How things change

Looking at the list of beers for this post, and at lots of beer lists in Belgium during my last visit, I was struck by the international dimension. It's not that long ago that the only beers I found in Belgium were from Belgium. That has changed not only in the generically international craft joints, but in some of the more traditional venues too.

Take De Ware Jacob and Oud Arsenaal, for instance: brown cafés in Antwerp, as traditional as you'll find. On my visits to both, I drank Dutch beer, albeit in a Belgian vernacular. Both were from the second Trappist brewery to open in the Netherlands, Zundert. Both are named for their ABV. Zundert 8 is a ruby red colour and surprisingly bitter for this sort of thing, leaning heavily on the liquorice. There's an unsubtle crunch of brown sugar next to this and the two sides aren't well integrated, fighting for the drinker's attention. It lacks the mellowness that the Belgian Trappists do best; maybe that will come with time.

Above the 8 there's Zundert 10. This had a lot of the same features, more of them even, but it worked altogether better. I'm still shocked by how dry and bitter it is, having almost as much in common with stout as quadrupel. There's enough quality dark fruit esters to get by: plum, fig and raisin balancing the liquorice, plus a velvety dash of high-cocoa chocolate. I still think the Belgians have the edge on it, but if you're picking a Zundert it's well worth upgrading.

If you want to hit the international stuff in a big way, Billie's Beer Kafeteria is a must. Despite the name it's definitely a pub, all varnished wood and bric-à-brac in the proper Low Countries style. My eye was immediately caught by a beer from one of my emerging favourite breweries, Ca' del Brado from Bologna. Û baccabianca is a grape ale and, unusually, a white one. It presents in the glass like a witbier: the hazy lemon yellow with a thick layer of foam. The peachy aroma is highly inviting while the flavour blends perfectly elements of juicy white grape, acidic sour spritz and mature barrel funk. Despite 7.9% ABV there's no heat here, just clean fruit matching spicy saltpetre. Exactly what a grape ale should be, and exactly my sort of thing in general.

An English double IPA to follow: Wake & Bake by Mondo in London, in collaboration with J. Wakefield of Miami. This delivers what so many of the style only promise: juice. A mandarin aroma leads on to mandarin and jaffa flavours; soft, not acidic and building to a long cordial finish. Here's another strong one (8% ABV) where the alcohol is completely hidden under the fruit flavours. While there's a tiny amount of yeasty grit and pithy bitterness present, they act more as balance than interference. This is a double IPA to restore one's faith in double IPA.

That evening finished up in Gollemke, an outpost of the Amsterdam bar chain. It's another bright and modern craft bar, though the selection is more traditional than most. I went mainstream on the first round: De Koninck's Triple d'Anvers, available all across Antwerp. Unsurprisingly, I guess, it's rather plain: clear gold with a honey sweetness up front, followed by wholesome oat cookie and golden syrup. There's no spices or heat, like all the fun has been filtered out of it. Tripel for people who don't like tripel, perhaps.

There was one beer on the menu I didn't recognise: Blinker, a saison by Siphon. They generally make good stuff so I took it for a spin. Halfway through it I noticed the bottle I got was a few months past date, but I still couldn't say whether that was the cause of this beer's problems. There was no fruit or spice in this; none of the things that make saison fun, and which aren't normally features that fade with age. Instead it was earthy, slightly funky, and with a harsh acidic burn. Though it's only 5.5% ABV I found it tough going and disappointing.

My nightcap was December Flower by White Pony of Padua, though presumably produced by their contractor in Belgium. This is a winter strong ale of 13% ABV, deep amber in colour; almost ruby. There's lots of heady sherry notes, like a super-strength lager, plus warming sugar and treacle. It's not subtle, or particularly complex, but it's clean, tasty and more-ish. Just what I needed at that stage in the evening.

One last beer in Antwerp, which came with a late-night burger in the Jack's fast food chain. It's called, imaginatively, Jack's, and is a bottle-conditioned pils. Hazy yellow and watery looking, it's very dry, tasting mostly of rice crackers. There's no substance, which is fatal for a food beer; no hop character and far too much fizz. Clean but boring, is my conclusion.

We departed Antwerp on Sunday morning, to grab a few finishers in Moeder Lambic in Brussels before the early evening flight home. It was here I discovered that Dieu du Ciel! has a range of variants on its excellent Péché Mortel coffee imperial stout. Pouring was Péché Morte Cerise and I went straight for that. The cherries don't really add much to the picture and the coffee remains dominant. There's maybe an extra Black Forest gateau note, but otherwise it's the same smooth beauty it always was. I like how this beer is becoming more readily available in Europe.

Over three years ago I visited En Stoemlings in their tiny premises near Brussels Chapelle station. They've moved since and the range has expanded beyond a single beer. This was my first time trying a new one: Tanteke, a saison. It's very unusual for the style, being sweet and creamy rather than dry and crisp. There are notes of lemon meringue and a floral perfume. I found it charming and very sinkable, dangerous given the substantial 6% ABV. That it has nothing in common with any other saison I've tasted matters little. I'll need to put more effort into finding more Stoemlings beer, if this is anything to go by.

Beside it is another coffee imperial stout: Whack!, by No Science, who share a building with Stoemlings. Though the texture is creamy, the flavour is quite a severe coffee-grounds bitterness with overtones of cooked green veg. I prefer this sort of thing to be rounded and less harsh. It's only 8% ABV so maybe it just needs a malt boost to smooth the edges off.

I'd not had a Kernel beer in ages so wasn't going to pass by the cask engine serving Imperial Brown Stout. Here we have a lot of the same things as in the previous beer -- big coffee, a vegetal or metallic tang -- but much better balanced and integrated. That it's 9.1% ABV perhaps adds credence to my theory that if you're going to make these, you have to make them big. The most surprising thing is that it smells and tastes more like coffee than the beer with coffee in.

The purple lad in the Cantillon glass is Mourvèdre/Carignan, a grape lambic from the Brussels brewery, utilising the two named varieties. It's come out well: 6.5% ABV with a pink peppercorn spice from the beginning. The fruit element is mild -- this is a classic geuze all the way down, with the bricky nitre and saltpetre I enjoy so much. I don't think it's been bottled so you'll have to seek it out on draught, and you should.

A final pair before we leave. I was intrigued by an offering from Austrian brewery Alefried, their Mikrozircus 12 Old Stock Ale, a 7.1%-er, fermented with Brettanomyces and aged in red wine barrels with cocoa nibs. There's an equally intriguing spicy-sour aroma while the flavour is a mix of lavender and cream sherry, finishing clean with a delicious sour flourish and a waft of leathery funk. There are elements of the geuze flavour profile in here, the waxy bitterness for one thing, and it's just as complex yet easy-drinking. Weird, but brilliant.

John went Brett too, picking Frappadingue Brett IPA by Brasserie des Garrigues in southern France. The non-Brett version of this double IPA is 9.1% ABV, and when the voracious yeast is let at it that climbs to 9.5%. It's a murky orange colour had has the orangey boiled-sweet aroma of many a Belgian IPA. It's thick and heavy but not hot or difficult to drink, just a bit on the sweet side. I didn't get any Brett character, nor much by way of hops, so it's less than the sum of its parts, perhaps, but an enjoyable warmer on a chilly spring afternoon.

That's a lot of beer and a lot of pubs covered this week. But Belgium: I'm ready to do it all again this weekend. Let's go!

Going dark

It goes without saying that dark beers were a big part of the Borefts Beer Festival 2013, De Molen being particularly known for its imperial stouts. Just when you thought they had run out of things to do with Hel & Verdoemenis, along comes an Eisbock version, freeze-distilled from my favourite barrel-aged iteration, Wild Turkey. The result is terrifyingly drinkable for 25% ABV: a mild alcoholic warmth but lots of silky milk chocolate added to café crème. Supremely smooth and hard to tear myself away from.

Perhaps a little more orthodox was Moord & Brand, 9.8% ABV and presented in a number of barrel-aged versions. The first I tried was the bourbon barrel one, which was quite a serious affair: no fun chocolate here, just a heavy dry bitter grown-up stout overlaid with the woody sap and sour mash from the cask. Its balsamico edition was more interesting, juxtaposing the incongruous elements of coffee roast with the savoury tang of balsamic oil. There's a bit of dark chocolate buried deep here and just about detectable under the resin. Another one for the more-interesting-than-nice file.

Sticking with De Molen, there was Zwaaien & Zwieren, a 12.6% ABV stout given the brettanomyces treatment for a big dollop of funk in with the coffee. There's a sweet vinous quality too, and all the flavours sit completely separate from each other, queuing patiently to be tasted in turn.

One of my favourites from the brewery was a special edition, released in the festival's dying hours. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a cherry-infused imperial stout of 11% ABV (based on Hel & Verdoemenis, I believe) though almost spirituous in alcoholic heat. The cherry notes rip through it, pulling liqueur chocolates behind them. Another dangerously sinkable powerhouse masterfully put together.

Neither of the last two were on the official listings, but the two that caught my attention in advance were both versions of Hot & Spicy, a De Molen imperial stout which has been around a while but which I've never had the opportunity to try and sounds exactly like my sort of thing. Version 3 came out at 10.2% ABV and is very much an imperial stout first, lots of dry roast and even some sourness tempered against sweeter caramel and chocolate. The chilli takes a little bit of time to come through but when it does it bursts powerfully onto the palate and wafts hotly into the back of the nose. Stimulating.

I suspected that the other, super-limited, version of Hot & Spicy would taste much the same. There was just one keg of this and it was poured only for the final hour of each session so was my valedictory beer on the Saturday. The difference is that it's brewed with naga jolokia, one of the world's most powerful chilli peppers, but what difference would that make once diluted in strong full-flavoured beer? It smelled innocent enough: the mild sourness of dark fruit, some cherries. This turns to a candy sweetness on tasting, briefly. Very briefly. There follows a red hot combo move that simultaneously scorches the back of the throat and side of the tongue before a rising pepperiness occupies the entire palate and fires off waves of endorphins. A little of this goes a long way. At least as far back to Leiden in my case.

De Molen weren't the only brewery to bring chilli beer to the show. Fyne Ales had one too: Smoked Chilli Dark Ale, a collaboration with BrewDog. Neither the chilli nor the smoke get much of a look-in however. This is thoroughly hopped, dominated by acid, acrid hops; all grass and metal. They should have called it a black IPA and left it at that. Fyne's own Sublime Stout was much better. It's 6.8% ABV and a little pale -- perhaps more red than black. There's no shortage of hop here, but they're the less severe lemon sherbet kind and they perform a tag-team act with the dark roasted elements to create a beer that delivers zingy refreshment and mellow richness in one glass. It is aptly named.

Staying in Britain but moving down the map, Thornbridge had brought a sumptuously decadent spiced-rum-infused porter called Kacho. Sweet and creamy with a very distinct rum element, for a Jamaican coffee effect. There was also a fast moving Imperial Raspberry Stout which was strong, dark but all raspberry: the roasty dryness working in a bizarrely complementary way with the raspberry tartness.

I couldn't pass by a dark offering from The Kernel and they had a Speyside-barrel-aged Imperial Brown Stout of 10.3% ABV. It's definitely more black than brown, however, with a blend of black coffee and scotch in the aroma. I could tell that there was a lovely full and sweet stout under the barrel effects but I couldn't get past the single-malt sickliness that the Scotch imparted. I'd definitely prefer this in an unadorned form.

Poor old Emelisse had a hill to climb when they brought along something called Crème Brûlée Stout. Southern Tier's beer of the same name is one of my standouts of the last year and comparisons were inevitable. Emelisse's effort is decent, but it doesn't taste as much like crème brûlée. There's an odd vegetal spinach bitterness from the hops in with the sickly cream-and-brown-sugar and it all just fails to hang together properly. I had more fun with their eisbock: another 25% ABV beer, called XXV in case the nose-hair-singeing aroma didn't give away the strength. It's incredibly hot and scorches down the throat, coating the oesphagous in a mixture of napalm and chocolate syrup. There's a small hint of hop bitters in there too, a touch of Fernet Stock or Unicum. In a lot of ways it's reminiscent of BrewDog's Tactical Nuclear Penguin but with better flavours to balance the alcohol.

It's back to the spice rack for the final black beer, from Denmark's Amager in collaboration with Florida's Cigar City and with the unnecessarily elaborate name of Xiquic and the Hero Twins. 9% ABV, infused with peppercorns, aged on cedar, and you can taste all of that. It starts with a big hit of green and black peppercorns, coats the palate unctuously, and is infused from front to back with a heady humidor spiciness from the cedar that I would expect to jar with the other elements but works beautifully alongside them. A definite demonstration that bizarrely elaborate recipes can have successful pay-offs, just like elegantly simple ones.

Another day, another genre tomorrow.

A tale of black and gold

I started my rounds of the Borefts festival bars on the Friday down at Thornbridge, finding them holding the same position as last year at the foot of one of De Molen's giant shiny fermenting tanks. They were one of the few breweries who had taken on this year's festival challenge: to brew something flavoursome under 3% ABV. A tweaked version of their dark mild was the contribution, dubbed Baby Black Harry. Its wonderful smoothness, says Dom, is down to a generous addition of oats. It's light on the roasted flavours but shows some wonderfully subtle dark fruit. I wanted a pint.

But there are no pints at Borefts so I moved down the line to try Thornbridge's Aussie Summer Ale. I would have said this orange-blonde 5%er is brewed with Simcoe if I hadn't been told what's in it: it has that similar funky, almost cheesy, hop pungency. But it's apparently brewed with new Australian variety Victoria Secret. Quite tasty for a hop named after pants.

The only other Thornbridge I got my mitts on was the Heather Honey Stout. A 10% ABV imperial job, this gives off powerful aromas of floral honey and caramel. Both elements become sharper on tasting, adding a tanginess which mixes well with the understated roast. It took me a while to figure out what it reminded me of, and it's Thornbridge's own Bracia. This is a simplified, more balanced, version: what I really hoped the rather messy Bracia was going to be.

Up at the windmill, The Kernel too were unmoved from their pitch last year. Just four taps on the bar but a considerable line-up of beers to get through. On the pale ale side there was Topaz IPA, a pale cloudy gold colour with a serious weedy nose but tasting quite sharp and medicinal. I wasn't a fan. The NZ Pils was better but similarly medicinal and rather grassy. It also didn't taste anything like a pilsner and the cloudy yellow beer could easily be passed off as a pale ale.

Kernel's Stella Pale Ale was more to my liking: another wan yellow one but this time with a big lemony citrus punch. Almost turning harsh with its hoppiness, but nicely balanced by sherbet notes. The daddy of these was Kernel Strong Pale Ale: an IPA without all the hops, said Evin, given a turn in a Scotch barrel. The result is 10.7% ABV and wonderfully boozy, spicy and warming. Apologies for almost finishing it before putting my glass down to take a photo.

It's the dark side where Kernel really excels, in my estimation at least. Their Imperial Brown Stout was a fine example of why. 10% ABV and brewed to a recipe from 1856 it's mostly black, just showing murky brown around the edges. Brown malt a-go-go, with all the coffee and milk chocolate that that brings with it. On top there's a gorgeous layer of sweet lavender and then a bitter hop bite right on the finish. Smooth, complex, and with little sign of all that alcohol. Beautiful.

And yet, it was neither The Kernel nor Thornbridge who had the best British beers of the festival...