Runners up

I'm such a sucker for a sequence of beers that I'm miffed to find these two are part of a series of three. It's obvious from the names, to which I wasn't really paying attention when I picked them up in Polonez just before Christmas. They're both from the Vienas Brewery in Lithuania. There's a ring of faux-craft about the branding, but I couldn't find any direct link to the big Lithuanian brewing concerns.

In reverse order, then, we start with Bronze Dark. "Pint of dark beer" it says on the can. Yes please. It's not actually all that dark: a clear copper tone, not dissimilar to a red ale. There's an estery aroma, of bananas and headaches, which is much less clean than the beer appears. Sweet chocolate opens the flavour, followed by a complementary nutty quality. It's a bit odd, but then the beer makes no claim to a style, so I can't really ding it on those grounds alone.

The alcohol kicks in next. It's only 5.8% ABV, but has the burn and cloy of manys a doppelbock or barley wine. The heat comes with a flabby, sugary texture, making it all a bit soupy and difficult. I'm guessing it's still a lager, mind, as the finish is at least more refined, cutting short any building unpleasantness and adding in some grassy noble hops and some light cherry and raisin. I hoped it would calm down as I got used to it but, half way through, it was still being a chore to drink. It's a combination of the heat and sweetness, plus bock-like intense Germanic hopping, that made it hard for me to enjoy. Your mileage may vary here. Just don't expect something along the lines of German or Czech dark lager: they're generally much more refined than this. A bronze is being very generous.

Above that on the podium, but below it in strength, is the 5% ABV Silver Wheat. I was expecting something in the weissbier line, though it poured kristall at first, only clouding up when some lees at the bottom of the can went in. There's a certain amount of phenolic fruit in the aroma, but we're talking watery tinned peaches rather than big banana. Clove-dodgers can rest assured that there isn't any here.

There is a little in the flavour, however. It's mild, but the rest is pretty bland so it sticks out, albeit at more of a rock-candy level than raw twiggy buds. The carbonation is low for the style, and the head-retention poor, so while I will admit that it does qualify as a weissbier and seems to have all the right ingredients for that, it's not a good one. There's nothing wrong, exactly, it's just all low-key and feels cheap, which of course it was. You might need to add a few pennies to trade up to Weihenstephaner, or even Franziskaner if you're not a snob, but I reckon it's worth doing.

Alas, "Golden Extra" will have to wait for the next medals ceremony since I don't have that to hand today. Mind you, on this showing I'm beginning to doubt that their purported credentials are warranted.

Cheap Shep set sesh

For as long as Lidl keep bringing out cheap Shepherd Neame specials, I'll keep buying them. Some day they'll produce something as good as Bishop's Finger or 1698. But that day is yet to come. There were three in the latest round, labelled as the "Master Brewer's Choice", all 4% ABV and on sale for the totally-worth-a-punt sum of €1.49 each.

The most promising of the three was called Tapping the Admiral but the anticipation was short-lived: when the cap came off there wafted out an unmerciful stench of lightstruck hops. Open a window and don't nobody smoke: something's crawled into this beer and died. Of dysentry. Ignoring the stink, the beer is an attractive gold colour, but that's it's best feature. Amazingly there's no trace of those pungent hops in the flavour. Instead there's a woeful sickly cheap-chocolate sweetness. This is apparently supposed to evoke brandy, but offers no heat, no wood and no fruit; just a box of Milk Tray from three Christmases ago you found at the back of a cupboard. Avoid.

Autumn Blaze was next. It looks the part, all auburn and russet and the other adjectives from that shelf in the hair dye section. There's no assault on the olfactory nerve, though up close it has a sort of maple syrup woody stickiness. Nothing really jumps out in the flavour: a little bit of roastiness but there's nothing more than fizzy water behind it. Put it on cask to bring out the malt more and this would perform adequately as a workhouse brown bitter. As-is it's perfectly drinkable, but so laid back flavourwise as to be comatose. Your granddad will like it.

Palest of the lot is 4-4-2, with its daft claim to use ten different hop varieties. Using up leftovers, were we? This made its first appearance during the World Cup and my first impressions on tasting it is that they've gone straight for the lager-swilling demographic. Rather than the cascade (see what I did there?) of multitudinous hop flavours it has a vaguely grassy Germanic feel to it. Beneath that there's slight toasty malt and lots of fizz. If the aim was to produce a clone of Beck's or Carlsberg then they've done a bang-up job. But as a tasty pale ale it's a poor show.

And there you have it: two beers that are so-so in their own way and one absolute (literal) stinker. In all honestly I can't say if there's better beer going for €1.50 a half litre in Dublin. Maybe the Franziskaner next to it in Lidl. I'm actually slightly intrigued as to what the Shep-Lidl Alliance is going to throw at us next. I dub this game "Kentish Roulette".

The bland leading the bland

A quick round-up of some of the less notable beers I encountered on my recent trip to Greece, mentioned purely for completist reasons.

Mythos is the most ubqitous beer I noticed in Athens. It's the standard Mediterranean lager, generically refreshing. Mostly it was served in a frozen pint glass, yet developed what one might call an actual flavour when it warmed up slightly. The other common lager is Alpha, which struck me as blander yet: even when the sun hit it there wasn't much of a hint of a lager taste. Still, it does the job for that place and climate and I'm not complaining.

I travelled through Budapest and just had time on the way back for a swift pint at the airport. The choice was Stella, Beck's, Franziskaner, Leffe Brune or something strange called Borsodi. No contest, of course. Borsodi is pretty cheap and nasty, but when you're drinking it from a plastic cup under fluorescent lights in an eastern European airport it's the only appropriate drink. Just another sacrifice for this blog...

White Russian

Number 8 in the Baltika series was not a beer I had seen before, so naturally I had to buy it and try it. It is the Russian brewery's wheat beer, and is unfiltered and cloudy with a fair bit of yeasty sediment in the bottle. Tastewise it tries to emulate its German rivals, and comes closest to Franziskaner. The sediment makes it a more bitter experience, though, lending overtones almost reminiscent of a northern European witbier, but not quite. Falling between these two stools, I can't imagine that anyone would prefer this slightly rough Russian to its more refined western neighbours.