Coal porter

I've had a bit of an on-again-off-again relationship with Belgian stout over the years. The much-loved Hercule was tough going for me, while Leroy ranks among the worst beers I've ever had the misfortune to have put in front of me. De La Senne's Stouterik is an excellent exception, but only achieves this by de-Belging itself, being light, simple and clean. So I wasn't sure which way the dice would fall when it came to De Dochter van de Korenaar's Charbon: at 7% ABV, smoked, and including vanilla, clean and simple were definitely not on the agenda.

It pours densely black with a rocky ivory head which dissipates quickly. The first thing that struck me is the intensely creamy texture, full and silky, with barely a prickle from the carbonation. Picking out the separate elements, the smoke is dry and a little burnt tasting. The vanilla is barely discernible, a mild wisp of it which could pass for the effect of understated barrel aging. The overall impression is of a well integrated, approachable extra stout with a spot-on roasty aroma and the appropriate level of vegetal bitterness. The smoky vanilla bells and whistles are near enough an irrelevance.

Not particularly Belgian, but in stout that may be a good thing.

Refusing Brussels stouts

I have not, hitherto, felt particularly positively disposed towards the stouts of Belgium. Hercule is often lauded as the finest of the genre, and while I appreciated that it was well made and did everything a very strong Belgian stout is supposed to do, the thick sweetness of it meant I just couldn't warm to it as a regular. It's still streets and streets ahead of Leroy Stout, a saccharine bomb I picked up in Ypres and which I really should have left on the shelf. As a result of all this, when I'm feeling stouty in Belgium, I'll generally go for Guinness Special Export, since it has that lovely balance between treacle and roastiness that the others just can't seem to manage. It takes a lot to move me away from it.

It was the terribly cool socialist-realist label that made me pick up and bring home a fourth stout on my January trip to Belgium. Stouterik is brewed by De La Senne of Brussels at the De Ranke brewery (thanks for the correction, Stan), and at only 4.5% I should have known this was going to be different from the bigger ones. It's very pale for a start, pretty much a red-brown shade. There's a dry roast barley nose, and a gorgeous sulphurous gunpowder flavour fading to dryness, with just enough sparkle to keep it moving. We get a fleeting glimpse of something very sweet right at the end: violets or lavender or similar, but it vanishes quickly. All in all it's a wonderful stout experience and I could drink a whole heck of a lot of this. Shame it's in 33cl bottles.

My perception of Belgian stouts has been altered and I'm a lot more willing to give new ones a try. Recommendations always welcome.

Amateur night

Bringing your own beer to the pub is great. Drinking beer that other people have brought to the pub is even better.

Last Thursday the Bull & Castle hosted a tasting night for the members of IrishCraftBrewer.com. Seven homebrewers brought their wares along and the standard was, frankly, amazing. Highlights included a hopped-up amber ale, a cherry stout, and a porter which -- were it available on the open market -- would leave Messrs Fuller, Smith and Turner quaking in their boots. It was a good night.

We non-brewers were permitted to bring along any interesting or unusual beers we had come across, and the management generously offered round some of the oddities they had accumulated but had no intention of selling. I don't think the commercial beers were deliberately chosen to make the homebrew look good, but that's certainly how it turned out for me.

Starting with something light, I tried a Tusker, fully aware that it doesn't have the greatest reputation, even among African lagers. It's pretty close to being your average tasteless fizzy yellow beer, but there's an almost weiss-like fruit flavour in there as well. Not enough to make it really worth drinking, however.

I've long been curious about King Cobra, the extra-strength double-fermented version of my favourite pseudo-Indian English lager. I wasn't impressed, however. There's all the corny taste of regular Cobra, but the lightness of body which makes the standard beer palateable is replaced with a heavy, sticky body which just tips over into special brew territory. Not recommended with curry. Or anything else.

Passing real Africa and fake India, we come home to Ulster. Until Thursday I wasn't aware that Whitewater made a lager, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised: lack of imagination can affect craft brewers the same as any of us -- though not the other Northern Irish microbrewery Hilden, who make a superb golden ale for the lager crowd, called Belfast Blonde. Whitewater's Belfast Lager was hugely disappointing. The flavour is dominated by a powerful malty mustiness and I couldn't get past it. I suspect they're going for a full-bodied central European feel, but it's not working for this drinker. How the people who brew the amazing Clotworthy Dobbin make something this poor is beyond me.

One of the event's attendees was just back from South America and, judging from what he brought us, I have to wonder how much he enjoys the company of his fellow ICBers. They were three from InBev's Quilmes range. The Cristal is yellow and basically tasteless, with just a teensy hint of dryness. Quilmes Bock is the same in brown: a bit sweet, but not sweet enough. Not enough of anything, in fact. And then we come to Quilmes Stout. Everyone who tasted it made faces and proclaimed its disgusting sweetness. As the only fan of sweet beer I know, I wouldn't run to damn it outright, but it's still pretty awful. The saccharine quality of the flavour reminds me of nothing so much as a dodgy oud bruin, like Brand. There's also a bit of Belgium's Leroy stout in there as well. If these are your two favourite beers, you'll enjoy Argentina. Once they let you out of the asylum, of course.

The lesson, then, is that when the world gives you bad beer, make it better yourself.

Coals to Newcastle

Here I am in Brussels, beer capital of the world and my first post is about... Irish stout.

Funny story. On my way to the airport on Tuesday I stopped off at the Bull & Castle for a Galway Hooker. Geoff, the manager, was behind the bar and ushered me upstairs to the glass-fronted cold room for a surprise. It was a surprise all right: it turns out that a craft brewer in Tipperary has been quietly making an Irish stout for export, to Russia mostly, according to a recipe from Dwan's, one of the many independent breweries in Ireland killed off by the multinationals. The result is Black Pearl, in full pint bottles, bearing the original Dwan labels and cap.

So it happened that I began my trip by exporting Irish craft beer to Belgium. Later, ensconced in a Ghent hotel room I opened the bottle. Black Pearl fizzes out, forming a short-lived dark tan head. The mouthfeel is far from fizzy, but marvellously silky. Like the classic Irish stout it is, the taste is dry, offering roasted grains and a pronounced hoppy finish. But there's more: a rich chocolate flavour which, coupled with the silky texture, all adds up to a sublime stout experience.

Brewers tell me that stout is one of the easiest styles to make. So why don't they all taste like this?

Commercial Irish stouts are an occasional topic of conversation on the Irish Craft Brewer forum. The consensus seems to be that bottled Guinness, at room temperature, is the best commercial macrobrewed [see comments] session stout in Ireland. Bottled Guinness is something of a rarity in Dublin pubs, but I was fortunate enough to be able to find one on Tuesday before heading to the airport. Believe the hype: bottled Guinness is lovely. Dry, of course. The taste is fairly mild, but the roasted barley is present in a way you don't find with Guinness draught. It's filling as well: you know you've had a pint at the end of this. But the best bit is the texture, to feel the carbonated prickle of real beer instead of the soulless blandness of nitrogenation.

And so to the airport. Dublin airport has the only bar I know whose supply is entirely controlled by Ireland's third biggest brewer: Scottish & Newcastle-owned Beamish & Crawford. So instead of Guinness/Murphy's and Bud/Heineken, it offers Beamish stout and Kronenbourg 1664 lager. Ack.

I've long had an aversion to Beamish, but I'm not the sort to hold a grudge. So, since it had also been spoken of favourably on the ICB forum, I felt it was time to check again. Beamish is certainly more flavoursome than draught Guinness. It is much much sweeter, but to me it tastes watery. On balance, I think I'd rather have a pint of Guinness draught done well, bland and all that it is.

I can't leave the topic with introducing at least one token Belgian element, so here it is: Leroy Stout. This is a thick black stout with an overwhelming saccharine sweetness. It is quite smooth, but it lacks any roasted or burnt flavours, nor is there chocolate, nor even much by way of hops. A miss, then.

Right, that's the Irish stuff out of the way for a bit. Next up, following a side-trip yesterday, it's The Lagers of Luxembourg.