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Greetings from the middle of last week!

If the Icelandic volcano behaved itself and no other misfortune befell me, I should be back from Copenhagen by now, filled with exciting tales of beers I stood in a shed and drank tiny samples of. It'll probably take me a few days to sort through my scraps of paper and turn them into the usual boring scribblings you find here, so in the meantime have some comments on a beer which, last I checked, did not feature in the 324-page festival programme.

Chapeau Exotic pineapple lambic is a particular favourite of Ruth Deveney's and is supplied more or less exclusively to her shop by the importer. It took a fair bit of hard sell to convince me to try it, but I eventually succumbed, having rather enjoyed the sweet and unfussy kriek from the same stable. If you've not tried this you probably won't believe me when I say this, but here it is anyway: this is not an alcopop.

I confess I honestly was expecting an artificial syrupy sort of confection the likes of which Huyghes churn out under their Floris and Mongozo marques. I was surprised, then, to get a whiff of proper dry and gunpowdery lambic from the surface of the slightly hazy honey-gold beer. That comes through a little on the flavour too, but the pineapple dominates. And it really does taste of pineapple: I got that pithy, fibrous taste of real, fresh pineapple. Yes it's sweet too, but in a nuanced way, and the sour lambic notes do a great job of balancing it.

Sadly, the label is totally lacking in useful information, so I don't know what sort of percentage of fruit we have here, nor even the strength (it's 3.5% ABV: I looked it up). All I'll say is: don't dismiss this. If you went "ugh, pineapple lambic" yet don't normally have a total aversion to fruit beers, it's worth looking out for (if you do have a total aversion to fruit beers, hey: you're a bigot -- work on that first). Thanks for helping me see the light, Ruth.

Denmark-based blatherings up next...

Hopping up to Dundrum

There was quite a turnout on Friday evening for the second beer tasting evening run by Deveney's off licence in Dundrum. Ruth did a great job keeping the punters' glasses filled, and in the correct sequence too.

The theme was Belgian, and there were a few in the line-up I'd never had. Vedett Extra White, for instance. Though I'm not a fan of Vedett lager, I thought this worked quite well, and had a hoppy bite you generally won't find in a witbier. It's a tasty alternative to Hoegaarden, even if not quite up to the standard of St Bernardus Wit in my estimation.

I was also quite impressed with Chapeau Kriek -- a wonderfully aromatic and easy-drinking cherry beer which put me in mind of Bellvue Kriek, an old favourite now gone from the Irish market. I can see myself getting a few of these in for al fresco drinking as the longer evenings arrive.

Find of the evening, however, was another of those oh-so-fashionable hoppy Belgian blondes: Gouden Carolus Hopsinjoor. Unlike most of the others I've tried, this has a really crisp, green, fresh hop character sitting on a very typical blonde Belgian ale which is not a million miles from the likes of La Chouffe. Remarkably, the hops aren't crushed under the sharp bitterness of the Belgian yeast. Ruth had some LeFebvre Hopus -- another of this style -- lying around, a beer which I tried recently but hadn't yet got around to posting about. I was interested to try them side by side to see if the Hopsinjoor really is hoppier than the opposition.

Hopus gives off an innocent and sweet tropical fruit aroma: mangos, melons and the like. There's quite a bit of head, which settles stiffly after a few minutes. The fruity aroma is complemented by that sharp yeasty character once the lees are poured in. The bitterness in the flavour -- and there's a lot of it -- is probably half-and-half from the yeast and the hops. It's peppery and tangy, unlike the raw vegetal Hopsinjoor, and the 8.3% ABV gives it a very pleasant overall warmth.

The bottom line is, I guess, if you want your hopped-up blonde to taste of actual real hops, the Hopsinjoor is the one to go for. However, if you'd like them to contribute to a more complex overall fruitiness, then Hopus is your only man. As a person of simple tastes, I think I'd go for the former, but that's not to say Hopus isn't a great beer.

Thanks to Ruth for her hospitality again, and it was great meeting Lisa of What We Eat as well. I'm heartened by the interest in quality beer being shown by the upstanding citizens of Dundrum. Long may it continue.

And if you're in the area, don't forget to drop in to Deveney's to pick up a bottle or two of something interesting.