seconds. The sourness arrives late, providing just a little kick of tartness right on the end. The alcohol heat is very present throughout and I'd be placing this on the shelf with the barley wines. It's not a clean and invigorating sour beer; more a warming fireside sipper.

The "OMG When Do You People Sleep?" award for overactive brewing activity went to Trouble who had three brand new beers, plus the regular range and minus one new one they didn't reckon was ready yet. My beer of choice, and beer of the festival, was Centennial SMASH, 4.8% ABV and served on keg and cask, though I only drank the latter. Knock a percentage point off this and we'd have Ireland's Jarl. It's has that dry and ever so slightly soapy floral character of the Scot, but a beautiful smoothness and plenty of bright, zippy citric notes. Insanely drinkable material.

I was less impressed by Wandering Star, a blonde ale with nothing much going on other than some dry grain husk and an unpleasant tang of marker pens. Fallen Idol cheered me right up after that: a murky brown ale smelling edgily of gunpowder and weed and with a powerfully juicy flavour, mostly consisting of abundant, decadent peaches. At 6.3% ABV it demands a bit of respect but is great fun at the same time.

My other festival highlight alongside Fallen Idol was O Brother's Bonita, another dark hop-forward beer. Instead of fruit flavours, however, this is big on piquancy: liquorice and perfumery spices are to the fore, backed by dark chocolate and a lip-smacking dry roast.

Other breweries I just tried one new beer from were Independent, which had a new IPA, a 7% ABV job utilising Citra, Cascade and Summer hops, smelling spicy and tasting very grassy but without being too bitter, balanced by a tasty sweet orange candy character; and Kinnegar, whose Cup & Saucer coffee stout really lays on the thick brown-sugar-laced coffee but there's plenty of roast so while it's certainly heavy, as befits 6.2% ABV, it's not sickly or difficult drinking.

White Gypsy had an Australian Pale Ale, 4.8% ABV, amber coloured, toffee aroma'd and tasting of perfume and caramel with a rather sticky texture. Much better was White Gypsy Helles, a tiny bit of diacetyl but also lots of crisp green celery and a little white pepper too, alongside a golden syrup sweetness. Its best feature is the texture: authentic Bavarian levels of soft smoothness making it very quaffable indeed.

Finally to Station Works. I mentioned in relation to their brown ale the other week that they've been doing local recreations of Cumberland Breweries beers. Two more to report on from this festival: Station Works Irish Stout is nicely dry with a sharp black malt edge but smooth too, making for a plain but easy-drinking pint. Only a slight rubbery waft in the aroma spoils it, and only a little. I liked Station Works Irish Blonde too: no aroma, but cool and crisp like a good lager, and every bit as refreshing. If Station Works has truly set itself a mission to breathe new life into cask beer in Ireland then this is sort of beer that could do it. This and Trouble Centennial SMASH, obviously.