Groningen is a tightly-packed and bustling little city in the north of the Netherlands. It's home to a university so, in mid-September at least, is packed with students in a way that gives the place a youthful energy. I visited for the sole reason I had never been to this part of the world before and wanted to give it the once-over.
From a beer perspective, however, it's not very exciting, at least based on my quite possibly flawed investigations. I expected local macro Grolsch to be utterly dominant in the way that local big breweries tend to be, but that one seems to be suffering hugely under the relentless onslaught of Heineken and AB InBev whose signage and big brands were omnipresent.
The only pub of note I have for you is a slightly shabby but still charming Belgian-themed café called Pintelier, and even then I'm not sure I'd recommend that you go out of your way for it. I opened with a beer I'm sure I've had on occasions in the past but don't seem to have ever written a review of:
Duchesse du Bourgogne. This commonplace Flanders red is 6.2% ABV and a dark garnet colour. It's thick and sparkly, like some kind of liqueur-infused champagne cocktail and tastes of raspberry balsamic with a dash of soy sauce and lots of sweet-sour oak seasoning for a mature vinous note. What it's not is sour: where I was expecting a proper tang I found it smooth and warming, and as such I wouldn't place it above the likes of Rodenbach. It's decent though, and worked well at an otherwise bare table in a dusty corner on an autumnal afternoon.
The single vaguely local beer I drank was from Brouwerij Maallust in nearby Veenhuizen, a Vienna lager called
De Vagebond. It's a beer style which can be a point of some contention, and this one was a very strong representative of how it's popularly understood: dark amber and with a huge biscuit aroma, leading into flavours of rich chocolate, oatcakes and raisin. A pinch of noble-hop vegetation adds to the Mitteleuropa feel, although I detected a whiff of Belgian esters too, which is much less typical. Overall, I enjoyed it, and the bigness of its character in general. If this is broadly what you'd expect Vienna lager to be it won't leave you disappointed.
Large independent Gulpener is about as far from Groningen as a brewery can be while still being Dutch, situated away down in the tail end of Limburg. I happened across their
Gulpener Ur-Weizen in one restaurant, finding it a patriotic shade of orange and rather basic in the flavour department, with mild banana and subtle cloves, set on a base that's far too thin for 5.3% ABV. I guess they're aiming to copy the more severe north-German sort of Weizen, rather than any luxurious Bavarian. As such, it's decent but not very distinctive, even by weissbier standards.
And if that's not far enough south, the next two should be, found on the menu of the pleasant antipodean theme restaurant Pacific.
Coopers XPA defies the basic requirement of Extra Pale Ale by not being pale at all, but a deep shade of orange. It's quite strong at 5.3% ABV and murky in the old-fashioned naturally-conditioned way, rather than deliberate haze. It may be a function of the distance it's travelled, but the hops seemed to have been aged out of this, leaving that orangey boiled-sweet effect which always suggests expired freshness to me. There's lots of sweet malt left, however, which has a certain charm but renders it unbalanced. I had hoped for zing, but either traditional old Coopers doesn't do zing, or else the zing disembarked somewhere around the equator.
Let's see if they fare any better with a
Session Ale. The pale haze gives it an altogether more modern look, and at 4.2% ABV meets the sessionable specification. I got a
little hint of zesty zing in the aroma but the body isn't big enough to carry that into the flavour, and there isn't the malt character to offer anything much else. The haze does make itself felt as a savoury grittiness that didn't help the overall picture. It wasn't unpleasant but is one of those beers where "sessionable" comes dangerously close to "boring".
And that's it for Groningen. It was stop one on a two-week, six-city jaunt about the Low Countries, featuring side-trips and events all of which I'll get to in the forthcoming posts. A week after we started we found ourselves in Breda, down where the Netherlands borders on Belgium.
Here the local giant Swinkels does a better job of holding on to bars' patronage, and on arrival at the hotel a complimentary glass of
Swinckels Superior Pilsner was offered. It's a bit of a disaster, even by industrial lager standards, though analytical beer-judge types may find it instructive. Primarily there's a overriding flavour of buttered popcorn, which suggests both diacetyl and dimethyl sulfide to my untutored palate. It presents thickly and unpleasantly, thanks to a weighty gravity resulting in 5.3% ABV. Swinkels rebranded a few years ago from the former name of their flagship beer, Bavaria, and I'm wondering if this is the same stuff under a new label. I don't remember Bavaria being quite this awful, however.
As with many Dutch cities, there's a
stadsbrouwerij in the centre: a grand municipal building housing a restaurant, function rooms and a brewer of mediocre beer. Breda's is in the Boterhal on the main market square and uses the St Joris marque. There's a witbier by the uncertain name of
Witte Geit?? which is a clear dull yellow colour and tastes stale and sweaty, completely missing any of the soft wheatiness, citrus tang or exotic spicing that makes witbier worthwhile. At best it's dull; at worst acrid and moldy-tasting. Perhaps my expectations were too high with "mediocre".
To the right of it is the stubborn dragon
Koppige Draak, a tripel which is 8.5% ABV but you'd never know from drinking it. The flavour is so understated as to resemble a basic pale lager, only the whiff of esters in the aroma marking it out as warm-fermented. There's some functional but nondescript banana and candy, but no warmth and no spice, again missing the fundamentals of the style. Were it not for that ABV it could pass as a middling Belgian-style blonde ale, though an entirely forgettable one. Did I mention the building is nice?
At the top of the restaurant-lined square is a fairly simple looking café called Zeezicht which happens to have the most interesting beer list in town. I opened my account here with
Blurred Emotions, a 7% ABV New England-style IPA from Norwegian brewer Amundsen in collaboration with Seven Island of Corfu. This confirmed that my senses of smell and taste were still intact as there's a powerful and glorious fresh mandarin aroma. The flavour starts there but gets progressively bitterer, turning pithy but staying clean, bright and fresh. This is one of the too-rare sterotypical juicebombs; uncomplex but mouthwateringly good at what it does.
River Swell, to the right of it there, is a double IPA from The Drowned Lands brewery in New York state. This one is darkly hazy with a fruit candy aroma suggesting weighty richness to come. Surprisingly, then, it tastes quite serious and savoury, with elements of grass and spring onion, laced with a little nutmeg. It's fine as it goes, but doesn't compare at all favourably to the other one. I guess freshness is a factor again: northern European haze will always have the edge here in northern Europe.
A Belgian followed:
Bersalis Tripel, one from the non-sour arm of lambic brewer Oud Beersel. A bit like the one from down the street, this didn't look much like a tripel, served in a straight glass and looking for all the world like a clear golden lager. It is absolutely a tripel, however, being 9.5% ABV and brimming with esters and spices. The alcohol carries a lot of clove sweetness with a pinch of black pepper to bring a sharper balance. It's a satisfying sipper and nicely characterful in its own sweet and boozy way. I approve.
Not far away is Studio Dependance bar, which seems a bit clubby but does open during the day and has a very decent beer list. So why I ordered a milkshake IPA remains a mystery. This is
Makeatutara from Two Chefs, 6% ABV and an opaque orange colour. There's a sharp citrus zest in the aroma, while the flavour piles lemon and grapefruit over any lactose sweetness. A sticky smack on the lips is the only milkshakey thing about it so I feel I got off lightly. What remains is a tasty hazy IPA, one that's possibly even a little more bitter than the norm. Fine by me.
Finally, in one of the town's good beer shops (Bier Lokaal, the other being Het Bierhuis) I picked up a can of an intriguing 16-way collaboration beer called
Glamping IPA, brewed by Brouwerij Eleven in Utrecht but with input from, well, everyone who's anyone in Dutch microbrewing. So it was a surprise how tame it was. If anyone brought silly ideas to the table they were shouted down, resulting in a 5.5% ABV hazy number, broadly juicy with a dry and crisp finish. The name comes from a purported suitability for going camping, and I can see that: it's for drinking when your mind is on other things, like the weather and the holes in your tent.
Breda's own local microbrewery was not on the Glamping list. What we found on our visit there follows
next.
I've barely set foot in Belgium this year, though that will be changing later in the autumn. To tide me over, a couple of Flemish randomers I picked up in Redmond's of Ranelagh.
Verhaeghe is better known for Duchesse de Bourgogne, while the next brewery, De Halve Maan, is better known for the Brugse Zot series. It also brews Blanche de Bruges, of which one sees a lot in Bruges, and the second beer is a brand extension on that: Rosé de Bruges. It is, I guess, the same witbier, but with added extract of unspecified red fruit. It doesn't look horribly artificial, having a slightly dull greyish cast to the pink colour, which I take as a positive sign that it isn't simply done with food colouring. The aroma is lightly sweet but very floral, like Parma Violets or Love Hearts candy. 
