Got your Bax

When I visited Groningen in 2022 I remarked on the virtual absence of the area's most famous beer brand, Grolsch. There was also no sign, that I recall, of the colourful local micro I'm looking at today: Baxbier. It certainly wasn't anywhere like as visible as, say, Frontaal is in Breda or vandeStreek in Utrecht. It's just as well that a wide selection of them arrived into Ireland earlier this month, and keenly priced too, with cans beginning at just €2.65.

First up is Abel's Ale, named in honour of that famous son of Groningen, Abel Tasman. I've actually tasted this before on a busy night in Zwolle a couple of years ago but never wrote it up. It seems the specs have changed a little since then, the ABV dropping from 7.8% to 7.4%, with a concomitant increase in IBUs, from 49 to 65. They describe it as a "Pacific pale ale", using unspecified hops from the region, plus an addition of birds eye chilli peppers which I don't think I noticed first time round. I can't say there's much sign of them now either. The aroma of the clear amber liquid is happily tropical -- pineapple, cantaloupe, mango -- without going overboard and turning sickly. From this I expected a bigger tropical flavour but instead it stays true to its west coast specs and offers citrus and pine resin as the beginning and end, with just a flash of exotic fruit in the middle. The aftereffect is dry, which might be where the chilli is manifesting, but that could easily still be the hops. It's no world-shaker, but it's pleasant: one of those slightly retro IPAs that remind you this was not all haze, once upon a time. I often find myself thinking that's good enough these days.

Is there haze, tho? Of course there's haze. Starkly named Tropical is 5.6% ABV and a bright and sunny shade of juice. The aroma is much less tropical than the previous beer, however, though is just as enticing, with a kind of savoury herbal spicing. And it's savoury to taste as well, giving me a first impression of fresh mange tout and crisp red cabbage or lollo rosso lettuce. It evolves quickly, passing through tangy jaffa peel and into softer and sweeter mandarin and mango. I had expected a full-on pineapple attack, but this is much more subtle; clean and exceptionally well balanced. It gives a sense of sunny summer days (very welcome on a dreary February night) without being any way silly or gimmicky. Beers like this can also end up gritty, hot, or acridly dry, but there's nothing here for haze-haters to hang a criticism on. Like the above, it's perhaps a little too quiet in how it goes about its business and could do with a fraction more flavour wallop. It's very tasty though, and for €2.65 would make for a quality fridge-filler or party beer. Sipping slowly through one was fun, but equally I could have gone for several in a row without risking getting bored or overwhelmed.

Crowd Pleaser is "beer with beer flavor", a delightfully reactionary description, pleasing at least this grumpy member of the crowd. What they mean is it's a lager, 5.1% ABV, hopped with "Motuea" [sic] and it's hazy, at least a bit. I'm wary of Motueka's extreme herbal bitterness but the aroma, yet again, is pleasant and welcoming, with a gently sweet buzz of lemon meringue pie. It gets a bit more grown up on tasting, with a dry and sharp introduction to the palate, grassy and fresh rather than the hot medicinal effect I associate with the hop. Amazingly, the blurb on the can doesn't continue the overuse of the word "crisp", so it's just as well I'm here to inform you it is indeed very, very crisp. The citrus I got in the aroma reappears later in the flavour in a punchier way -- lime rind and real lemon zest. I think they've miscalculated by giving it a name which suggests easy-going, lowest-common-denominator stuff. This is complex and interesting, and I think would be disappointing to anyone only after a basic lager, or a classically-styled one. Its craft game is strong, as indeed the label's hop cone wearing sunglasses makes quite clear. Party like it's 2009.

"Could be worse" is an inauspicious name for a beer up for review, but that's the translation we're given for Kon Minder, a very pale ale of 5.5% ABV showcasing Citra. Does it have a gently fruity aroma, you ask? It does, though leaning towards the extreme end of Citra where lime and pine become fried onion and floor cleaner. That warm onion thing ramps up in the flavour, to somewhere between a catering tureen of hot soup and surprise unwashed gym clothes. They appear to have dialled the bitterness back -- 30 IBUs says the label, which should be plenty -- and Citra without the punch seems rather pointless. While it's broadly in an American style I can't see any American brewery turning out a Citra-first beer like this. On the plus side the texture is nicely soft and the finish is quick, so the vaguely unpleasant savoury side doesn't hang around for long. It runs in parallel with a more subtle candy sweetness, with a very vague artificial fruit character. It all adds up to nothing very enjoyable, so yes, it could be worse. I can't say I was misled by the direct Dutchfolk here.

A fair few of the range have been showing up on tap too, and I found Bourbon Infused Koudvuur at UnderDog. I had drank the straight version of this smoked porter on a visit to Arendsnest in Amsterdam once, and found it a bit plain. With the whisky on board, the ABV leaps from 6.5% to 7.8% but it retains the lack of richness which irked me about the original. The aroma promises treacle and a substantial amount of smoke but I couldn't find either of these serious aspects in the flavour. Instead it's all dark chocolate and coconut, with no more than a slightly charred dryness bringing the only more challenging and grown-up aspect. The bourbon adds vanilla to the finish but otherwise stays out of the way, and I couldn't taste any smoke at all. It's really just more of the same, then: passable as a beer but not really doing enough with its components to be properly enjoyable.

Interestingly, to me at least, there's also a bourbon Barrel Aged Koudvuur. How different could they be? Well, this one returns to 6.5% ABV and the aroma leans heavily into the oak, though dry and sappy, rather than sweetly vanilla'd. It doesn't look like a lightweight, being densely black, with a decently thick texture to match. The bourbon oak is right at the front of the flavour, with the fresh-wood resins plus a tang of sour-mash whisky. That makes it difficult to spot the smoke, which melds into the dry-barrel acridity. What prevents it from being a chore is a gentler chocolate and fudge element, suggested in the aroma and forming the centre of the flavour. I found myself wishing for more of it. The bourbon is overdone here, building on the palate and becoming quite sickly by the end. Yes, it is a different experience from the bourbon-infused one, but I'm not sure it's any better.

There's yet more bourbon in store when we turn to the final trilogy of barrel-aged beers. That begins with BA23.01, the strongest of them, at 10.2% ABV. I was hoping for much more chocolate counterpoint here, as it's billed as a "mexicake" imperial stout: so chocolate with chilli, cinnamon and lactose. There's vanilla in the ingredients as well, which is slightly worrying. It pours a shiny obsidian black with little head to speak of. The chilli is the main feature of the aroma, dry and paprika-like, and slightly eye-watering with it. As with the last one, there's a good bit of bourbon spirit in there too. The vanilla and lactose are the heroes of the piece, giving the flavour an initial sweetness that the other ones really would have benefitted from. It's rich and warm and round, just as you'd expect a Dutch imperial stout of this strength to be. The bourbon is a little muted, likewise the alcohol heat, and that's fine by me. It doesn't rely too much on the chocolate either, so it's not really a cake beer, though I do get a certain cherry and raspberry cream effect, of the sort you might find from a Black Forest gateau. We're back to the subtly complex construction I identified in the paler Baxbier beers above. As such, it's rather tasty. Not hard work to drink, and with plenty to explore while doing so.

Coffee next, and BA23.02 is described as a "mocha stout", having cacao and lactose as well. Bourbon barrels do the ageing honours once more. The aroma is strong, but it's neat vanillin-powered whisky much more than Irish coffee or cream liqueur: boozy and hot, with the background coffee smelling raw and roasty. It's not unpleasant, but suggests something of a workout to come. So it was surprising to find that it tastes smooth and balanced, offering a mix of crisp hazelnut, smooth butter and, well, mocha, without too much heat or vanilla, and no sappy, splintery wood. That's carried by a full and equally smooth body, bringing the beer close to being sticky but narrowly avoiding the excesses. There's more going on here than might be expected for a trifling 9.6% ABV -- my experience of Dutch imperial stout brewers is that few bother with single-digit strengths, but this is a clear demonstration of how you can still get all the power of a big stout in a slightly smaller package. In fact, this has more character than the stronger and more involved one before it.

It's a complete change of tack for BA23.03, a wheat wine aged in rum barrels. It's the slightly muddy looking mahogany colour that's normal for these. A strongly boozy burn usually comes next in the aroma but Baxbier's masterful subtlety strikes again, and it smells more like an actual wine: sweet raisin and mere hints of oaky spice. Unfortunately, much as I enjoy the occasional rum, rum-aged or infused drinks rarely suit me, and this is a strong example of that. The rum is very prominent right from the start, and to me it tastes sickly and plasticky, with a kind of concentrated strawberry jam sweetness. But hey, it's still not hot, and the texture doesn't add to the difficulty, being nicely light for 9% ABV. This is one of those beers where I'm obliged to say it's very well made, just not for me. It certainly could be worse, though.

It's a little bit of a surprise to find a brewery of this sort which does pale and hoppy better than strong and dark. The balance on display in the recipes here would make them quite well suited to pint drinking even though they're not from that kind of cultural background. Still, there's always the option of buying the well-priced 330ml cans two at a time.

Dam nation

My travels are coming to an end and today's post concerns the last couple of days of holiday, an early October weekend in Amsterdam. Nothing too ambitious was on the cards.

Beer Temple is frankly too easy, with its central location and sensible opening hours. In we went, first thing on Saturday afternoon, to see what delights from the USA were available. I started with one from Benchtop in Virginia, their Foeder-Aged Friar Storm. Why you would want to oak up a Vienna lager is beyond me, but oak it up they have. What you get is still quite a normal lager: golden with a lovely thick layer of froth on top. The aroma is pleasantly meadowy, the floral hops continuing into the flavour. There it's seasoned with a light oaky spice with a touch of vanilla, but not so much that it interferes with the hops or the Vienna malt richness. I suspect that the base beer is very well made and that no amount of dicking around with it can harm its fundamental decency. This one certainly doesn't come across as gimmicky, though I still wonder what the point of the foeder was.

That's an imperial stout next to it: Black Betty by Nebraska Brewing. This 10.6%-er has aromas of coconut and liquorice and a strongly boozy herbal bitterness with overtones of Fernet Stock or Jägermeister. There's a sweetness to be found beyond this, making the whole picture into something like a Turkish coffee, with sugar, roast and all manner of odd additions. It's still a little bit serious, bordering on harsh, but I liked the punch it packs. You know you're drinking a big beer.

I went with a triple IPA from Maryland next: Biggest Cush by Cushwa. It looks an innocent hazy yellow but is a whopping 10% ABV. There's a fun pith and juice aroma with a touch of melon, while the flavour is very sweet, Juicy Fruit gum hitting more savoury poppyseed breadcrust. That's it, however: no heat, no subtleties, and nothing to really justify the enormous ABV. Were it a double IPA at a few points weaker I might nod it through but I expected much more than the flavour delivered.

Herself chose something local, namely Uiltje's Sgt. Night Vision. This imperial stout is 10.5% ABV and very smoky, smelling of burnt wood and tasting of sweetly glazed ham. The brewery's description tells me peated malt was used, and I definitely get that turf vibe, and it's also barrel aged, hence the oak. Beers like this can be quite extreme and difficult to drink; this one isn't subtle but it's not overdone either and the flavours are perfectly integrated into each other. You do need to like peat smoke in your drinks, and it's a great example of how to do that well.

The next unimaginative step was across the canals to Beer Temple's sister pub Arendsnest. This had the latest in Beer Temple's series of birthday IPAs: Big Fat 13, brewed by Uiltje. It's another triple IPA, claiming 10.13% ABV. Sure, guys. It's a mostly-clear pale orange colour and tastes of concentrated grapefruit pith plus an extra crispness, like desiccated orange peel. A hot but clean afterburn finishes it on a flourish. It's uncomplicated, but unlike the Cushwa one it provides enough flavour intensity to back up the sizeable strength. Big Fat 5 double IPA remains the stand-out of these, but I'll keep looking.

A Dutch take on Altbier next: Gooische Haring, a collaboration, of course, between Gooische and De Kromme Haring where it was brewed. It's difficult to imagine what sort of creative input went into the collaboration because this is very much down the line, from the clear red-brown appearance, through the biscuit aroma to the crisp flavour showing notes of brown bread and black tea. This is absolutely what an Altbier ought to be; no messing, no silliness, nothing that would be out of place in Düsseldorf. As such, I loved it, but did it really need two brewers to create it?

I said goodbye to Arendsnest with Koud Vuur, a smoked porter by Baxbier. It has a black IPA aroma, all spiced red cabbage and Parma Violets. The flavour is rather plainer, however, being mostly dry charcoal and little else. You get no smoky phenols, which was disappointing, just a savoury umami finish on a medium sweet body. It's inoffensive but I expected much more from something billed as a smoked porter and with a substantial ABV of 6.5%.

On Sunday we went for a dander through the Jordaan, the neighbourhood to the immediate west of the centre. We stopped for a noontime straightener at Café t'Monumentje which for me was the Coffee IPA from Dutch client brewer K.E.G.S. It looked more like weak milky tea than coffee, a hazy pale amber. In keeping with the haze, and 6.1% ABV, the body is soft and full. Coffee strikes the palate immediately on tasting, in the form of dry grounds in particular. The hops then bring a bouquet of floral flavours which feels like it should be central but is shouted down by the foreign addition. I don't think it quite works. The coffee feels rather tacked-on and gimmicky.

Beside it, in keeping with the autumnal setting, is van Vollenhoven Bok, one of the traditional Dutch autumn beers I've never tried. It's properly red and properly 6.5% ABV. The aroma is proper too, redolent of raspberries and red liquorice. It is, however, sweeter than most of this sort, showing ripe strawberries, fruitcake and glacé cherries. That's not a criticism, as it still brings all the comforting smoothness and warmth that Dutch herfstbok does so well when it's good. And this is good.

Amsterdam brewer Troost has a brewery out this way, in a converted redbrick industrial building in the Westerpark. There's a small production brewery and a small taproom where it's not clear which beers are brewed on site and which elsewhere.

I'm guessing the Raspberry Stout isn't from here because it arrived canned. This is 7.7% ABV and has a lovely mix of very sweet raspberryade or fondant cream candy with cocoa and milk chocolate: exactly what you might think a raspberry stout should be. It's not subtle and is more than a little gimmicky, but the gimmick works and it's all rather fun. I liked the silliness.

Beer of the moment, so presumably brewed here, was Troost IPL. It looks properly lagery, being clear and golden, while the flavour of fresh lemon very much represents the "India pale" side of the equation. It turns more ale-like on tasting, being sweet and a little heavy at only 4.5% ABV. The flavours are still bright and fresh -- lime and vanilla -- and by starting to think of it as a pale ale I enjoyed it more. It's rare to find an India pale lager that shows both elements equally well, and this isn't one of them.

I wrapped up with Extra Wit, and again appearances were spot on: pale yellow and hazy this time. There's lots of herb in it: coriander of course, but also a sweeter and oilier addition, suggesting rosemary and wintergreen to me. A dry grainy crispness balances those sweet oils, and also the growing bubblegum taste which creeps in as it warms. Overall, it's a good effort. It's more savoury than, say, Hoegaarden, but still hits all of the important style points square on.

From there it was out to Schiphol and home again. We're not quite done with the trip, however, and Friday's post will mop up a few more bottles and cans I picked up along the way.