Seasons in Galway

I have been a consistent enjoyer of the Catharina sour beers from Galway Bay, the only Irish brewery that makes them. The latest, Felina, has been around since the summer, and I think I anticipated enjoying it so much that I missed the right moment to open it. So on a chilly late September afternoon, I had to pretend it was early August. 

This is 5% ABV and the lightly hazy orange colour of diluted cordial. Mango, papaya and passionfruit have been added ("100% real") and it's 5% ABV. I expected the passionfruit to be its gateway to instant tropicality, but for once that's not so obvious. To me it tastes primarily of pineapple, though the mango is very apparent too, with the others in supporting roles. As expected, it works beautifully, delivering a ray of purest sunshine, straight to the tastebuds. The sourness is no more than a tang, but one which performs well by balancing the fruit sweetness, and there's also a little hint of tropical citrus -- a fresh squeeze of lime and grapefruit -- to aid that balance further. It is maybe a little thin for the strength and style, although that, and the gently sparkling carbonation, helps to make it an easy drinker. This is definitely another hit from Oranmore's Catharina sour production facility. Keep them coming, encroaching winter be damned.

Autumn then brought no fewer than two new lagers to the taps at The Black Sheep. I began on Haus, a plain-spoken, plainly presented pilsner. Despite this, they've applied the usual attention to detail to the recipe and created something worthy of being filed with north German classics like Jever. Of course it's clear and clean and crisp and golden, as one would expect, but there's a distinctly Nordsee hop quotient: sharp, bitter and herbal, all cut grass and peppery rocket.

The initial burst is invigorating, and then there's a long finish as well, the green noble-hop oils clinging to the palate like those of a west-coast American IPA. There was a risk in putting such unapologetically assertive hop fireworks on too thin a base, since this is only 4.5% ABV, but there's enough chewy malt to balance the sticky hops; giving them free rein in the flavour without spoiling the party. As Irish lagers go, this is benchmark stuff. I like to assess unfamiliar breweries on how they do pilsner, and were I new to Galway Bay, they'd pass with the flyingest of colours.

All aboard the virtual ICE for a trip south to Bavaria. Three taps over we find Illuminator, a doppelbock. They're not serving this by the Maß on Capel Street, it being 7.9% ABV and Irish people being bad at drinking. In the glass it's the proper chestnut red-brown and smells of burnt caramel with a little cola-like herb spicing. I would never have guessed the strength: something in the lager process has thinned this right out. While it doesn't taste or feel watery, it comes across as a far lighter dunkel or similar. There's that lovely liquorice and fruitcake flavour, but it's quite brief, lacking the malty warmth I was expecting behind it. That could be a temperature thing. Given a few minutes, the beer had warmed up and I got a bit more chocolate and brown-bread substance, but given a few minutes after that, the glass was empty. They have also made this available in half-litre bottles, and I think that might be the better format for it. Still, strong beers on draught is a personal campaign goal and I won't complain too hard whenever one shows up. This is, again, top notch stuff.

Three more beauts from Galway Bay, a brewery which has been quite consistent with its bangers, year-to-date.

Second chances and new beginnings

I've tried a few of the beers from Bristol brewery Lost & Grounded over the years and haven't particularly liked any of them. It has made me very aware of the near-unanimous high regard in which their core beers are held. I have form on this sort of thing: it took me a couple of goes to get the hang of other English classics such as Jaipur and Landlord and I was quite prepared to believe that Lost & Grounded was another example of that. So when they showed up locally, I took the opportunity to revisit. Today I'm giving two a second spin and trying one I've never tasted before.

First it's Keller Pils: perhaps England's best lager, or maybe just the one with most frequent favourable mentions on my Twitter timeline. My previous encounter was in the arcade bar on Bristol's King Street. My aversion to certain German hop varieties when used in quantity was strongly triggered by the beer, to the point where I found a pint difficult to finish. Let's see if it's any better by the can.

Pale yellow, slightly hazy, soft textured and a fine white head: yes, it's keller-y all right. It's sweeter than I remembered, with an almost candy sugar foretaste and an inappropriate burst of tangerine or mandarin, building to less-inappropriate lemon zest. A second or two later the hops kick in fully. Not rotten wood this time, but a weedpatch herbal kick of dandelion and nettle, finishing sharply on grass, wax and plastic: those naughty nobles again. I like a pillowy soft Helles, and can appreciate the crisp edges on a north-German pils (hello Jever!), and while this offers a big slice of both, it ends up less than the sum of its parts. I'm not repulsed by it this time, which is progress, but neither do I "get" it fully. It's too much of a mish-mash of other beers I enjoy, the flavours clashing and not working well with the texture. The best I can describe the impression it leaves is as an uncanny valley take on German lager.

Running With Sceptres I only had a thimbleful of before, at a festival where it shared my palate with about forty other beers. That's no life for a lager, even if it is of the India pale persuasion. "Cloying" and "musky" said 2017 me. I can sort of see where he was coming from. This is very strongly flavoured, set on a dense body with lots of resinous dank and incense spicing. It's complex and impactful, bringing big flavours to the picture at only 5.2% ABV, but it's too busy for me, and too busy for a lager, I think. There's a certain clean crispness in the finish but it makes you go through a lot to reach it. I've blathered before about how "India pale" and "lager" rarely combine to make anything worthwhile, and this is a prime example of why I don't like them. That dank oily thickness needs a warm-fermented base; the light crisp base it got would suit a much more subtle hop presence. By the end of it I was starting to get fed up and thinking that "cloying" was apposite after all.

Time for a clean slate and a totally new beer. Helles is a recent addition to the Lost & Grounded range and has been getting good notices. That said, I don't recall reading any detailed reviews (hardly anybody writes those any more) so had no preconceived notions when I cracked the can on a sunny early-summer afternoon. It's unfiltered and hazy, which is not something I've seen done with anything called Helles in Bavaria. Does that make it a kellerbier? The ABV is only 4.4% which seems unreasonably low. Yes, none of these things are relevant to how good the beer is, but if you're co-opting German labels you can expect variances to be noticed.

From the first sip I decided that kellerbier was a fair descriptor: it has that gentle roughness of brewpub lager; a charming absence of polish. Here the noble hops are present but understated, bringing just the requisite amount of grass and herb. The soft candyfloss malt typical of Helles follows it, and seems untarnished by a lower-than-usual gravity. The fuzz means it doesn't quite get the clean lager finish it deserves but there's a pleasing dryness in how it signs off. It's obviously a conscientiously made lager, and if it were local to me I'd doubtless be enjoying it on the regular, but for this old geezer, the Bavarians do it better, and half a litre at a time too.

I came out of the experience with a more positive feeling about Lost & Grounded, and I will definitely keep trying their beers whenever I see them. Their wares do need to be judged as English takes on German brewing, however, because I don't think they stack up well when the real thing is an alternative import.

Start as you mean to go on

Dry January? The chance would be a fine thing. Dublin's pubs have had plenty of new Irish stuff on the go for this supposedly quiet month. Here's what I managed to get hold of.

I paid my first and second visits to Idlewild during the month, a pleasant little bar tucked into George's Market on the Fade Street side. The first time was because they'd just released their first collaboration recipe beer. Strawberry Milkshake IPA was brewed at Rascals in an extremely small pilot batch which sold out entirely on the evening of its release. I'm told it will be back on a more permanent basis in due course. It's 6.3% ABV and takes its name from the use of real strawberries and lactose, alongside oatmeal and Hüll Melon hops. The aroma was worryingly sickly but there's none of this in its flavour as it delivers instead a big hit of tropical fruit: a cocktail of mango, passionfruit and pineapple juices. No strawberry, mind, though the "milkshake" bit is present in the slightly glutinous texture which I think actually enhanced the hop impact. Expecting pure gimmickry, I was pleased to find just a really good fruit beer.

That wasn't the first beer to feature Rascals and Idlewild's signatures; the brewery has been making the bar's house beer since it first opened. A Swingin' Affair is a light pale ale of just 4.1% ABV. Manager Dean told me the intention was for something easy-going and fruity but to my palate this is very dry and savoury, in that way that seems to be so fashionable at the moment. The Hüll Melon is allied with Mosaic hops here and I got crisp onion skin in particular from it, with just a little bit of fruitiness peeping out as it warms. It's refreshing and it is easy-going, but I found that flavour just a little too severe.

What brought me back to Idlewild was the launch of a new pilsner from The White Hag. Róc is intended to replace the brewery's Kölsch-a-like in the permanent line-up, and is a medium-strength 4.5% ABV. Despite this it has quite a substantial body, light in carbonation and a full mouthfeel more typical of helles or even märzen. The bitterness is sharp and green in the north German way, though I found it lacking the fresh punch you find in the likes of Jever. There's a slightly off-putting rubbery note in it as well. It's a decent effort, and the brewery clearly knows that beers of this sort are supposed to have character, which this does. I'm not ready to place it in the pantheon of great Irish lagers yet, however.

While I was in the neighbourhood, I nipped around the corner to Bar Rua where they had YellowBelly's Smoke & Oak on tap, a 5.5% ABV stout with cocoa nibs aged on scotch whisky cask chips. It's pure black in colour with a sappy rubber foretaste and an ashen dryness after. Given a few minutes to warm up, there's a nice and meaty texture, but the flavour just doesn't work for me: it tastes burnt rather than smoked and there's none of the softness I'd have expected from whisky and/or chocolate.

Another German-style lager next, Careen, brewed by Galway Bay as a replacement for their Dortmunder. This one is 4.8% ABV, the purest clear gold, with a pleasantly soft texture. The first sip presents a large perfumed bitterness on the palate, one that takes a bit of getting used to and which hangs around for ages. I like when flavourful lagers party in the mouth quickly and then clear out of the way, cleaning up after themselves. This one is a bit more unruly, and leaves you to deal with that intensely floral aftertaste yourself, grumbling over your resin-coated tongue. Careen is a bold beer, and might even change a few minds about how aggressive this style can be, but for me it's just a bit too busy for enjoyable quaffing.

Recent guest beers at Galway Bay's The Black Sheep have included White Gypsy's The Banker, described as a "rye wheat beer" which I figured would be an interesting combination. It's the ochre colour of many a rye beer but that's where I felt the grain's contribution ended. On tasting it reveals itself to be an absolutely straight-up Bavarian style weissbier. And a good one at that: softly full-bodied despite an ABV of just 5%, and with a gorgeous juicy-fruit bubblegum flavour, one that's lively without being over-sweet. There is a certain peppery spice as well, and that could be the rye, but it could just as easily be a flavour produced by the yeast also. I'm not sure what the point of this experiment was, but I did enjoy the beer, reminding me as it did that weissbier is a much overlooked style and can be very tasty when done well.

Meanwhile another rye beer was pouring on the cask engines: O Brother's Holden, badged as a Belgian-style rye pale ale at 6.3% ABV. It's a murky orange colour but has a fresh and clean mandarin zest aroma. There's a big and sharp rye bitterness at the front, followed by juicy jaffa hops in behind. There's enough time for a full toffee warmth to enter the picture as well, before the bitterness returns, bringing it to a hard, almost acrid finish. It's quite a ride. A few sips in I noticed there's a certain tannic quality too. Coupled with the orangey hops this lends it an English bitter feel which I rather enjoyed. In fact, it tastes far more like a bitter or barley wine than anything Belgian. I liked it a lot, mainly for its complexity. The trademark O Brother bitterness is there, but it's balanced and enhanced by lots of other things.

I had never been to Murphy's in Rathmines before, but made a point of stopping by when it became the first Dublin pub to have O'Hara's Hop Adventure Styrian Wolf on tap, the latest in Carlow Brewing's series of 5% ABV single-hop IPAs. A previous version included Sorachi Ace, and I found this to have a lot in common with it. Coconut is the main feature of the flavour, though rather than Sorachi's lemons, there's a softer fruit accompaniment, something like lychee. I see one description of the hop which mentions an elderflower characteristic, and I can understand why. Amongst all the fruit and flowers there is a serious bitterness here too, but it's restrained enough to let the other flavours out to play. Much like Sorachi Ace, I expect this beer will divide opinion but I'm definitely a fan of its up-front boldness.

Finishing up with a couple of trips to 57 The Headline, Trouble Brewing's latest is a "fresh & juicy" pale ale called Ambush. It seems to be pitching a little at the New England segment of the market, with its cloudy yellow stylings. At least some of that must be hop haze because there's a full-on smack of pineapples and weed in the aroma, while the flavour has not a trace of yeast bite. There's a slight savoury greasiness, but no allium or caraway, I'm happy to report. Instead, the first flavour is a spicy peppery resin thing, pure dank, after which comes softer mandarin, pineapple and lemon candy. Fresh, yes, and a little bit juicy, but it's mostly about that weedy, spicy bitterness. Beautiful stuff, and at 5.01% ABV, very sessionable.

Finally, another fast-moving Rascals special. Vacuum Boogie IPA is an award-winning homebrew recipe, scaled up and sent out into the world, starting at The Headline. The Capital Brewers homebrew club had descended en masse to clear the first couple of kegs and I was fortunate to secure one of the final pints. It's another murky one, and once again dankness is the signature move. There's less of a tropical character than in Ambush, instead having a more bitter and spicy grapefruit skin thing going on. A teeny bit of onion starts to develop as it warms, but nothing significant, and not enough to upset the basic delicious spicy premise. There are about 18 kegs of this floating around, I believe. Grab it while it's fresh.

Not a bad start to 2017, all-in-all.

Of craft and macro

Oh no. You won't catch me wading into that whole debate on this blog. It's much better suited to the hit-and-run format of Twitter, I find. Or go have a look at Jeff giving the nail a sturdy whack on the head. I merely offer here some observations from my recent visit to Copenhagen.

I was there to attend a two-day meeting of the European Beer Consumers Union and the first session was held in the opulent surrounds of Carlsberg's event centre, just up from the famous Elephant Gate. A tour guide gave us a walk around the complex, taking in the silent kettles in the cathedral-like New Carlsberg (right) and the much more sober brick buildings of Old Carlsberg, founded by JC Jacobsen, the father -- and later bitter rival -- of New Carlsberg's eponymous Carl.

The vast site is on the verge of redevelopment, following an end to industrial scale brewing here some years ago. But they're still keeping their hand in, and in one of the Old Carlsberg buildings you'll find the shiny modern Jacobsen brewery, turning out a piddling two million litres of beer each year. It's an interesting relationship that Jacobsen has with the mother ship. Though independent to a degree, the head brewer is still directly answerable to head office and there's a lot of input from the suits over there. Recipes move effortlessly between the various Carlsberg macro and faux-craft brands.

We had lunch in the airy café-bar situated directly above Jacobsen's brewing and bottling plant, a smørrebrød of mixed Danish delicacies matched against some of the Jacobsen beers. The brewery's current pride and joy is Single Malt 2012, a dark beer which starts out with bourbon-biscuit malt flavours but swings suddenly left into a big field of apricot and peach notes, the result of generous amounts of Citra hops. We're told there's some smoked malt in here too but it was wasted on my palate. It matched fantastically well with the mature cheddar provided to accompany it.

Dinner later was just outside the Carlsberg complex and involved yet more Jacobsen beer (at our own expense, this time). Maybe something is lost in translation but I was left confused by the sober Jacobsen branding being attached to a beer called Golden Naked Christmas. It's not golden at all, but a deep chestnut red. It's 7.5% ABV and produced using both ale and wine yeast: an experiment of the craft-beery sort. There has been some light spicing resulting in a pleasant pepperiness, but also lots of orange peel for an almost juicy effect. There were also tasters of Jacobsen Velvet, their beer for people who don't drink beer: not such a craft beer phenomenon. This is a light golden beer along the lines of Kasteel Cru by Molson Coors, made using champagne yeast for a dry appley effect, perhaps shading a little towards cider tartness. Some grainy crispness is lurking in here as well. I quite liked it as a change from the heavier beers, but I wouldn't make a habit of drinking it.

Sticking with the Carlsberg off-shoots, I gave Årgangsøl 2012 a go when I saw it in a pub the following evening. This is produced each year and the main focus is on the arty label. Behind it there's a 10.6% ABV pale lager which is a little sticky but not at all as hot or unpleasant as I was expecting. This was after that evening's dinner across the street in BrewPub, an establishment whose beers I've almost always enjoyed over the years. We had been joined by the officers of Danske Ølentusiaster so there was a big crowd of us by now. For convenience the beer arrived in jugs, three per table: a pale ale, weissbier and the inevitable Christmas beer.

Fearing the BrewPub Pale Ale would vanish first (damn hopheads!) that's what I went for immediately. Bleuh! Phenols! There are some fresh hops buried somewhere in the murky orange depths, but a blast of sticking plaster almost covers them completely. BrewPub Weiss was a little better: a good bubblegum nose though not much to the flavour except that damn disinfectant thing again. And the BrewPub Xmas Red had the same moves: rather plain with a modest measure of toffee but once again a sign that things are not as they should be in the hygiene department.

It's a real shame: BrewPub does make some cracking beer and I'd recommend it to any visitor to Copenhagen. Hopefully they'll get their act cleaned up promptly. For now, I'll just hold them up as an example of how "craft beer" definitely does not mean "beer I like".

I couldn't have asked for a better palate cleanser than the Thisted Limfjords Porter I had immediately after. The bottle label declares this to be a "Double Brown Stout", and 7.9% ABV indicates they do mean double. Nicely weighty, there's plenty of caramel for the fan of strong sweet stouts but it's balanced beautifully with a whack of uncompromising bitterness, then some light herbal overtones to finish. This is one of those resolutely old-fashioned beers that manages to make unexotic flavour combinations do some wonderfully complex tricks.

Thisted also brews the house beer for Jernbanecafeen, a raucous early house right next to central station (thanks for the recommendation, Anne-Mette: it was an experience). We dropped in early on the Sunday afternoon on the way to the airport and the place was as crammed, loud and smoky as it apparently always is. 7 Expressen is the beer, a dark gold pils with a solid bitterness at its heart, just breaking out some lighter grassiness on top. Not at all far from the likes of good old Jever.

Lastly for this round-up, a superb beer we chanced upon completely by accident in genteel Nyhavn where we stopped for Sunday brunch. Cap Horn is brewed by Ørbæk for the restaurant of the same name and is a 5% ABV dark amber beer. It moves in quite subtle ways, with a little bit of toffee at the base, layered with a sherbet complexity and just a dusting of citrus on top. The aroma combines almost stouty dry roast with a dash of grapefruit. Much like the Limfjords, it hits that sweet spot of complexity and drinkability.

Craft beer isn't all foghorn hops and puckering sourness, any more than macro is bland and samey.

Up market, up country

From the somewhat bohemian Berlin brewpubs of Wednesday's post, we return to the middle of town to visit a couple of places that are rather more polished. Take Lindenbräu, for instance. This cubic glass and steel construction is built into the monumental Sony Centre on Potsdamer Platz, rising two storeys and topped by an indoor roof terrace, if that makes any sense. Tragically, we missed the window of opportunity to sit on the upper level when we visited, too busy soaking up the convivial atmosphere on the ground level and, obviously, the beer.

Lindenbräu Naturtrüb Helles looks a bit off, with its murky yellow colouring. The aroma is pure noble hops: that green nettley smell with a bit of extra yeasty sharpness. The texture is big and bready, making it feel wholesome. There's not really a lot going on in the flavour: it's another conversation beer. A hint of green apple tang keeps my attention and stops it from feeling heavy. There's a Lindenbräu Pils on offer as well. This is totally clear but other than some mild herbs is rather dull. Lindenbräu Dunkel next, a fairly by-the-numbers job: red-brown with lots of big caramel and brown sugar. Sticky, yes, but with a lightness of texture that means it's still very drinkable. Unusually, Lindenbräu Weissbier is kept as a seasonal. It's orange in colour, very fizzy, and with cloves bursting out of the aroma. Flavourwise it's quite sweet with candyfloss sugar forming the base, then laced with clove rock notes. Workmanlike is how I'd describe Lindenbräu's beers, but perfectly acceptable. The venue gets bonus points for having an outdoorsy feel minus any threat of rain.

Our last Berlin brewery, Lemke, nestles beneath the railway line at Hackescher Markt, with its beer garden occupying a quiet nook alongside where only the rattle of trains passing above disturbs the peace. Is there a pils? Of course there is. Lemke Pils is a pale lemon yellow colour with just a little bit of haze. The aroma is oddly citric for a pils and the first sip reveals a full-on piquant bitterness which subsides into some lovely lemon candy notes. Not at all what I was expecting and a pleasant surprise. Lemke Weizen, though a little dark in colour, is actually quite light and easy going. The aroma has a gingerbread character and the flavour harmoniously blends oranges, bananas and, of course, cloves. Definitely one of the better weissbiers I met on the trip.

There's more of that gingerbread in Lemke Zwickel, itself a clear dark gold beer. Once you get past the dusting of spices it's quite a plain and dry lager. Rather than a dunkel there's Lemke Original, a brown lager with creamy milk chocolate flavours, studded with orange candy. Quite nice, in a mild sort of way.

Here ends the Berlin breweries. Those familiar with the city may notice the glaring absence of BrewBaker from these posts. I certainly did. We never really set aside the time to visit it up in Moabit in the north-west of the city. It's not really clear whether the brewery is a walk-in arrangement with a tasting bar, so we didn't go, hoping to happen across some of their beers somewhere else. Sadly, we didn't. So no BrewBaker this time round.

We did, however, take a couple of days to head north and visit friends in the Baltic port city of Kiel. My mate's local -- every bit as classy as its website suggests -- lashes out DAB and Jever on draught. The latter is a very different experience without the lightstrike caused by green glass. Kiel also boasts a brewpub in its tiny old city square: the aptly named Kieler Brauerei. It's a cavernous beerhall in faux-keller style, ranging back from the entrance, with a shiny copper brewkit by the door and open fermenters on display in the cellar.

Just two beers are produced on site. The Kieler Helles Pils is a familiar cloudy yellow-orange. The main taste I got from it was a worrying sort of vinegary sharpness, but it's not overpowering and it's possible to get past it, to the plain spoken lager behind. Perhaps not a very technically proficient beer, but a drinkable one nonetheless. The second is, I think, attempting a pun with its name "Kieler Bier" (like "kellerbier", geddit?) and is a murky brown-amber colour. The flavour is a fascinating blend of soft fruit and caramel with hints of milk chocolate. Coupled with the smooth texture this makes it quite moreish and kept us in the place for a second round.

Enough microbreweries for now. Next week we'll return to the capital and hit the festival!

Black Forest, looking pale

The good folk at Ambrosius Trading, down Tipperary way, have recently acquired the distribution rights to the Alpirsbacher Klosterbräu range of beers and at the beginning of the year were kind enough to send me a sample selection of the range. Alpirsbach, for them as are interested, is in Baden-Württemberg: the south-western corner of Germany. A long way from Tipperary, you might say.

Anyhoo, I opened the Pils first. It's a very pale golden colour, pouring with a thick head that subsides quickly but leaves a finger of foam on top of the body. Though the aroma is quite bready, a strike of waxy vegetal bitterness greets the first sip. It's one of your no-messing-about hop-forward German pils, the sort I associate more with the north, from my admittedly limited experience. The texture is beautifully smooth, more like a Munich helles or even a märzen, the fizz kept well in check by its weightiness. It could pass for stronger than 4.9% ABV for sure. You need to wait for it to warm up before any malt comes through at all and it does so with a splash of golden syrup and honey. I guess it could get a bit sickly if left too long, but other than that we have a solid, workmanlike, better-than-average pilsner.

The kellerbier next, and Kloster Naturtrüb is exactly as the name suggests: densely cloudy. The orangey-yellow body topped by a big fluffy head makes it look for all the world like a weissbier. Definitely a lager, though. Like many of the bottled kellerbiers (surely such a thing shouldn't exist?) I've tried it lacks any real character. I get the impression that this is meant for rowdy session drinking in quantity and the taste doesn't really matter. It's clean, there's a nice unrefined rustic graininess, but other than that, very little flavour to speak of. At 5.4% ABV I'd want a bigger taste return on my liver's investment.

The blue-label Weizen follows next, described as "hefe hell" on the label, and is very hell indeed:  a slightly sickly looking translucent yellow. It definitely lacks the full-on fruity esters of its Bavarian counterparts but at the same time there's a nice crispness to it, something I associate, again, more with northern weissbiers like Flensburger's. There's just enough of a light soft fruit vibe to satisfy this drinker's weissbier cravings, and it's certainly very chuggable without getting too filling as it goes. I'm starting to build an impression of Alpirsbacher as a fastidious yet unimaginative brewery. Let's see how they get on with a more full-on style.

A purple label, 7.3% ABV: hooray! I thought, with no good reason, a doppelbock! My face fell as the dark gold beer poured out, and I braced myself for some German trampwarmer. No sickliness or booze on the nose of Kloster Starkbier, however, just a subtle breadiness. The body is full, barely troubled by the fizz, and while there is that slightly sticky sweet booziness you often get in Strong Lager For The Less Discerning Gentleman, it's compensated for by some quite hefty up-front hopping, giving it a kind of candied fruit effect with added herbal complexities, only turning towards park bench/bus station territory towards the finish. I'm a little surprised by how much I liked this. Even as it warms up it remains an enjoyable honeyish sipper.

The joker in the pack is Kleiner Mönch, a dark gold number in a vaguely märzen style at 5.4% ABV. A touch of nettle on the nose, but nothing to be too concerned about, followed by a flavour shot through with more golden syrup plus fresh-baked bread. It's actually not dissimilar to the Starkbier above, but is much more approachable though lacking the bigger herbal hops. I have to wonder why it's in the small bottle instead of the other one.

Last of the set isn't branded as an Alpirsbacher but is from the same brewery as the others. Nagold is a few kilometres north-east of Alpirsbach, so Nagolder Urtyp nearly qualifies as a local beer. 5.2% ABV and producing a powerful nettley whiff as it pours. I get a whack of metallic saccharine up front on tasting, followed by a watery hollowness and, yes, those almost sour noble hop green weeds on the finish. I suspect that all the brewing prowess at Alpirsbacher goes into the brewery's own range, while the Nagolder is left up to the apprentice. Or possibly the cleaning lady.

Overall, I think the Alpirsbacher range has a lot going for it. I see it in the same segment of quality German lagers as Jever and the Rothaus set, a segment which is not exactly what I'd call overcrowded round these parts. Our local brewers could learn something about making lager from this lot.

Loved lager: The Session round-up

Thanks to everyone who got down and clean-tasting for my lager-themed Session last weekend. 49 participants is a very respectable showing and I think between us we really covered the topic -- one which I hoped was usefully broad, even if some of you disagreed.

I've spent the last two evenings going through the posts and have thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I couldn't help but start categorising them into those who gave me the mass-market beers I wanted, and those who just couldn't bring themselves to do it. So, without it being any measure of the quality of the posts themselves, I give you the Fails and Wins of Session 25:

The Fails
First fail, of course, was me. Some microbrewed lager and then a rare specialty? I really didn't represent my home country's crap lager very well, though neither did any of my fellow countrymen and countrywoman for that matter, as we'll see below.

Thom at Black Cat, for instance, tries to hide his fail behind science, picking an African import, and rather liking it. Hop Talk's Al also went for an import because he happened to be mostly drinking Samuel Smith's last week and far be it from me to change that.

Ray of The Barley Blog reckons he's found the "the perfect beer for this month's Session, both in terms of style and relevance." It's an ale. That word again: Ale. Maybe I didn't make the theme clear enough in the title. At Musings Over A Pint, David tells us there's enough good lager out there for us not to be concerned at the reputation of the mass market stuff, but gives us nothing on whether that reputation is deserved or not.

Paul of A Flowery Song is among the conscientious failers: denying that his beery exploits began with pale lager, and refusing to go mass-market just this once. His Frugal Joe's Ordinary Beer is just a bit too knowingly cheap to count, I think: classless beers are only fun when they're trying to be something they plainly aren't.

Mario would like us to believe that he had to make do with a Lagunitas Pils, because every other beer he saw for sale was a powerful and/or hoppy ale. Maybe that is what "Sonoma Joe Six-Pack" goes for when he wants a lager, but by the sounds of it he doesn't have much time for the style at all. Up in Portland, Bill has similar trouble and opts for a retro-styled local craft lager. A World of Brews also goes craft on me -- Coney Island Lager -- but does put in a good word for Pabst Blue Ribbon when out with the Hash House Harriers. Rob of Pfiff! is another claiming the California Defence -- no crap beer to be found -- and refuses to go out and play with the other kids. Top marks for title punnage though.

Edmond of MMMM....Beer gives us Legends, a Virginian micro-lager up with the best Germany has to offer and therefore a total fail. At I'll Have a Beer, Couchand tells us that Millstream's Iowan pilsner is leaning more towards Bavarian than Czech influences this year. Well fancy! Fail. At least Tom has an excuse for his microbrewed Stoudts Pils: he works for the distributor. Cha-ching!

I sympathise with, and apologise for, the crisis I induced in Damien when he just couldn't bring himself to buy a full six-pack of crap as his beer shop didn't do singles, and opted for something more interesting instead. Similarly, my attempt to lay the smack down on Ted of Barley Vine failed as he avoided the beer equivalent of Kraft Singles and steered a middle course for something decent, local, but generally avoided by serious beer-drinkers for no good reason he can see.

Beer-O-Vision's Dan manages to avoid telling us much about drinking beer, with no mention of any actual brand of lager, but then he was judging a homebrew competition.

I missed talking to Thirsty Pilgrim Joe at the Cantillon open brew day on Saturday, and I also totally forgot to pick up a bottle of the Slaapmutske Dry-Hopped lager while I was in Belgium, even though I meant to. But Joe skips past Jupiler to get to this, so it's a fail, I'm afraid.


The Wins
Velky Al and Adeptus, living in the Czech Republic and Germany respectively had fishes in barrels for this one. Al gives us a run down of the Czech Republic's legendary lagers, and why they should be stripped of their status (corn syrup!), then shows us where to look for the good stuff. Adeptus really went above and beyond with the theme this time round, staging a blind tasting of five common German lagers for his pilsener-loving workmates. It looks like Jever isn't the German classic it's often made out to be.

From the Acceptable Uses For Bland Lager file, we have Steph's game of frisbeer and Jimmy's moving-day philanthropy. Leigh goes for the sun holiday -- several, in fact -- but comes back home to big up Yorkshire's Moravka lager as still enjoyable even in the heart of Real Ale country. Brad, meanwhile, goes far beyond the lawnmower to list a variety of mileux where crap lager is acceptable, nay, desireable. The Cellarman gives us some alternative uses for mass-market lager other than drinking the wretched stuff, and his suggestion of slug-bait gives me an excuse to post this wonderful practical experiment.

Boak and Bailey creep in under the wire with a review of Skinner's Cornish Lager. Yes it's an independent English brewery trying to ape a Mexican giant, but it seems to be getting ubiquitous enough, they say, to count for the Session. It's certainly bland enough.

We welcome Beer Sagas from Norway to the Session and he can find no greater pleasure after a long flight than a plastic cup of Heineken. Too right. Extra points for being the only participant to mention the world's favourite lager.

On Beertaster.ca, Devoid gives us two down-home world-famous Canadian beers, and notes the universal truth of industrial lager: they all taste the same. Alan also stays local with some Keith's and associated memories in the hope that it'll make me happy. It did, Alan. It did.

Beer Sage keeps it short and sweet on My Beer Pix, summing it all up with a picture of some recently-pounded cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon in a sunny back yard. That'll do. The multimedia PBR carnival continues at Geek Beer's podcast about it and a couple of other American macros -- the first Session podcast there's been, I think.

Wilson of Brewvana has never had Schlitz before, and believes he may have found himself a new lawnmower beer. So we achieved something on Friday.

Mark at Pencil & Spoon gives us the full lager-based biography from helping Dad with the lawn, through teenage rebellion, to the background noise of any beer drinker's life. Conversely, Todd at Krausen Rising was denied the proper lager education most of us receive in our youth but does manage to recall a brief encounter, later in life, with some Hamm's. He gives us at least 60 degrees of the macrolager flavourwheel: "swamp water, despair, trailers, warehouse shows, barbecues where things go horribly wrong and end up with helicopters circling the house". Beautiful.

At Red, White and Brew, Brian says he hasn't touched the bad stuff since his student days, but avoids failing by whipping out Colin, the trusty lagerhead he keeps on his spare bed. Every home should have one.

Buttle struggles a bit with the notion that "fancy-pants imported beer" is a relative term depending on where you happen to be. He opts for Genesee Bock anyway and as it's a local mass-market affair I'm happy to let it pass.

Even though I'm sending Jon of The Brew Site back over old ground, and even though he lives in Oregon, he still takes the time to tell us about Pabst Blue Ribbon and Coors Original and defend their existence. Wonderful dedication to the daft topic. D M goes one further and heads undercover to a dive bar to seek a kind of full immersion in macrolager culture. Captain Hops has his own personal macrolager culture, an active outdoorsy one he expresses, of course, as Beer Haiku.

Jay Brooks straddles the Win/Fail border with Reading Premium. Certainly there's no arguing with his account of it as the cheap and available beer of his youth, but when he veers into the recently re-introduced micro-version "updated to modern sensibilities" there's a danger we may be talking about something special, and therefore verboten for this Session. I'll let it pass, however. Similarly, Laura tells us about an ordinary everyday lager on Aran Brew. It just happens that it's the ordinary everyday lager in Jamaica rather than Ireland -- a win on a technicality, that one. Stan does the same for Germany. Mmmph.

The Reluctant Scooper succumbs to the inevitable Underworld reference, begins with a run-down of own-brand UK supermarket lager (including the joy of polyvinylpolypyrrolidone) but gradually becomes a soapbox piece on the importance of crap lager in the life of the conscientious beer drinker. I think I struck a chord with this one.

It's certainly a factor for the distracted Lew of Seen Through A Glass: Narragansett offers something to drink when you just don't want to have to pay attention, whereas Tomme Arthur prefers a Mickey's Malt Liquor in similar circumstances -- something that started as an April Fool's joke but stayed with him. Generik, meanwhile, finds macrolager just the ticket once palate-fatigue creeps in after a night on the tasty stuff.

From Peter at BetterBeerBlog we get a deeply personal story of love, loss and light lager. Ally also reminisces, over on Impy Malting, and continues her education in British culture by learning a new (lager-related) word: ladette.

In California, Craig of the Beers, Beers, Beers team reports on the erratic Truman pils, brewed in Berkeley by an Austrian brewery. Quite poorly, as it happens. Chris at Pint Log, finally, gives us some superb thoroughness, right down to the essential brown paper bags -- a great first Session post.


And that's your lot. Thanks everyone for participating. If your link got lost in the flabby folds of my inbox, or I've linked you up wrongly, or misspelled your chosen ersatz pilsner, drop me a line. On April 3rd we're doing something called rauchbier (?), courtesy of some yank called Bryson (?)

But before I go, another lager and some good news. Local readers may remember the late great Dublin Brewing Company of Smithfield which went out of business back in 2004, just as the progressive beer duty law kicked in. Well, it looks like they're getting back in the game: same logo, same font, but Big Hand Brewery is the new name. No beers of their own yet, but they've started by importing three from Van Steenberge in Belgium. One, of course, is a lager -- an unpasteurised pils called Sparta. I sampled it in Sin É on Ormond Quay last week. It's rather different from the beers I covered in my own Session post, being much sharper with an uncompromising but tasty bitter bite. The first own-brand product out of Big Hand will be a revival of DBC's Wicked Cider. Can we expect it to be followed by D'Arcy's, Beckett's, Maeve's and Revolution? Here's hoping.

Between these new imports, my recent weekend in Brussels, and current shape of my stash, I've a feeling things are going to be fairly Belgian around here for the next while. Oh well...

Kraut and about

I held off mentioning a couple of German beers I had in Zürich, aware that I had some German stuff at home to write about in the near future and I may as well lump them in together. As it turned out, the common ground is merely geographical as each of the following beers are very different from each other, which is refreshingly odd for a nation which seems to delight in brewing an awful lot of very samey beers.

We'll start in the south with a bottle of Hofbräu Schwarz Weisse, consumed in Zeughauskeller. I liked this "black white" beer, which is actually a gorgeous shade of chestnut brown. The banana and clove flavours are laid on thick and accentuated by a heavy, chewy, caramel sweetness. It's streets ahead of most any dark weissbier I know.

I mentioned the interesting Swiss beer I had in Bar Andorra here. We were there for a while, idly picking through the menu. I had a bottle of Jever Pils, a beer I've not tasted in donkeys' years. It's not as pungently bitter as I remember it, being remarkably smooth up front and saving the bitterness for just a pleasant gentle kick at the end. I'd be up for more but it seems to have disappeared from the Irish market. Still in Bar Andorra, I'll stray briefly from the Fatherland to mention Staropramen Dark, in its decidedly funky glass. I loved the smoky caramel character of this lager from one of the Czech giants. It's flavoursome but with a light enough touch to slip down easily. Just a shame I was paying nearly €5 for 330mls of it.

Back home again, then, and a couple of beers brought to me by Adeptus from his corner of north-west Germany. First up is Boltens Ur-Alt -- that's like "Old²", isn't it? It pours a cloudy brown from the swingtop with a stiff head reminding me a lot of a dunkel weiss. There's no aroma to speak of and I started getting a little worried about the fact that its drink-by date had passed a month or so previously. But it tasted fine and is unquestionably an alt: very dry, to the point of being almost sulphurous. This is followed by a powerful dose of that alt sourness, big enough to remind me of a Flemish red. And then, strangest of all, there's a final subtle aftertaste of roasted coffee, putting me in mind of nothing so much as an English mild. None of these complex flavours are particularly bold, and it makes you work to pick them out, but that's part of the fun of drinking it.

The other alt he gave me was from his local brewery in Münster: Pinkus Müller. All-organic Pinkus Original, says the label, is a (or "the"?) Münstersch Alt. Stand by for regional variation. The first surprise was the colour: it is remarkably pale, the hazy yellow of a witbier. The aroma has all the grassiness of a pils. The taste is mostly sour -- the mouth-watering lambic variety, though a little less intense. At the end I get the rounded fruity bitterness of a blonde ale. For all that going on, it's extremely easy to drink and moreish. Personally I'd love to have this as my local speciality. And the lesson is that if it looks like a wit, smells like a pils and tastes somewhere between a lambic and a blonde ale, then it's probably an alt. Simple.

My ur-bock hell

Now, to me, the syllable "bock" implies a dark beer. Doppelbock, eisbock, bokkbier -- all dark. Even maibock has a bit of colour to it. So I was surprised when I encountered Einbecker Ur-Bock in an off licence recently, presented in a green bottle, and quite plainly not bock-coloured.

It wasn't until I got it home that I noticed the "hell" in tiny outline letters on the neck. So presumably there's a non-hell version, properly dark, with the same label. It pours a limpid gold, giving off heady malt aromas. Tastewise, it's definitely true to its north German roots. The malt is there in spades, reminding me of a toned-down Jever, or an extreme Beck's. Behind the malt, there's a sugary sweetness, possibly connected to the 6.5% alcohol, and finishing up with a dry hoppiness catching in the back of the throat and necessitating another sip.

This Einbecker is a lovely little beer, brimming with flavour and well worth a look, if you can get past that initial bock shock.