Keep your kriek

I made two fruit beer finds in Brussels last week. The first is Mandarin Mortal which struck me first with its incredibly amateur label. Presumably the brewers at Mortal, caring not for image quality, have their minds on more important things. From the mandarins I was expecting something sweet and Fanta-like, but instead got a marvellously bitter and peppery beer with the orange flavours playing second fiddle to the beer complexity. Great stuff and, icing on the cake, served in a stoneware ostrich eggcup. There really aren't enough beers served in stoneware, in my opinion.

The second hit was Bon Secours Myrtille. If your kitchen French isn't up to it (mine isn't) then the blueberries on the label are there to indicate what this is made with. It's dark red and heavily sedimented, giving off a strong blueberry aroma. On tasting, the wheat beer base lends texture, but stands aside to let the delicious sour fruit flavour come to the fore.

Brussels may be best known for making fruit beers from lambic, but so much more is available.

Yes, Your Majesty

I've a bunch of half-written posts sitting about from my recent travels, but my last fit of buying random German beer also left me with two bottles of König Ludwig which have been telling me they're not getting any fresher every time I open the fridge. For the sake of a quiet life I put them to work this evening.

König Ludwig Dunkel is a dark red-brown colour with a fruit-and-nut aroma. The full body and light fizz make for a superb mouthfeel, but tastewise it's a little disappointing. It makes you work hard to pick out the flavours: nuts again, caramel, a whiff of smoke, and a long dry finish. While it's clearly well put together, I prefer my dunkel to do more of the work for me. I'm just lazy.

Which is why König Ludwig Weissbier is my sort of weiss. There's no beating about with subtlety here, just big phenolic fruit notes and a rich texture that makes it both refreshing and filling. This is a powerful beer and definitely a cut above the usual offerings.

There. That should keep the mad kraut quiet for a bit...

Stahhht, innit

Work had me back in London today. I went over yesterday to arse about and try a few new beers, of which more later. This post is just a taster of two stouts I had. One was Samuel Smith's Extra Stout, quite a dry and bitter affair, though tasty nonetheless. Full-bodied, with a smidgen of chocolate sweetness at the front.

Tastier yet is kegged Meantime London Porter, a sumptuously rich black beer from the Greenwich craft brewery. There's little by way of dryness or bitterness here, just lashings of sweet chocolate flavours. I hazard that despite not containing any actual chocolate, this is chocolatier than Meantime's Chocolate ale. Meantime London Porter is the perfect dessert beer.

Scattergun

Of course, any trip to Belgium will involve a fair bit of sticking a pin in the beer menu, especially the three-inch-thick menu of Delirium Café, holder of the official world record for most beers in stock (2004 in total). So, I've a couple of themed posts to do, based partially on beers I brought home, but here's everything else.

First up is Cuvée des Trolls. This is an easy-going but rather bland affair carrying herbal hints but not much else. Also from western Belgium comes Forestinne, a red gold ale which offers much stronger herbal flavours with pronounced pine and juniper notes. Sweet, vaguely medicinal, and very tasty.

My suspicion of honey beers took a knock with Barbar Blond, a quite mild but surprisingly strong (8%) golden ale. The honey flavour isn't very strong, but instead there's a rich malty taste and a heavy filling texture. On a lighter note, there's St Idesbald Blond, clear and refreshing with just a hint of bitterness to it.

Similarly light, golden and refreshing is Rulles Estivale which has just a final bitter hops kick to give it personality. Rulles also make a Tripel which is loaded with tasty bitter fruit and which lingers long on the palate. The same can't be said for Lamoral Tripel, unfortunately, it being rather light, thin and generally disappointing.

Some of the most interesting discoveries were on the darker side of the spectrum. I'm a big fan of Flemish red ales so was expecting much from Bourgogne des Flandres. It pours red-brown and is dry with notes of raisins and fruit-infused tea. There's a lingering sourness which makes it a beer to savour, unlike reds such as Rodenbach which tend to have a short lifespan in my vicinity. Curiously, Bourgogne des Flandres is made using maize but doesn't seem to suffer from this. Good Belgian yeast and blending techniques cover a multitude of sins, I guess.

On this bitterly cold Dublin morning it's hard to believe it was only Wednesday last that I was sitting in the balmy garden of Hopduvel in Ghent, basking in the last of the evening sun. While there, on another menu pin-stick, I tried Grottenbier, a spiced bruin from St Bernardus. As the speleological name suggests, this beer has an earthy characteristic, warm and bitter. It's a little like the aforementioned Flemish reds, just a little heavier.

Finally, my find of the trip and another inductee for The Beer Nut Weird-Stuff-In-Beer Hall Of Fame: Captain Cooker. This is Belgian-made, but on a New Zealand theme, with manuka (tea tree) leaves. I reviewed the sterner New Zealand version, Spruce Beer, last year. This is a much more approachable product, however. It has a sweet perfume aroma and a mild flavour with notes of Parma Violets and eucalyptus. All very refreshing and a marvellous fusion of two brewing traditions.

That's not the end of the posts based on the trip, the others will be trickling through over the coming weeks. Bet you can't wait...

Leffe behind

Yes, yes. I know. In a country so rich in brewing tradition, creating such top quality artisan beers, I shouldn't stoop to the McBelgian mediocrity of InBev-owned Leffe. But occasionally one has no choice. And very occasionally there's something one hasn't tried before. And so, to get it out of the way before I move on, here's my Leffe round-up.

I skipped the sweet sticky Blonde on this trip, so I start with Leffe Brune. This is a deep brown ale, tasting vaguely of chocolate, but ultimately lacking any real distinctive flavour. Slightly more flavoursome is Leffe Radieuse: a malty red; alcoholic and bitter, but still a bit bland at the end of it. My new find was Leffe 9°, a 9% ABV dark ale bearing a royal blue stripe on the label. It tastes heavily alcoholic with a rather chewy texture, and is perhaps the only member of the family that stands up for itself.

Ultimately, the Leffe beers really are pale imitations of the better Belgian ales, and the Trappists in particular. Still, I was impressed by Leffe 9° so I'm not going to write them off completely. When stranded in lagerland they can be a lifesaver.

3-Pak

Not to be confused with the excellent restaurant of the same name in Ghent, ' t Pakhuis in Antwerp is the city's only brewpub, and I paid a visit on Friday. The décor is in the northern European faux-industrial style of brewery-pub-restaurant, all mezzanines and glass and steel. There are three beers in the repertoire. Antwerps Blond is a cloudy wheatbeer, similar to a German weiss. It's fruity with a hint of dry spice, though a little watery overall. The same problem affects Antwerps Bruin which offers a curious mix of sour Flemish red flavours and caramel notes on top. The latter comes out more as it warms and improves it considerably. Finally, there's Nen Bangelijke, a deceptively powerful clear golden ale. While the strength, colour and glass all resemble the typical Belgian golden ales, the flavour in no way does. This is warm and bitter rather than fruity, and carries overtones of almonds in the aftertaste. Very tasty indeed.

Like any brewpub, 't Pakhuis is one of those places that it's nice to have, just for something different. I wouldn't recommend beating a path to it on arrival in Antwerp, however. Go look at some Rubenses instead.

Bankers' draught

I was only in Luxembourg for a couple of hours, so what follows, I'm sure, is not representative of Luxemburgish beer, any more than Jupiler, Maes and Stella are representative of Belgium's.

Bofferding is the dominant lager brand, its green and white livery appearing on countless pub signs around the city. The product itself is a smooth and malty golden lager with, I presume, German roots. Bofferding also make Hausbier, a sweet and malty amber lager with a bit of a sour bite.

For something drier, try Battin Gambrinus, a rather bitter pale yellow lager. Good as an aperitif. Turning up the malt quotient, there's Diekirche lager, only 4.8% but packed with taste. And finally there's Mousel: dry, easy-drinking and pretty much as nondescript as it's possible for a lager to be.

Luxembourg is not one of Europe's great beer destinations.