Whatever you're into

I have a real fondness for how Galway Bay Brewery, a big player in this country's independent beer scene, tends to follow the interests of its head brewer in its output. I guess it's because the core range, vertically integrated into its pub chain, is the main part of the business, whereas the stuff I buy and review is a tiny fraction. Regardless, it's charming. So we get lots of lagers and today it's nods towards Belgium and American IPA back when it was good.

We begin with Beers That Nobody Asked For, a Boundary name on a Boundary collaboration. It's a petite saison: golden, hazy and 3.8% ABV. The aroma is a mix of sweetly fruity bubblegum and savoury herbal spice. The latter is, I assume, down to the lemongrass advertised on the label. Seems like it might be a bit busy but the flavour is altogether more restrained, presenting a dry pithy note: a little grapefruit and a little straw. The strength is apparent from the mouthfeel but it's not unpleasantly thin, being instead light and drinkable in the table beer fashion. There's not much by way of complexity on offer here -- it's made for quenching thirst more than offering bloggers something to analyse. But analyse I have and it's too late to change that now.

Continuing the Belgian theme, this bottle of The Bots Are Back In Town was a kind gift from the brewery on the first night of the revamped Against the Grain when it refused to come out of the shiny new taps. It's described as a Belgian pale ale and the packaging format is intended to hold in considerable carbonation. I poured carefully and sure enough a stiff mass of froth formed quickly over the subtly hazy straw-coloured body. A light and fresh aroma of peach, pineapple and pepper tells us we're definitely in Belgium, via Oranmore. There's more of a citrus tang in the flavour, but in the old-world fashion of big jaffa oranges and grapefruit marmalade. Beside it is a funky farmy spice with more than an echo of fine saison about it. Pleasingly, the fizz doesn't get in the way of any of this -- the texture is soft and the whole thing very approachable. It doesn't have the flavour intensity of, say, De Ranke XX Bitter or Taras Boulba, but it's still very good: both 4.5% ABV and built to savour slowly.

Oregon Grown is back for a fourth round, this time with Columbus, Centennial, Chinook and Cascade. It's an old-fashioned combination but it wears it well, ensuring first of all that there's a steady malt base in place. That gives it an amber colour, retro-clear, and a pinch of toffee sweetness. You don't get much time to appreciate the malt, however, because those hops get very busy very quickly. It's insanely resinous, jam packed full of marijuana, pine and grapefruit zest, opening bright and fresh then finishing on a hard damp-grass bitterness. It's not subtle, nor meant to be I'm sure, but there's a subtle fruity nuance of strawberry and blackcurrant. While the general west coast revival has shown a tendency to fudge things on matters of clarity and bitterness, this one is all-in authentic-tasting.

But of course they couldn't leave it there, and added a companion fifth Oregon Grown: Idaho 7, El Dorado & Azacca. More importantly than the hop list, this one is hazy, and properly so. It's every bit as New Englandy as the previous one is western. The mouthfeel is full-on creamy and the flavour blends sweet and juicy mandarin with a touch of pithy bitterness and a kick of dank resins on the end. 6% ABV means it's light enough for by-the-pint drinking, and none of the flavour elements builds on the palate enough to make it difficult. I don't know if this pair is where the series ends, but they're an educational set, reminding drinkers respectively how American-style IPA should be, and how it actually is now.

When the ex-head brewer of Galway Bay, Chris, was back in Ireland over the summer they had him help with an IPA, allowing it to be badged as a collaboration with his current employer Fuerst Wiacek in Berlin. The result is PDA, a hazy sunset-coloured one, 6.8% ABV and hopped with Idaho 7, Citra, Mosaic and Nelson Sauvin. It smells simultaneously juicy and pithy, which isn't all that surprising given the combination. The flavour goes bitterer than I expected from that: the Nelson swings in with its hard grassy minerality, teaming up with Citra's oily lime peel. There's room for a sweeter tropical side but it doesn't materialise, finishing tangy and acidic instead. Despite appearances, this isn't really for haze fans. Although the soft mouthfeel leaves it far from the west coast style, the flavour profile is very much in that direction. I wasn't wowed, but I liked what it does. A higher proportion of Nelson might have brought us somewhere a little more interesting but I can't really complain: all four hops have their say.

End-to-end quality product, and now the wonderful smoked Märzen is back too. Happy Christmas to me!

Crowd sauce

The Brown Paper Bag Project went viral with the launch of their new beer a couple of weeks ago, releasing it anonymously and under wraps ahead of a simultaneous Twitter-based blind tasting. This is the third from the Dublin-based gypsy brewing operation, following the Belgian-style dark ale and the English brown ale, both, putting a unique spin on their respective genres. The only clue on picking up the bottle was the dense cloudiness of the beer apparent through the glass. My first thought was that we're most likely back in Belgium again.

Tasting day rolled around and the Belgian theory held up well when the beer was poured: masses of foam over a hazy orange body and an intense fizz from the bottle conditioning. The aroma is very yeast-driven, offering the signature spice and funk of a Belgian blonde or pale ale, with exciting lime marmalade and ripe peach overtones from the hops.

Unfortunately the hops go a bit AWOL on tasting. For one thing it takes a lot of work to get past the intense prickly fizz. Some vigorous swirling was required to knock the gas out and offset some of the extreme dryness that is the beer's opening gambit. Behind this there's definitely still a strong citrus presence but also a beautiful dose of tannins, the sort you get in quality English bitter, enhanced by a big chewy mouthfeel. After swallowing there's a delicious lingering orange oil flavour.

The brewers gradually disclosed the details of its production: pale malt, Vienna and wheat in the grain bill; hopped with Magnum and Amarillo to 38 IBUs plus Cascade dry; and the big shock for me is that a neutral American ale yeast was used. It is unmistakably Belgian, something I had always marked down 100% down to the yeast used. Brewer Brian explained that it's standard practice in Belgium -- where this was indeed brewed -- to condition bottled beer in a "warme kamer" at 25°C, to bring out that fruity funk. You live and learn.

And finally the big reveal, introducing Doxie to the world. A trifling 5.4% ABV but tasting much stronger to me. It's also badged as a "Blonde Wheat Ale" which isn't terribly informative and does nothing to express the complexity of what's inside the bottle. It's also a bit of a stretch to call it a blonde. "Belgian Pale Ale" would be my recommended designation, not a million miles from the likes of De Ranke XX Bitter, as observed by Richard on the night.

This is the first time I've said I think a Brown Paper Bag Project product needed more hops but I would really like to see the lighter fruit notes brought out more in this. Perhaps the draught version carries it off better. Still, a damn interesting beer, as we've come to expect from the brand.

When they met, it was Moeder

Last Sunday in Brussels was quiet. The city was buzzing -- with market stalls in Place d'Espagne and Grand Place, and the cafés all busy -- but Mrs Beer Nut and I were drifting about in a slightly fuzzy-headed world of our own. We had an early lunch in one of the upper corners of Grand Place, and I righted my head with carbonnade flamande and a Kwak -- the latter from a proper glass, I hasten to add. That fortified me for a trip to Bier Tempel to do some shopping, and then we drifted over to Le Cirio -- a gorgeous grand café beside the Bourse which, like A La Mort Subite, was one of those Brussels drinking landmarks we'd not visited since our first trip in 2002.

We settled in near the door for a bout of people-watching (and, it being a Belgian café, dog-watching too). Looking for something plain but wholesome on the menu I realised I was hankering after Guinness Special Export. It really is the perfect Sunday afternoon sipping beer. Séan had gone home on the morning flight, but Dave and Laura caught up with us briefly, then headed off on their merry way. Our own merry way involved some exploration, to an unfamiliar district of the city and one of the few legendary Brussels watering holes I'd never visited. After my second bottle of Guinness, we were off.

The pre-métro underground tram thingy brought us southwards, and a short walk from Horta through a rather well-heeled neighbourhood took us to Chez Moeder Lambic: Brussels' beer geek central. It was just gone 4 so the bar had opened recently and was inhabited by just a couple of regulars, plus a dog belonging to one of them who walked round, inspecting that the drinks being served were up to scratch.

It's a small bright corner bar, laid out in slightly rustic style with brick and wood, and a minimal scattering of breweriana -- notably only from quality Belgian breweries. Boxes of comics line the windowsills, and the menu itself is styled very much in the Belgian comic tradition. It's not one of those 400+ whoppers like Bier Circus or Delerium. Instead, everything seems to have been chosen by hand with only the smallest nod to the token beers required for economic purposes. I don't think they even had a pilsner available. Each item was assigned a comic-book icon indicating its status as from either "microbrasseries", "indépendants/familiales", "trappistes" or "grands industriels", and the beers were divided into style categories. My particular favourite was a category which contained just one item, one which I'm guessing the management aren't terribly happy about having to have, or else they stock it just to wind up the manufacturer:That's "Based on 1% lambic, filled up with totally chemical syrup". Mi-aow.

Also of note was the beer engine on the bar, serving Cantillon Gueuze. The draught menu listed Cantillon Faro, so I figured I would attempt to redeem my experience of the style following Friday's nasty experience. As far as I know, Cantillon don't actually make a faro, and this is mixed in-house. Blending in the sugar removes a lot of the sharp tart edge you get from the Gueuze but doesn't make the beer taste sugary as such. It's a different experience to drinking the beer neat, and works quite well I thought, for those of us who like sweet beer at least.

The two guys running the place really seemed to know what they were talking about. A group of Americans who came in after us engaged them in a conversation about brewing which resulted in a case of raw malts being produced for them to taste, followed by a tour of the cellar. Our perusal of the blackboard listing the current draught beers produced two recommendations. De Ranke's XX Bitter is a deliciously sharp golden ale absolutely crammed with grapefruity C-hops and raw vegetal flavours. Deliciously intense. From Jandrin there was V Cense, which Joe was enjoying simultaneously at the Zythos festival. This amber ale reminded me a lot of quality English bitter -- slightly tannic with a beautiful mandarin nose. Very tasty and extremely drinkable.

Time was beginning to press us at this stage, so our ones for the road were Witkap Pater Double -- a foamy brown abbey ale with a very interesting herby botanical character and a touch of cardamom, I think; and Guldenberg, another blonde ale "with the taste of every hop" according to the merchandising. It starts with a perfumey aroma and tastes quite spicy at first, giving way to a dry bitterness. Like so many of the Belgian hoppy beers around at the moment, it has used the hops to create a strong bitterness while avoiding any of the more fun fruity characteristics they can impart. The end result is quite an understated beer, but I didn't have time to sit around being disappointed. Having enjoyed adding Moeder Lambic to our personal map of Brussels, we headed back to the city centre.

We caught up with Dave and Laura at a Moroccan restaurant just off Boulevard Anspach. They were staying another day, so it was just us who shovelled our molten tagines into us like we hadn't eaten in days. The menu included a Moroccan lager called Casablanca. Classy stuff this -- every bit as good as you'd expect a lager from Morocco to be.

And then we were off again, to the airport where there was just time for a quick Leffe before the flight home.

And that was Brussels. We went to see Cantillon making beer, but got so much more out of the couple of days we spent there. Brussels really is one of those cities where the beer hunter will always find something new and interesting, if he or she can resist the draw of so many old favourites.