Mersey treat

I was given a hotel voucher for Christmas and, after performing full due diligence on the opportunities it offered, decided that one night in Liverpool was the most economical way to make use of it. So on a sunny Saturday morning in late July, myself and herself hopped over the Irish Sea, arriving in Albert Dock in time for coffee at the Tate and a cheery stroll around the International Museum of Slavery.

A beer was in order next and we went the long way about it, taking the Mersey Ferries cruise (surprisingly good) over and around to Birkenhead, where Gallagher's Pub and Barber's is a short walk uphill from the dock. The name isn't just a gimmick either: there is a real working barbershop at the back, just beyond the bar. The pub itself is smartly maintained, perhaps unsurprising when there's a broad military theme to the décor.

Two beers from local brewery Brimstage were on, including its flagship bitter Trapper's Hat. This is leaning towards brown but still safely amber, I guess, and has an approachable 3.8% ABV. And it's properly bitter too, pushing out cleanly acidic lime marmalade notes and balancing them with crunchy wholewheat biscuit. Simple, but nicely done and I'd happily have this as my local beer. The other Brimstage offering was Oyster Catcher, a 4.4% ABV stout. It's big on coffee aroma and the texture is light, so I was expecting something quite simple here. But there are complexities lurking in the darkness. Behind the strong roasted element there's a sharper forest fruit tartness adding a beautiful extra dimension to the flavour. Again, not a multi-layered taste experience, but a damn decent drinking beer.

Just one more before we move on: Stateside Pale Ale, a 5%-er by Sheffield brewer Exit 33. And they've definitely gone for the stereotypes here: a big biting grapefruit pith and zest. One of those beers that reminds you of what actual grapefruit tastes like, not just grapefruity hops. Refreshing and dangerously drinkable at such a stonking strength. I'd better move on before things get messy.

Old Garde

Back in Liverpool, high on my list of drinking venues was The Clove Hitch, a relatively new addition to the city's entertainment district. The basement bar was full but that didn't matter as the restaurant has plenty of beer choice and we were hungry. With my scallop and chorizo starter I had a BrauKunstKeller Laguna. I'd had this IPA before, closer to its home, and wasn't impressed, but the super-heavy bitter resins worked better here as an accompaniment to meaty food than during a festival session. I also got the chance to try my first beer from Manchester's much-lauded Cloudwater Brewery. Well, sort of: Old Garde is a collaboration with south-coasters Burning Sky. It's a bière de garde, pale amber in colour and highly attenuated. And while I'm positive it tasted as the brewers intended, it just wasn't pleasant drinking, tasting off in two different ways simultaneously: a jangling tangy sourness and then the dull buzz of oxidation. Your clothes are ready now, Emperor.

For dessert, Hop Damn, a chilli black IPA by Alphabet Brewing, also based in Manchester. It's 6.1% ABV and arrived properly black with a thin head. Nothing clumsy about the aroma, just a subtle dusting of fresh green hops. On tasting there's a light vegetal bitterness as the centrepiece of the flavour, backed by smooth stouty vanilla and an increasing burnt quality as it warms. There's a beautiful sherbet effervescence to the texture as well. And the chilli? Just a very gradual peppery catch, but no silly tricks. Very well put-together, I thought.

We ended the evening in The Belvedere, a poky little joint that came recommended by ex-Brimstage brewer Mike McGuigan. At 10pm on a Saturday it was packed and a little rowdy but we managed to squeeze into a corner. Just one tickable option for me, one with a Pumpclip Parade-able tap badge: Summer Blaze by Cornish brewery Coastal. It was actually a decent beer: pale gold, a lagerish malt base and then floral, lightly perfumed, hops. Straight-forward, easy-going, inoffensive perhaps, but well-made. As the pub got increasingly chocker, its drinkability became a major plus point. Down the hatch and out we go.

On Sunday it rained, but I'd planned for that and wasn't intending to move very far during the day, though that wasn't going to prevent a decent crawl of pubs. The Philharmonic was just down the street from the hotel, so it would have been rude not to drop in for a swift pint. Liverpool Organic's 24 Carat Gold was on the pumps, and I've always enjoyed their beers in the past. This one is golden and brewed with 100% Brewer's Gold hops, so full marks on the naming there. The bitterness is very low and instead the hops impart a gentle meadowy effect, with elderflower to the fore in particular. The malt keeps its head down. For all its understatedness, I rather liked it, but then it was the day's first beer.

Down the street next to The Fly In The Loaf, a highlight of my last trip to Liverpool, though that was on a busy Friday evening. It's very different on a rainy Sunday afternoon, feeling every bit as cavernous and empty as it looks. Still, the staff were attentive and there was plenty of beer to choose from. It shares a corporate parent with Okell's, so the Manx brewery featured large. Out of sheer curiosity I took a pint of Manx Pale Ale, the lightest in the range, at 3.6% ABV. It's a weak yellow colour and has a waxy lemon flavour which I associate with northern bitters, and Marble's Manchester Bitter in particular. The citrus aroma matches this nicely and there's a crisp cereal finish. I was all excited for the first few mouthfuls but it gets boring very quickly, turning rather watery. Still, it's not really designed for considered analysis and stands up well as a session bitter.

My other half went all craft, choosing a two-thirds of Northern Monk's mocha porter, Northern Star. There's a big coffee aroma in this 5.9% ABV beer, with an added undercurrent of blackberries and damsons. It tastes very sweet, like the coffee creams which inevitably get left behind in chocolate boxes. I could tell there's a proper porter underneath it, but the coffee effect is just laid on too thickly. Two thirds would be too much for me.

Continuing down the hill and just around the corner to The Roscoe Head. This tiny traditional pub manages to squeeze three saloons into its miniscule footprint, each little bigger than a couple of phoneboxes. Trade was brisk but we found a banquette to perch on. The pub's claim to fame is as one of the Magnificent Seven: a rather grand title for the handful of premises which have featured in every edition of CAMRA's Good Beer Guide. My pint of Backyard Brewhouse Centennial IPA was well-kept, though could probably have stood to be served cooler. It's 5% ABV, dark gold and tastes warmingly spicy and rather green, in a good way. There's little by way of citrus, just a slight lime jelly bitterness, but more than anything the flavour put me in mind of gunpowder tea. Not what I was expecting from Centennial hops, but tasty all the same.

Journey's end was a short hop from The Roscoe at a place that's unlikely to catch up with its GBG record: BrewDog Liverpool. This is the biggest of the six BrewDog bars I've been to, and all the more comfortable for the ample seating. Just released a day or two earlier was Elvis Juice, an IPA laced with juices of non-Elvis origin. Orange and grapefruit, I think. It smells like a stiff and resinous IPA and tastes properly bitter: spiky, spicy and dank. The citrus adds a sweet fruit lacing to this, a complexity that doesn't feel tacked-on or out of place. Its mouth-watering acidity is preserved and it's all rather enjoyable, though at 6.7% ABV more of a serious beer than the name and ingredients might suggest.

Also new to the BrewDog line-up is Mashtag 2015, billed as a 10% ABV black barley wine. It's very black, and smells stouty -- dry and roasty, plus a big hit of vanilla from the added oak and, er, vanilla. As you might expect it's very boozy, but smooth and warming with that. The finish has a peppery piquancy and then the bitterness of high quality dark chocolate. For a recipe compiled by a public vote it all holds together very well indeed.

To finish, before a quick dinner and a sprint to the airport, Westbrook Gose, one of those beers I keep seeing pictures of on other people's Twitter but had never seen in real life. I decided to make this the day it stops bothering me. Beer ticking is really just a form of exorcism. So, 4% ABV, hailing from South Carolina, presenting just on the pale side of amber, with skeins of yeast floating through it when poured. It smells how seawater tastes: pungent yet refreshing, and the flavour blends the salt and sour elements really well. Coriander does seem to be the poor relation in modern gose. If I'd poured more carefully I might have got less of a yeast bite, but even that didn't prevent this from being beautifully invigorating and energising which, after this busy couple of days, was exactly what I needed.

I'd recommend Liverpool to anyone looking for an easy, short city break, though if you're coming from these parts it's probably best to wait until the exchange rate recovers. I really picked the wrong summer to make three beery trips to England...

Beer speed dating

Although I've been to bigger festivals, BrauKunst Live! in Munich was among the most daunting. Even setting aside the familiar breweries -- headline locals like Schneider and ubiquitous festival fixtures like De Molen -- there was so much I had no clue about and it was really difficult trying to figure out where to start. Fortunately the standard beer measure was only 100ml so at least picking any given beer wasn't much of a commitment.

Happily also, admission came with four tokens for specific stands, one of which was Camba Bavaria from Truchtlaching, east of Munich towards Salzburg. They had a helpful plasma screen above the stand to tell punters what was available, so I kicked off with their Pale Ale. It was terrible and reeked of piss. Surely this can't be typical of the new wave of American-influenced German ale brewing? Over to BrauKunstKeller to try their Laguna IPA. Awful again: brown, and sticky with an unpleasant mix of stale sweat and sugar. You're letting me down here, Germany. The modestly monikered Bavarias Best IPA by Schönramer was rather better. Closest to an English IPA with its gentle marmalade hopping it also presents a strange, but not unpleasant, lagerish grain element too.

What was required here was a bit of direction, and Barry's recommendation was to try Hopfenstopfer. This is a side project by the brewmaster at the otherwise traditional Häffner Bräu brewery in north-west Baden-Württemberg. The beers would be instantly recognisable to anyone who has been keeping even half an eye on what the likes of Mikkeller and BrewDog have been up to over the last five years, though still seem to be in the early "Yay! Hops are great!" phase. So take Hopfenstopfer Citra, for example: 5.1% ABV and a hazy yellow-amber. It's lightly carbonated and provides an ideal platform for lots of herbal, slightly spicy, Citra flavours to come bursting out. There's something similar going on in Incredible Ale only this uses a cocktail of Cascade, Nelson Sauvin and more besides. It's very dank and funky but just at the right level: strong, but not overpowering, which is how I like my dank. For an altogether calmer, more balanced experience there's Jahrgangsbier, a pilsner using local ingredients and eschewing the pale ale bitterness for a light and crisp mineral character. The highlight of the Hopfenstopfer range for me was Comet, a 6.8% ABV IPA utilising Comet, of course, plus German varieties Taurus and Saphir. There's a bit of an acid burn in the foretaste but that fades leaving a lovely balance of citrus and dank, sharpness and funk. This combination of German ingredients and methods with foreign recipe influences was much more what I was hoping to see at the festival, and Comet was one of the few beers that left me wishing I could sit down with a pint of it.

I struck gold again over at the Weihenstephaner bar which was being manned by the students of Bavaria's state-owned brewing research institute. What had first caught my eye was Infinium, the collaboration with Boston Brewing in its very fancy 75cl bottle. 10.5% ABV and using classic German Tettnanger, Mittelfrüh, Spalt and Hersbrucker hops. Though a gorgeous shade of clear dark amber this is all mouth and no lederhosen, being quite a dull but hot beer with not much going on in it at all. However, the students' pride of place wasn't given to this, or one of the long-established heritage beers, but to Banx, a hazy golden pale ale they had made with Topaz plus new German variety Mandarina. It hits that precise sweet spot between US-style citrus and German herbal hop flavours. Beautiful.

One of the very few beer brands I'd heard of before the festival was Propeller. They had a double IPA on tap on their stand, called Aufwind. It wasn't quite on the money for me: a mere 6.5% ABV and much more about the crystal malt toffee flavours than any big hop effects. Nachtflug imperial stout was much better: sweet and smooth and oddly reminiscent of a quality doppelbock, with that silky caramel sensation they do so well.

Sticking with the German stouts, there was the rather pleasant Fritz Ale Milk Stout which completely missed the babyish sweetness that normally comes with the label and instead packed in the dry roastiness, Irish style. I wasn't complaining. Over at Pax, an operation where the cool t-shirts and biker moustaches are more prominent than the beers, there was Black Gold, an extremely dry oatmeal stout with added liquorice. It's 5.3% ABV and very full-bodied. Enjoyable to drink but quite hard work.

Two from the more outré side of things to finish. BraufactuM are a subsidiary of German food and drink giant Dr Oetker, specialising in expensive strongish beers for the "gourmet" market. They had a vast sprawling stall by the entrance of BrauKunst Live! and weren't shy about charging a premium for their tasters. The two I tried were Roog, a nicely balanced 6.6% ABV smoked beer, one which allows the sweet dark malts to come through the smoke and making the most of both elements; and Arrique, a Rioja-aged barley wine, 13.5% ABV with quite a big vino tinto character and some nice woodiness, but overall rather tame for the stack of beer tokens they were demanding in exchange for a sample. Thankfully Mr Dredge's press pass spared us the need to splash out -- cheers Mark!

The very existence of BraufactuM shows that there's definitely a change in the air with German brewing, though personally I'd like to see the Hopfenstopfer model become the more common template for the way forward. Later in the week I'll have a look at how the more traditional German beer styles -- which don't seem to be in any jeopardy from the new wave of craft -- have been given a progressive twist by some of the brewers, but before that let's have a look at the foreign beers on sale at the festival.