Goldenest Oktober

It's that time of year again, when the mighty merchandising machines of Noreast and Heineken -- distributors of Erdinger and Paulaner respectively -- flood the quality beer outlets with acres of blue and white chequered material, adorned with their competing brands. Yes: Oktoberfest in Dublin.

The Porterhouse were first out of the traps, launching their festival on Tuesday last. Alt is back for a second year and seems bigger and maltier than before. Perhaps not 100% true to style but you'll have to wait a while for my gives-a-crap face. The imports are always great fun year-to-year, and this time round we've got Einbecker's sweet and warming Ur-Bock Dunkel, crisp dry Früh and a wheat beer I didn't know: Unertl. It's one of the darker weissbiers, though not a dunkel. More than anything else I was reminded of Schneider, though it's not quite as spicy and rounded, going instead for a lighter and crisper sort of wheat character. A nice refresher and leagues ahead of your typical yellow weiss we get in these parts.

The bottled selection of course includes some classic Munich Oktoberfestbier, as well as some interesting oddities from further afield. My eye was particularly caught by three from Münster's organic brewery Pinkus Müller, not only because it's Barry's local, but also because the Original Münster Alt he sent me earlier this year was really good in an odd sort of way. Just my kind of beer. In the oddness stakes, both Pinkus Müller Pils and Weiss stood up very well. They're both pale examples of their genre, with the pils a gorgeous limpid gold and the weiss an opaque light orange-yellow. Here's the thing: the pils tastes like weiss while the weiss tastes like pils. That is to say, Pinkus Pils has a very soft carbonation and fruity esters in with the more typical north-German pils bitterness. Pinkus Weiss, conversely, is almost esterless, being light and quaffable like a tasty but easy-going lager.

Pinkus Special is also in the line-up. This is another pale one with just a little bit of haze to it. You get some fascinating grassy herby flavours, and a light touch of bubblegum (pre-chewed bubblegum, as someone around the table charmingly put it). It's certainly an interesting beer and I reckon I'll revisit it before this weekend, when the festival wraps up for another year.

Thanks, as always, go to the Porterhouse team for their hospitality.

My second Octoberfest event of last week was up at Deveney's off licence in Dundrum, where the monthly beer tasting session was moved to the top end of the month. Good to see, since it's been clashing with the Irish Craft Brewer meeting in the Bull & Castle this past while. There were most of the usual suspects on offer, but also a couple of things I wasn't familiar with. Take Hacker-Pschorr Oktoberfest Märzen for instance. At first glance, perhaps, nothing unusual there. Sure every schoolboy knows Oktoberfestbier is a Märzen. But only broadly. Hacker-Pschorr's actual Oktoberfestbier can be seen in Ron's blog, here: a bright golden yellow. Actual Märzen tends to be more of a reddish gold shade, which is what this is. It's really rather flat and though relatively light of body, there's a certain syrupy greasiness to the texture that I don't much care for. The taste is predominantly sweet and bready, as one would expect, and it sails close to being cloying. But I think it just stays on the good side, with a nibble from the hops and a warm comforting finish. And with a swingtop bottle? Well, all is forgiven from this home brewer.

I was slightly late getting to Deveney's on the tasting evening and everyone else was a couple of beers ahead of me. Ruth had cued up Schneider Wiesen Edel-Weisse as last on the roster, so I got to hear everyone else's opinions on it before getting to it myself. It wasn't going down well with the crowd, which was disappointing because I was expecting big things from the new beer out of what's probably my favourite German brewery. "Too much pepper" was the cry. I was intrigued.

It appears to be squarely pitched at the American market, with its USDA Organic badge featuring prominently, and the inclusion of Cascade with the Hallertauer in the hops listing. Oh, and the highly unGerman, almost microscopic, inclusion of the word "ale" on the neck label. It pours a pale hazy amber, giving off quintessential wiessbier yeast fruits with a definite spice behind it. This yeast-hops combination has me thinking of the collaborative Hopfen-Weisse straight away. But it's a lot more drinkable than that badboy, at a mere 6.2% ABV. Cloves are in the ascendant, giving it a spice that I wouldn't describe as peppery per se, but would describe as really tasty. The finish is short, but the body is light and soft enough for another sip straight away. I like this a lot. And I'm very heartened to see an old stalwart like Schneider pushing the boundaries of tradition further in the interests of opening up new markets and, more importantly, new flavours. That's my kind of globalisation.

October, eh? It's great to be spending my time whizzing round Dublin on my bike drinking free beer; but it's probably just as well it's only one month a year.

More Dutch courage

First beer of the evening, back in Amsterdam yesterday, was a bottle of Parlus Magnificum from the Urthel range. This is dubbel-like in flavour and taste with a plummy aroma and sharp yeasty fruitiness on the palate. Not the most flavoursome brown Belgian I've ever met. I was, however, much more impressed by the Steenbrugge Dubbel which I had down at De Beiaard at the bottom of Spuistraat. Here there's a sharp and spicy fruitcake character hitting all the right notes for a tasty dubbel. Again, a bit more of everything would improve things, however I suspect I may be on an eternal quest to find a dubbel to beat Westmalle and have unreasonably high expectations of it happening.

De Beiaard owns the Bekeerde Suster brewpub elsewhere in the city which I visited last year. The microbrews are therefore available elsewhere in the chain, and one I hadn't seen before was De Manke Monnik -- so that'll be one manky monk for the wife, please. It claims to be a tripel, but the estery citric notes it displays has me thinking much more of a German weiss, albeit one of the sharper, more highly hopped variety. The spice of a tripel is there, but at 7.2% ABV it's a bit of a lightweight. Tasty, though.

Two nightcaps brought yesterday to a close: first up was an Einbacker Urbock Dunkel: a limpid amber beer, sweet with a touch of caramel and a mildly bitter smoky flavour. Definitely better than the Hell from the same brewery. Ramping up the sweetness and strength I finished with a dark, sticky Weihenstephan Korbinian -- a sticky treacle-laden 7.4% ABV sipping dunkel. A great end-of-day beer.

Today's beering began at yet another branch of De Beiaard, down in De Pijp. We'd been walking in the sunshine for an hour or so, so refreshment was a priority. I went for the beer of the month: a 3.1% ABV fruit number called Apple Bocq. It was tastier than I expected: tart and juicy and just what I was after. Mrs Beer Nut ordered a Liefmans Frambozen: not too fruity, heavy and dry, and decidedly quenching. Thus fortified we headed back into the streets again.

The last piece of business this afternoon was a raid on the Cracked Kettle. I'm currently enjoying one of the spoils from that: a superbly bitter oude gueuze called Oud Beersel. Sharp, refreshing and just what I need as I cool off. As the bottom of my glass approaches I can hear the call of 't Arendsnest. See you later.