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.

Losing it

Today in your super soaraway Beer Nut, THE BEERS OTHER BEER BLOGS WON'T DARE WRITE ABOUT. Mostly stuff I acquired from places, for reasons, and am now compelled to review.

The run-up to Christmas is notorious for throwing fussy beer drinkers into environments where they can't drink the sort of thing they're used to. And so it was that in December I found myself making the most of a glass of Heineken Light. I had a notebook with me and it was the only thing on the bar I hadn't tasted before. I... wouldn't recommend it. It's not awful, mind. There's actually a decent real hop aroma, and it's a session-friendly 3.3% ABV. Not so session-friendly is the overly sweet taste, like boiled sugar or donuts. I guess that qualifies as character, meaning the beer isn't as bland as one might expect, and it's certainly not thin. But once the surprise novelty that it actually smells and tastes of something wears off, it becomes a very dull experience very quickly. Clearly this one is not intended for any sort of analysis. Moving on...

I have genuinely fond memories of Holsten Pils as a beer I drank at the end of shifts in a job I no longer do, at a hotel since demolished, in a century many years past. I don't know what it was I liked about it, just that it offered more flavour than normal beer, ie Harp and Tennent's. Sadly, this return visit 24 years later didn't offer the same horizon-widening experience. I figured that was more to do with my tastes than with the beer being from England instead of Hamburg, until I noticed the ingredients listing included "glucose syrup". Holsten my love: what have they done to you!? This is sweet and appley; in a blind taste I'd probably claim it's an ersatz cider rather than a beer. Utter sugary nonsense. They should be protesting its existence on the streets of Hamburg.

That arrived to me as a freebie from Aldi, which includes it with several other UK BUL beers in a "world lager" gift pack. Also in there is Kingfisher, a beer I've referenced several times on here but never actually reviewed. Heineken UK brews it. "The finest malted barley & hops" announces the front label in stately capitals; its cheeky little brother round the back adds glucose syrup and caramel colouring to that. I assume the bottle had never been under supermarket lights or left in sunlight, but it was still skunked, the aroma mixing that intense sulphurous grass with a more pleasant honey smell. There was very little head and the carbonation is exceedingly low, which may be deliberate as I remember that being a selling point of its arch-rival Cobra. The flavour is... absent, by and large. Mineral water is about as complex as it gets, with maybe an added sugariness but pretty much nothing else. It's perfectly drinkable, and probably in quantity too, but don't expect even the basics of a beer taste.

The next one cost me €1. That's my excuse. I was browsing the off licence, Santa Cruz was in a basket on the floor, and it cost €1 a bottle. I suffer acutely from Fear Of Wondering How Awful Can It Be (FOWHACIB) so I bought a bottle. It's a lager with lemon flavour and declines to state where it comes from. Perhaps we're better not knowing. The ABV is 4.2%, so pitched as a sort of a session-Desperados, I guess. In its favour it has enough of a hop content to be skunked and I was greeted by an unpleasant pissy aroma on pouring. A closer sniff reveals the sweet lemon syrup. I braced myself for a sugar bomb that never detonated. It's actually very plain and inoffensive, with a light lemonade buzz, maybe a little on the washing-up liquid side, but really not severely. I quaffed it back and thought no more of it, either good or ill. I doubt I'll be dropping another euro on any more, though I really feel I dodged a bullet, gracias a Dios.

The conclusion? That you can make crappy lager overly sweet without needing to resort to lemon syrup? I dunno. Who'd be a beer blogger, eh? Mug's game.

Palest Peru

I miss the 66cl bottles of Cobra. I've not seen them around here in ages and nothing will make me trade down to the ubiquitous 33s no matter how cheaply the supermarkets offer them. Look, there's nothing rational about crap lager drinking, OK?

On a trip to Sainsbury's a while ago, I spotted Cusqueña in the speciality lager section and immediately clocked the bottle's similarity to good ol' Cobra. Well hello there. Fancy going back to my place for a curry?

Cusqueña is from Cuzco in Peru though I don't know by what machinations it has wound up in the UK. The bottle is slightly smaller than Cobra, at 62cl, though the strength is identical at 5% ABV. And the similarities don't end there: you get the same hefty body; you get the same relatively low levels of fizz; and you get the same touch of corny maize as the sole taste present in the beer.

Having little by way of flavour means little by way of off-flavour, so I decree this inoffensive beer to be absolutely fine as an accompaniment to super-spicy food.

Road-testing the unleaded

An unusual turn of events saw me out one evening last week while in possession of motorised transportation. Of course, my drinking options for the evening were manifold, but I decided I may as well use it as an excuse to try out some of the alcohol-free beers available. Y'know, the ones I wouldn't normally dream of touching with a barge pole (unless I were actually piloting a barge, of course; then they might be appropriate).

The original intention was just to get the Erdinger and Paulaner ones, but it turns out that there's a much bigger range out there, much of which was carried by a local off-licence (I got the Paulaner in Superquinn where, oddly, the automated checkout still made sure to card me).

I lined them up for a mugshot before sticking them in the boot and off to my destination (Séan's gaff; fabulous 8% ABV stout on tap; untempted; look at me the responsible adult). First out of the traps was Cobra Zero, and I liked this, but not for any of the reasons I like Cobra. Cobra Zero makes more-or-less no attempt to be a beer. Though my bottle was rather lightstruck, what came out most on tasting was a very sweet and malty wort flavour -- porridge with loads of sugar. It reminded me a lot of the dark non-alcoholic malt drinks you get in Africa and the Caribbean, and which I really rather like. I don't know that I could drink much of this, but I did enjoy the bottle.

Beck's Non-Alcoholic didn't work so well. It's sort-of faithful to the Beck's recipe, in that it's quite sharp and hoppy. The worty sweetness is there again, mostly on the nose, but this translates to an unpleasant soapy flavour which, coupled with the thinness, does not make for a pleasant drinking experience.

I figured the wheat beers would be better propositions altogether and, while this broadly turned out to be true, the two beers were as different in quality as their real-beer counterparts. The Paulaner Alkoholfrei was my favourite of the lot. Yes, there's that unfermented sugar, but it's buried under a hefty dollop of fruity banana esters. It's very drinkable and is distinctively a weissbier. I'd go for it again. Not so the Erdinger Alkoholfrei which tried to do all the same things but comes out weak (well, you know what I mean) and lacking in character.

Was it worth it? No, not really. If I wasn't a ticker I'd probably have settled for drinking non-beer, and will likely do so in the future. Unless I can find some Baltika 0 or alcohol-free Bavaria, of course...

State of the nation

Whoosh! There went the 2008 Great British Beer Festival, in just six and a half glorious hours of great beer and excellent company. Especially big thanks to Maeib, who spotted me on my tod and introduced me to his fellow RateBeerians (Chris_O I should have known already as I met him last year: sorry Chris). Other People of t'Internet I met included Chris and Merideth of BeerGeek TV, Young CAMRA's Dubbel, the elusive Tandleman and the very obvious and very purple Stonch. I saw the back of Pete Brown's head from a distance as he whizzed past looking very busy. Zythophile: sorry I missed you. I was looking for the bloke in the cream jacket but it was like a bloody Martin Bell lookalikes' convention in there.

And of course the leading lights of Irish craft brewing were there, hovering by the Irish section of the Bières Sans Frontières bar (which was decked out in livery announcing it as "Leprechaun Lane": we do like our bit of casual racism in CAMRA). Whitewater also had a couple of beers on across the way in the miniscule Northern Ireland section. I have to say I was a little disappointed with Clotworthy Dobbin on cask. I love this beer from the bottle: full-bodied, leaning towards heavy, but still eminently gulpable and full of rich fruit and chocolate flavours. It could well be that several barrel-aged beers and a spicy pork pie had numbed my palate by the time I got to this, but I really felt it lacked the robustness of the Clotworthy I usually enjoy.

I found the same only more so with Galway Hooker on cask. Keggy fizz really brings out the American-style hoppiness of this, while still leaving the very Irish crystal malt sweetness at the back. From the cask those hops are toned down and a sort of raw grainy character comes out. Nevertheless, I heard some very positive reactions from the English tasters, and no less a personage than Stonch gave it his seal of approval (get your coat, Aidan mate: you've pulled).

Top of my Irish hitlist was the sublime MM Imperial, but I went whoring after some of the fancy American brews first and within a couple of hours the Imperial was all gone, and none of it to me. A firm self-inflicted kick to the The Beer Nut's shins for that one. I comforted myself with a glass of Messrs Maguire Extra instead, a beer I've not had in ages and never written about here. I had actually gone looking for it in its home pub last week -- where it's served on nitro, natch -- but they were all out. From the cask it produced a similar sensation to fresh Porterhouse Plain Porter: big roasty notes on the nose followed by chocolate flavours on the foretaste. It finishes with the classic Irish dryness, just catching the back of the throat. A superbly balanced, high quality, plain drinking pint of Irish stout of the sort that is almost completely unavailable in Ireland (Carlow's Druid's Brew -- available for two days each year -- is the only one that comes close).

The festival continues until Saturday as will, I expect, my posts about it. At least. But before I leave Irish beer for a while, I thought I'd throw in a quick note about a beer Thom had a go at recently: the mysterious one called Shiva, made exclusively for Monty's Nepalese restaurant in Temple Bar. It's a fairly heavy dark-golden lager with some major fruitiness about it. I can't say I spotted Thom's Nepalese apples, but it does carry a definite suggestion that the lagering was done at temperatures higher than they should have been. I found it quite drinkable with my spicy Nepalese lunch all the same, but then I like Cobra, so who the hell am I to judge?

Shiva is named after Monty's owner, but there's nothing written on the label to say who makes it. I seem to remember from the last time I had it -- about six years ago -- that Celtic Brew in Meath were listed as the brewer previously. Back then, Celtic Brew was a going concern and a major player in Irish craft beer, best known for the Finian's range. Brewing stopped a year or two later and the company now concentrates on its import business. The proprietor, Dean McGuinness, can be heard on the "Movies and Booze" slot on Sean Moncrieff's Newstalk show on Fridays. My suspicion is that he's still making this to keep his brewery ticking over. I also suspect that he's behind Mao's house lager, since both beers look like they've come through the same half-arsed labelling machine. Tenuous, but as good a theory as any.

(Mao news just in: I won one of the prizes in the Bubble Brothers' Mao/iKi beer compo. Watch a video of me getting lucky here.)

Anyway, apologies for the interlude into dodgy Irish lager. More and better from Earl's Court to follow.

Amateur night

Bringing your own beer to the pub is great. Drinking beer that other people have brought to the pub is even better.

Last Thursday the Bull & Castle hosted a tasting night for the members of IrishCraftBrewer.com. Seven homebrewers brought their wares along and the standard was, frankly, amazing. Highlights included a hopped-up amber ale, a cherry stout, and a porter which -- were it available on the open market -- would leave Messrs Fuller, Smith and Turner quaking in their boots. It was a good night.

We non-brewers were permitted to bring along any interesting or unusual beers we had come across, and the management generously offered round some of the oddities they had accumulated but had no intention of selling. I don't think the commercial beers were deliberately chosen to make the homebrew look good, but that's certainly how it turned out for me.

Starting with something light, I tried a Tusker, fully aware that it doesn't have the greatest reputation, even among African lagers. It's pretty close to being your average tasteless fizzy yellow beer, but there's an almost weiss-like fruit flavour in there as well. Not enough to make it really worth drinking, however.

I've long been curious about King Cobra, the extra-strength double-fermented version of my favourite pseudo-Indian English lager. I wasn't impressed, however. There's all the corny taste of regular Cobra, but the lightness of body which makes the standard beer palateable is replaced with a heavy, sticky body which just tips over into special brew territory. Not recommended with curry. Or anything else.

Passing real Africa and fake India, we come home to Ulster. Until Thursday I wasn't aware that Whitewater made a lager, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised: lack of imagination can affect craft brewers the same as any of us -- though not the other Northern Irish microbrewery Hilden, who make a superb golden ale for the lager crowd, called Belfast Blonde. Whitewater's Belfast Lager was hugely disappointing. The flavour is dominated by a powerful malty mustiness and I couldn't get past it. I suspect they're going for a full-bodied central European feel, but it's not working for this drinker. How the people who brew the amazing Clotworthy Dobbin make something this poor is beyond me.

One of the event's attendees was just back from South America and, judging from what he brought us, I have to wonder how much he enjoys the company of his fellow ICBers. They were three from InBev's Quilmes range. The Cristal is yellow and basically tasteless, with just a teensy hint of dryness. Quilmes Bock is the same in brown: a bit sweet, but not sweet enough. Not enough of anything, in fact. And then we come to Quilmes Stout. Everyone who tasted it made faces and proclaimed its disgusting sweetness. As the only fan of sweet beer I know, I wouldn't run to damn it outright, but it's still pretty awful. The saccharine quality of the flavour reminds me of nothing so much as a dodgy oud bruin, like Brand. There's also a bit of Belgium's Leroy stout in there as well. If these are your two favourite beers, you'll enjoy Argentina. Once they let you out of the asylum, of course.

The lesson, then, is that when the world gives you bad beer, make it better yourself.

Time for a ruby?

Beer and food? That's a no-brainer for me and means curry every time. Historically speaking, the beer should be Carlsberg, the first lager to be associated with Indian food back in the 1920s. In general, however, I tend to drink Cobra. Yes I know it's made with maize and is about as Indian as I am, but I don't care.

In the halcyon days of the Dublin Brewing Company, my curry would always be accompanied by Maeve's Crystal Weiss, a spectacular spicy weissbier which sat beautifully with Indian food. It's gone now, though another Irish craft wheat beer is almost as good, namely Curim from the Carlow Brewing Company.

For this post, however, I'm going with a new "slow-brewed" lager called Time. This appears to be another one of the plastic paddies I ranted about over on Hop Talk last month. "Born in Ireland" says the label, and "Brewed in the European Union". The web address given is dead and the company address is an office over a boutique in central Dublin, also the address of several marketing and communications companies. It all adds up to contract brewed abroad and passed off as Irish.

Time, incidentally, was a brand formerly used by Smithwick's before it was taken over by Guinness. If Diageo still owned the trademark, no doubt they would have had it made at one of their Irish lager factories in Kilkenny or Dundalk where they make Harp, Satzenbrau, Bud and Carlsberg. However, I'm told the "Time Brewing Company" acquired the name when the trademark lapsed and they're having this brewed in England.

The beer itself, I'm pleased to report, is quite decent. It has a fairly light carbonation for a pilsner, which is a plus point when it comes to curry, and a bold malty flavour which cuts through the vindaloo sauce beautifully. At the end there's a little bit of a dry hops bite, but nothing too severe. It puts me in mind of Beck's, and if I had to guess a country of origin I would have placed it in Germany. All-in-all, Time passes the curry test with flying colours.

However, what with the vast range of eastern European lagers now available at bargain prices, I find it bizarre that someone would try and push an Irish-themed premium-priced lager onto the market. This sort of money will get you a bottle of Flensburger or Augustiner in any decent off licence. Why would a punter, either here or abroad, be attracted to this?

Light drizzle, more like

Brewed with "lemongrass and coriander" to be "excellent with spicy and oriental food", says the label of Hopback's Taiphoon. The lemongrass meant I decided to put it to the test with a Malaysian curry rather than my preferred vindaloo. It's a very pale yellow ale with a slight sediment. The aroma is promising: lemon and spice, but it's not backed up with flavour. What's there is subtle and tasty, but totally crushed under the weight of chillies. Well-made, but not what I need in a currybeer.

Back to the Cobra for me.

Miscellaneous kiwis

New Zealand certainly has no shortage of breweries. As well as several big players and a couple of brewpub chains there are innumerable small-to-middle-sized operations all making a surprisingly wide range of beers. In the time I was there I could only hope to get a taster of what was on offer from these breweries, and with several I only managed to try one of their beers. So before I move on to the breweries I am most familiar with, this post is about the individual beers whose stablemates never reached me.

Duncan's Founder's range offers a broad selection of beers, of which Generation Ale was the only one I managed to try. It's a very smooth and satisfying dry nutty brown ale. Monk's Habit is an even more complex bitter with a strong burst of grapefruit on the nose and a taste both fruity and spicy at once. Green Man Organic Bitter is remarkably pale, but is most definitely bitter - probably the bitterest bitter in New Zealand. It has a full-on vegetal taste with notes of sprouts and broccoli, but in a good way.

On the lager front, the local Indian-style curry lager is called Monsoon which isn't a success, being blander and fizzier than Cobra or Kingfisher which it is presumably trying to emulate. The Pig and Whistle bar in Rotorua serve an own-brand lager called Swine which is very light, but carried an overtone of mustiness which spoiled it for me and I'm not sure if it was intended. Could be I just got a bad pint.

The Limburg brewery make a Witbier which is both orange in colour and taste. So overpoweringly fruity is this one that drinking more than 33cl would be a tall order, I think.

Lastly, and most interestingly, is Spruce Beer. The label claims this is based on an original recipe used on Captain Cook's voyages and incorporating the nearest thing New Zealand has to spruce, the rimua, as well as tea-tree leaves. The result is a fairly smooth beer but with a bizarre and distracting mediciney taste. It's certainly nothing at all like Scotland's real spruce beer Alba. Still, Kiwi as.