Hope over experience

As one of the first brewers of interesting beer I ever found, Williams Bros. has always had a bit of a halo for me. That said, where I see them recently tends to be in Aldi, and the beers they make for the supermarket are universally terrible and cheap-tasting. Well, here we are again: two IPAs, both with a nod to contemporary beer fashion. Fingers crossed and in we go.

The first is called Rocka Hula, described as a tropical IPA, and is 5.1% ABV. The can promises grapefruit, mango and guava but doesn't provide a list of ingredients. I'm not convinced that the flavour comes solely from the hops, because while it is indeed tropical-tasting, there's a sticky and sickly quality to it, which suggests to me that it's done with syrup. It's not unpleasant, however. It's a pale gold colour and only faintly misted with haze. The base is crisp and clean, with a bite of dry grain husk on the finish, after the artificial candy effect fades away. It tastes cheap, however. While it's better than the previous Williams x Aldi efforts, I can't really recommend it.

With it to Aldi came Magma, a hazy IPA of 5.2% ABV. It's barely hazy, pouring quite a dull translucent orange, though with a better head than most of the premium-grade versions manage. The aroma has both the sweetness and sharpness of citrus fruit, a little like lime or grapefruit marmalade. None of that makes much of an appearance in the flavour. Cold from the fridge, it tasted very plain, with any hop character reduced to the very finish, where it's no more than brief tang. There's kind of an empty cereal effect before that, lacking taste, as well as body and carbonation. Given a little time to warm up, all that emerges is a hard onion acidity, which is best ignored. At least that's some way to-style. Like the other one, it tastes very cheaply made, and while there's nothing especially offensive about it, there's nothing to recommend it either. It certainly won't give you the full-on, or even half-arsed, hazy IPA experience at an Aldi price.

These were actually better than I expected them to be. They sin by omitting pleasant flavours rather than putting in nasty ones. Maybe they'll be a gateway to something better for the curious Aldi shopper, but mostly I don't think they'll do anything positive for the reputation of craft beer in general and IPA in particular. This is what all the fuss is about?

A different hymnsheet

Like any right-thinking drinker of Belgian beer, I consider Troubadour Magma to be one of the greats, taking strong influence from powerhouse American IPA and giving it just a little bit of a classy Belgian twist. I'm not the only one who thinks so highly of it, as evidenced by the brewery's insistence on releasing brand extensions. So far, only the Brettanomyces-spiked one has been worthy of the name, in my estimation, but here's another one to try: the inevitable Magma NEIPA.

It doesn't look especially different from its parent beer, being bright orange and hazy rather than yellow and hazy. The ABV is rather lower, however, at only 6.5%. There's a very fun mix of satsuma juiciness and a peppery Belgian spice, a bit more like a saison than an IPA. I'll take it. The flavour doesn't go in any significantly different direction, though the spice here is a little muted, becoming more of a medicine-cabinet herbal effect. It's still good though. Nothing fancy, and certainly not a typical New England-style IPA on any front, but it's very much a Belgian Belgian-style IPA, and a more enjoyable example than most I've tried. Magma finally has a respectable lower-strength version.

I'm not exactly sure what the Troubadour range of beers is meant to represent. The brewery, The Musketeers, also produces plenty of non-Troubadour beers and I've never been able to spot a pattern or connection between either range. Anyway, from fiercely modern hazy IPA, the second Troubadour beer today is a resolutely traditional Imperial Stout.

I don't use the description lightly. There's no gimmickry or tricks here: it's 9.5% ABV and tastes, in a very straightforward way, of strong coffee, high-cocoa chocolate and dark toast. Sweetness is in short supply, though so is hop bittering. I'm partial to both in imperial stout yet I don't miss either here. This is streamlined; slick, smooth and extremely classy. There's a tiny estery twang in the finish, but in general it's a lot cleaner than the Belgians tend to make their stouts, and better for that.

There have been problems with Troubadour beers in bottles before, something I only remembered as I was bringing these home. Whatever the root cause then, it seems to have been fixed now. Both of these were top notch.

New beers from old friends

Troubadour Magma is damn near irresistible, and Westkust is a comforting friend, so I'm always alert for new beers from The Musketeers in the hope that this classic double-act can be turned into a trilogy. The first candidate was one I found at a studenty pub called Le Coq, just up from the Bourse in Brussels: Troubadour Spéciale. And it is grim: a really boring red ale with masses of porridgey grain that is a chore to drink through. Why, Musketeers, why? A few days later, and Waterhuis aan de Bierkant in Ghent. Troubadour Obscura in the fridge, in my glass, in my mouth. What the hell is THIS? It appears to be a stout of some sort, a strong one at 8.2% ABV. It's roaringly sour, all lactic tang and a stubborn awkward brett funk squatting in the middle of the flavour, refusing to let anything else out. There's no mention of this "character" in the official tasting notes so I suspect something just went up the left with my bottle. I think I'll wait until I can have it on draught before chancing this one again. That's 0 for 2 in new Troubadour beers. Stick to the Magma, kids.

The other progressive Belgian brand I always look forward to new beers from is Brasserie de la Senne. They have an adapted version of their classic Taras Boulba pale ale, produced in collaboration with Birrificio di Montegioco and called Taras Runa. Like Taras Boulba this is a hazy shade of yellow, and like Taras Boulba it blends new world citrus hop flavours with light Belgian yeast spicing. Like Taras Boulba it's an approachable, sessionable strength. Actually: this is almost identical to Taras Boulba. It's perfectly decent, but I'm marking it down for being far too close to a beer they already make. What's the point?

De la Senne also have a new black IPA out, called Black in Japan, with yet another gorgeous label. It's 7.2% ABV and was a bit of a job to pour, what with all the foam. I was expecting a much bigger hop punch than it delivered. What we have here is a perfectly decent export-strength stout, with plenty of dry roast in both the aroma and flavour, plus a crunchy veg complexity from the hops. It's not a million miles from good old Wrasslers XXXX, a beer I'm coming increasingly to believe would be badged as a black IPA if it were brewed today for the first time.

This was in Poechenellekelder where one of the seasonal draughts was from the St-Feuillien/Green Flash collaboration series. The black saison they did previously was wonderful, so I had high hopes for Belgian Coast, a 7% ABV IPA. It arrived very cold, rather flat and quite a dark shade of amber and is definitely more Belgium than San Diego in the aroma: sugar, spice, fruit esters, but only a bit of hop greenness. The flavour mixes the sticky Belgian candy with the vegetal hops in an odd way, but it's not without its charms. There's a long metallic afterburn in the finish. Not as much fun as the saison, and not all that different to a zillion other Belgian IPAs, but quite nice to drink.

Dupont's archetypal saison needs very little introduction but I was acutely aware of how few of their other beers I had tasted and decided to put that right. Redor is the basic pils, well-assembled if a little nondescript. A sharp, almost sour, aroma and a flavour which combines light peachiness with some dry grain husk. There's also Monk's Stout, another simple one. 5.2% ABV and nicely dry and crisp: not always a guarantee in a country that seems to tolerate overly sugary stouts. Bons Vœux is a strong cloudy blonde, almost 10% ABV, and nicely warming with it. There's not much going on the the flavour, however, just a bit of cereal and a token sharpness from the hops. And finally Bier De Miel which, as the name suggests, is brewed with honey. Quite a lot of it, I'd say: from the beeswax aroma to the smooth sweet middle to the herbal aftertaste, this definitely shows how good honey can be in a beer without taking it over completely.

I confess I hadn't had any of the beers from the Brussels Beer Project before this trip, but I had heard of them. It's an on-trend collectivised collaboarative contract brewing operation that has been going for about a year and so far produced six beers. I got to try two of them: Dark Sister is a dark ale of 6.66% ABV and uses Citra, Simcoe and Smaragd hops. It pours a blood red colour with lots of dark malt coffee flavours to the fore. This is followed by a kind of plummy sourness and a bit of blackcurrant jam. I'd probably be calling it a dark mild if I had to guess a style, but either way it's a very interesting combination of flavours. Delta is the beer it's a sibling to, a 6% ABV pale ale using the same hop combination. The first one I got was a dud: all stale oxidation and sharp lactic sourness. Reuben rescued me by donating a portion of the one he was drinking. It's another one of those orange barley sweet Belgian IPAs, though a burst of grapefruit zest in the finish, combined with the modest strength, lifts it a little beyond most of its contemporaries.


Three new ones from three of the big-hitting geek-facing Belgian breweries next. VI Wheat (picture, right) is the latest in the numerical sequence by Jandrain-Jandrenouille and it's a weird one. There's a herbal urinal cake aroma and a lot of funk in the flavour. I don't really remember what it tasted like when I drank it in Moeder Lambic Fontainas but my notes say "lemons and cowshit" so perhaps that's for the best. Speaking of sequences, De Ranke have followed up their classic XX Bitter with XXX Bitter, though at 6% ABV it's actually slightly weaker than its predecessor. It's nearly a perfect Belgian blonde, beautifully smooth with clear, clean, polished flavours of light citrus fruit and candystore sugars. And so to Struise, one of the more one-uppy of Belgium's breweries. Their offering this trip was nothing more complicated than a 10% ABV bourbon barrel aged dark rye tripel, and they too have appropriated the XXX name. It's a murky brown and the aroma is full of that loud wood effect you get with so many bourbon-aged beers. On tasting there's no sign of any tripelish qualities, and I couldn't taste any rye. Instead it's smooth and warming with some really beautiful port and sherry notes. And bourbon? Yes, a little: enough to impart the flavour without it completely taking over. Nicely done, Struise.

Girardin is very much an old friend when I'm in Brussels. Their Gueuze is top-notch and can often be found for a euro or so cheaper than its main rivals in the pub. I was intrigued when I discovered that Bier Circus was serving straight Girardin Lambic on cask, pleased when I noticed that they were charging €2 for a 200ml glass of it, and ecstatic when it actually arrived. I never knew Brussels had an answer to Cologne's drinking style and the following review is based on the dregs at the bottom of my third glass. It's an unassuming clear brown colour and almost totally flat. It's also not especially sour, but dry and tannic instead with just the suggestion of oak. More than anything, like your Kölsch and your Alt, it's refreshing, in a grab-sink-and-go sort of way, a pint of Brussels plain, if you will. I wish more places than the Moeder Lambics and Bier Circus served cask lambic.

Until next time, Belgium...

The comedown

The day after the Borefts beer festival was another cold and sunny one. We got a late morning train to Amsterdam and started with an early lunch. The restaurant's beer of the month was Goudkoppe, a blonde ale by Texels (do they have a dark one called Badkoppe? They should). 6% ABV and a very nicely put together version of this common style. Lots of fresh mandarin comes out first, followed up with the earthy Belgian yeast tang. Spritzy and refreshing, and just the thing to whet my appetite for more beer tasting.

In past years Beer Temple has been the first port of call on post-Borefts Sunday, but as I reported earlier in the year, the wonderful Gollem is now back in business and most wonderful of all opens its doors at noon on Sundays. Not too many drinkers it must be said: lost tourists, some other Borefts stragglers (hi Chris!) and one lonely determined alcoholic. The first beer on the modest taplist that caught my interest was Foxy Lady, seemingly a follow-up to the lacklustre Tasty Lady brewed at Breugems which I encountered last year. This one is rather better, with a complex mix of fruit and spices incorporating incense, concentrated tangerine plus sharp grapefruit zest on the end. The malt element provides just enough biscuit sweetness for balance.

After that, there was nothing new to me on tap and I wasn't in the mood for taking a gamble on an unfamiliar bottle so I settled for a draught glass of Troubadour's Magma and was very glad I did. I had a bottle of this a while back and reckoned it was a bit past its best. It was a whole different experience this time, the hops beautifully fresh and flavourful, giving the perfect bitter and citric counterbalance to the heavy malts.

From there to our traditional final destination of Arendnest, the pub which offers an exclusively Dutch selection of beers. Lo and behold, there was a third in the lady series: Smoky Lady. I couldn't resist. This is a clear blonde, sweet and massively smoky, blending heady perfume with Laphroaig whisky, the phenols turning a little towards TCP in the aftertaste. I rather liked it but wouldn't expect anyone else to.

The hops from the Magma were still at the front of my mind, however, so I decided to check out what they had by way of pale ales while the missus got stuck into the barley wines. Oedipus Brewing is a new one to me and their pale ale is called Mama (of course). It's a full 6% ABV though doesn't do much with that. It's a simple beer, verging perhaps on dull. There are some pleasant peach and orange sherbet flavours but no burst of zing and no bitter staying power. You'd have a decent pale 'n' hoppy session beer if it wasn't so strong.

I expected bigger things from a beer called High Hops by Maximus, based in Utrecht and another unfamiliar one. High Hops is the same strength as Mama and darker in colour: more orange than yellow, and this is accompanied by a slightly sickly toffee-candy aroma. Uh-oh. But it's not a crystal malt sugar bomb: the toffee is present in the flavour, but restrained. Unfortunately the hops are too, offering little more than a vague orangeade sweetness. Disappointing and not as advertised.

So it's back to De Molen to finish off. Cease & Desist is yet another imperial stout. 11.5% ABV this time but smelling and tasting much much stronger. It's extremely hot, and intensely flavoured, full of the distilled essence of coffee and treacle. I felt it lacked the usual finesse of a De Molen imperial stout. From the bottle menu I had to give Angst & Beven a go: my first imperial gose, at 12.2% ABV. Well, "gose-ish" says the label. There's no salt listed in the ingredients. It pours a dark honey amber and has a barley wine's sweetness at its core, flavoured with blood orange and mango notes from the hops. This is balanced by a wonderful barrel-aged woody sourness which keeps the whole thing dry and refreshing for the most part, though it does lean a little towards cough mixture at the end. A very interesting experiment and a beer well worth trying.

And that concludes Borefts weekend for 2013. It's back to my sadly neglected beer fridge from Monday.

Bring the hops

I had one of my occasional impromptu tastings with Richard recently, which tend to consist of random stuff we've accumulated. There was a bit of an abiding theme with the last one, though: hops. Lots of them, in varying doses.

We started on Cumbrian Five Hop by Hawkshead, a 6% ABV pale ale with, you've guessed it, five different hop varieties. It was a strange beer. I expected something fairly bitter with lots of citrus fruit but first impressions were of heavy violet perfume in the aroma and a dense funky flavour. It lacks the zing I'd expect from conscientious hopping and there's even a vegetal tang at the end. Among the varieties used are Citra and Amarillo and I think I was able to detect a bit of a burn from the former and some juicy orange from the latter. But I couldn't match any flavour to the Bramling Cross or East Kent Goldings, though I'll put the nasty sprout tang down to the Fuggles 'cos I'm a bit of a racist that way. This beer just didn't quite cohere for me.

Along similar lines we had Nils Oscar Hop Yard: 7.3% ABV and with remarkably little aroma at all. I spotted the Simcoe funk straight away, and it's matched by an intense mouth-watering bitterness which could be the Nelson Sauvin or Cascade, though I suspect the dry-hopping with Citra may have played a role in it too. There's some lovely honeyish and tannic notes in it as well but I'd given up trying to match hops to flavours at that point. There's also Amarillo and Pacific Gem, but you figure it out. It's a lovely IPA, however, and that's all that really matters.

My contribution was a couple of Belgian IPAs I've had sitting about for too long. I had really enjoyed Troubadour's Westkust last time I was in the Netherlands so I reckoned it would be worth opening my bottle of Magma now. Tragically I think it was past its best. It's 9% ABV and has some beautiful toffee and marzipan notes, but the hop possé skipped town some months ago. I really must give this another shot when I see it fresh. The other was Belle-Fleur by De Dochter van de Korenaar, bringing us back down to 6% ABV and giving off a lovely orange grove aroma: fruity and very slightly grassy too. The initial flavour is sharp in a refreshing sort of way though I detected a bit of an oxidised sherryish tang after a moment. As it warms the intensity wanes a little though it's still nicely pithy. Not outstanding, but quite decent.

The headline act was a beer Richard expected big things of: Galaxy White IPA from the Anchorage brewery. "White IPA" is a fancy-pants Alaskan way of saying "hoppy witbier", though instead of orange peel they've opted for kumquat, and included pink peppercorns with the coriander. The hops are all, as the name suggests, Galaxy. Oh, and then they oak-aged it and infused it with Brettanomyces, making it nearly a cliché of extreme US brewing.

It pours out a fairly innocent hazy yellow: so far so witbierish. But here's the thing about citrus hops and Brett -- you get a smell like a toilet: an aroma of somewhere that was pine fresh just before the lunchtime rush and now needs the cleaner again. It took a bit of work to get beyond the initial impression, and down at the back I found some honeydew melon, white pear, and a nice roundness from the oak, but all of that had to be mentally filtered through the old sour sweaty brett funk. Pink peppercorns? Forget it; they're gone. I'd love to know how this tasted before they ruined it with the Brett, but I'm not planning to be in Anchorage any time soon.

A mixed bag to say the least, and a microcosm of why saying a beer is "hoppy" could mean anything.