Belge-ward!

Mrs Beer Nut and I arrived in Brussels late last Friday evening. The rest of the group who had come from Dublin (Dave, Laura and Séan) were waiting for food in one of Petite Rue des Bouchers' slower establishments, but Séan said they'd catch up with us in "the puppet bar" in due course. So Toone it was -- one of my favourites among the pubs of Rue du Marché aux Herbes.

Everyone in the theatre-cum-pub was drinking Kwak when we went in. I noticed, for the first time, free-standing Kwak glasses. I really don't approve of that sort of thing. The ancient wall-mounted beer engine on which they hang their towels gave us something else to look at while we waited to catch the waitress's eye. I wonder when it last had any beer through it?

I was in lambic mode myself, since we were over to visit Cantillon the following day, and Dave had been asking me about peach lambics earlier in the week. Never having had it I opted for St Louis Pêche from the menu. It pretty much went where I expected it: very sweet, very peachy and extremely easy to drink. It didn't last long.

Herself, meanwhile, was drinking a Gouden Carolus ("Would you like to be in the picture with your beer? ... No that's not what I meant"). It's remarkably ungolden and gives off some strong weissbier-ish banana aromas from the big fluffy weissbier-ish head. The body is packed full of big, sweet, chewy toffee notes. Very nice.

By the time the others arrived in, I had moved on to Vieux Temps. Pretty nondescript, this dark amber ale. A nice malty weight to it; a hint of smoke on the flavour, but not a whole lot else.

Last beer of the night was a return to an old favourite. Or at least I thought it was. I have very fond memories of the Easter of 2004, sitting in a dim canalside café in Bruges, drinking Lindemans Faro -- a lambic sweetened with plain old sugar instead of fancy fruit juice. As an unabashed fan of sweet beers, it was right up my street and I think I had a couple that day. Five years later, it was time for another. And I was shocked. For a start, I've no memory of it being brown, but it is. Also, my memory of that afternoon does not include the burning taste of sick, but this beer does. The sugar is there, and so is the sour lambic, but the two just do not sit well together at all one little bit. But the glass is nice. I like the glass.

On that slightly bum note we all turned in for the evening. We had a date the following morning down in Anderlecht to witness the birth of new lambic. Procedures were scheduled to commence at 6.30am, and we all tried very hard not to think about the fact that this meant 5.30 Irish time.

Loved lager: The Session round-up

Thanks to everyone who got down and clean-tasting for my lager-themed Session last weekend. 49 participants is a very respectable showing and I think between us we really covered the topic -- one which I hoped was usefully broad, even if some of you disagreed.

I've spent the last two evenings going through the posts and have thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I couldn't help but start categorising them into those who gave me the mass-market beers I wanted, and those who just couldn't bring themselves to do it. So, without it being any measure of the quality of the posts themselves, I give you the Fails and Wins of Session 25:

The Fails
First fail, of course, was me. Some microbrewed lager and then a rare specialty? I really didn't represent my home country's crap lager very well, though neither did any of my fellow countrymen and countrywoman for that matter, as we'll see below.

Thom at Black Cat, for instance, tries to hide his fail behind science, picking an African import, and rather liking it. Hop Talk's Al also went for an import because he happened to be mostly drinking Samuel Smith's last week and far be it from me to change that.

Ray of The Barley Blog reckons he's found the "the perfect beer for this month's Session, both in terms of style and relevance." It's an ale. That word again: Ale. Maybe I didn't make the theme clear enough in the title. At Musings Over A Pint, David tells us there's enough good lager out there for us not to be concerned at the reputation of the mass market stuff, but gives us nothing on whether that reputation is deserved or not.

Paul of A Flowery Song is among the conscientious failers: denying that his beery exploits began with pale lager, and refusing to go mass-market just this once. His Frugal Joe's Ordinary Beer is just a bit too knowingly cheap to count, I think: classless beers are only fun when they're trying to be something they plainly aren't.

Mario would like us to believe that he had to make do with a Lagunitas Pils, because every other beer he saw for sale was a powerful and/or hoppy ale. Maybe that is what "Sonoma Joe Six-Pack" goes for when he wants a lager, but by the sounds of it he doesn't have much time for the style at all. Up in Portland, Bill has similar trouble and opts for a retro-styled local craft lager. A World of Brews also goes craft on me -- Coney Island Lager -- but does put in a good word for Pabst Blue Ribbon when out with the Hash House Harriers. Rob of Pfiff! is another claiming the California Defence -- no crap beer to be found -- and refuses to go out and play with the other kids. Top marks for title punnage though.

Edmond of MMMM....Beer gives us Legends, a Virginian micro-lager up with the best Germany has to offer and therefore a total fail. At I'll Have a Beer, Couchand tells us that Millstream's Iowan pilsner is leaning more towards Bavarian than Czech influences this year. Well fancy! Fail. At least Tom has an excuse for his microbrewed Stoudts Pils: he works for the distributor. Cha-ching!

I sympathise with, and apologise for, the crisis I induced in Damien when he just couldn't bring himself to buy a full six-pack of crap as his beer shop didn't do singles, and opted for something more interesting instead. Similarly, my attempt to lay the smack down on Ted of Barley Vine failed as he avoided the beer equivalent of Kraft Singles and steered a middle course for something decent, local, but generally avoided by serious beer-drinkers for no good reason he can see.

Beer-O-Vision's Dan manages to avoid telling us much about drinking beer, with no mention of any actual brand of lager, but then he was judging a homebrew competition.

I missed talking to Thirsty Pilgrim Joe at the Cantillon open brew day on Saturday, and I also totally forgot to pick up a bottle of the Slaapmutske Dry-Hopped lager while I was in Belgium, even though I meant to. But Joe skips past Jupiler to get to this, so it's a fail, I'm afraid.


The Wins
Velky Al and Adeptus, living in the Czech Republic and Germany respectively had fishes in barrels for this one. Al gives us a run down of the Czech Republic's legendary lagers, and why they should be stripped of their status (corn syrup!), then shows us where to look for the good stuff. Adeptus really went above and beyond with the theme this time round, staging a blind tasting of five common German lagers for his pilsener-loving workmates. It looks like Jever isn't the German classic it's often made out to be.

From the Acceptable Uses For Bland Lager file, we have Steph's game of frisbeer and Jimmy's moving-day philanthropy. Leigh goes for the sun holiday -- several, in fact -- but comes back home to big up Yorkshire's Moravka lager as still enjoyable even in the heart of Real Ale country. Brad, meanwhile, goes far beyond the lawnmower to list a variety of mileux where crap lager is acceptable, nay, desireable. The Cellarman gives us some alternative uses for mass-market lager other than drinking the wretched stuff, and his suggestion of slug-bait gives me an excuse to post this wonderful practical experiment.

Boak and Bailey creep in under the wire with a review of Skinner's Cornish Lager. Yes it's an independent English brewery trying to ape a Mexican giant, but it seems to be getting ubiquitous enough, they say, to count for the Session. It's certainly bland enough.

We welcome Beer Sagas from Norway to the Session and he can find no greater pleasure after a long flight than a plastic cup of Heineken. Too right. Extra points for being the only participant to mention the world's favourite lager.

On Beertaster.ca, Devoid gives us two down-home world-famous Canadian beers, and notes the universal truth of industrial lager: they all taste the same. Alan also stays local with some Keith's and associated memories in the hope that it'll make me happy. It did, Alan. It did.

Beer Sage keeps it short and sweet on My Beer Pix, summing it all up with a picture of some recently-pounded cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon in a sunny back yard. That'll do. The multimedia PBR carnival continues at Geek Beer's podcast about it and a couple of other American macros -- the first Session podcast there's been, I think.

Wilson of Brewvana has never had Schlitz before, and believes he may have found himself a new lawnmower beer. So we achieved something on Friday.

Mark at Pencil & Spoon gives us the full lager-based biography from helping Dad with the lawn, through teenage rebellion, to the background noise of any beer drinker's life. Conversely, Todd at Krausen Rising was denied the proper lager education most of us receive in our youth but does manage to recall a brief encounter, later in life, with some Hamm's. He gives us at least 60 degrees of the macrolager flavourwheel: "swamp water, despair, trailers, warehouse shows, barbecues where things go horribly wrong and end up with helicopters circling the house". Beautiful.

At Red, White and Brew, Brian says he hasn't touched the bad stuff since his student days, but avoids failing by whipping out Colin, the trusty lagerhead he keeps on his spare bed. Every home should have one.

Buttle struggles a bit with the notion that "fancy-pants imported beer" is a relative term depending on where you happen to be. He opts for Genesee Bock anyway and as it's a local mass-market affair I'm happy to let it pass.

Even though I'm sending Jon of The Brew Site back over old ground, and even though he lives in Oregon, he still takes the time to tell us about Pabst Blue Ribbon and Coors Original and defend their existence. Wonderful dedication to the daft topic. D M goes one further and heads undercover to a dive bar to seek a kind of full immersion in macrolager culture. Captain Hops has his own personal macrolager culture, an active outdoorsy one he expresses, of course, as Beer Haiku.

Jay Brooks straddles the Win/Fail border with Reading Premium. Certainly there's no arguing with his account of it as the cheap and available beer of his youth, but when he veers into the recently re-introduced micro-version "updated to modern sensibilities" there's a danger we may be talking about something special, and therefore verboten for this Session. I'll let it pass, however. Similarly, Laura tells us about an ordinary everyday lager on Aran Brew. It just happens that it's the ordinary everyday lager in Jamaica rather than Ireland -- a win on a technicality, that one. Stan does the same for Germany. Mmmph.

The Reluctant Scooper succumbs to the inevitable Underworld reference, begins with a run-down of own-brand UK supermarket lager (including the joy of polyvinylpolypyrrolidone) but gradually becomes a soapbox piece on the importance of crap lager in the life of the conscientious beer drinker. I think I struck a chord with this one.

It's certainly a factor for the distracted Lew of Seen Through A Glass: Narragansett offers something to drink when you just don't want to have to pay attention, whereas Tomme Arthur prefers a Mickey's Malt Liquor in similar circumstances -- something that started as an April Fool's joke but stayed with him. Generik, meanwhile, finds macrolager just the ticket once palate-fatigue creeps in after a night on the tasty stuff.

From Peter at BetterBeerBlog we get a deeply personal story of love, loss and light lager. Ally also reminisces, over on Impy Malting, and continues her education in British culture by learning a new (lager-related) word: ladette.

In California, Craig of the Beers, Beers, Beers team reports on the erratic Truman pils, brewed in Berkeley by an Austrian brewery. Quite poorly, as it happens. Chris at Pint Log, finally, gives us some superb thoroughness, right down to the essential brown paper bags -- a great first Session post.


And that's your lot. Thanks everyone for participating. If your link got lost in the flabby folds of my inbox, or I've linked you up wrongly, or misspelled your chosen ersatz pilsner, drop me a line. On April 3rd we're doing something called rauchbier (?), courtesy of some yank called Bryson (?)

But before I go, another lager and some good news. Local readers may remember the late great Dublin Brewing Company of Smithfield which went out of business back in 2004, just as the progressive beer duty law kicked in. Well, it looks like they're getting back in the game: same logo, same font, but Big Hand Brewery is the new name. No beers of their own yet, but they've started by importing three from Van Steenberge in Belgium. One, of course, is a lager -- an unpasteurised pils called Sparta. I sampled it in Sin É on Ormond Quay last week. It's rather different from the beers I covered in my own Session post, being much sharper with an uncompromising but tasty bitter bite. The first own-brand product out of Big Hand will be a revival of DBC's Wicked Cider. Can we expect it to be followed by D'Arcy's, Beckett's, Maeve's and Revolution? Here's hoping.

Between these new imports, my recent weekend in Brussels, and current shape of my stash, I've a feeling things are going to be fairly Belgian around here for the next while. Oh well...

Love lager

When it comes to beer, Ireland is pretty much synonymous with stout. As far as I can tell, this is largely down to Diageo's marketing power rather than what anybody actually drinks. The latest figures , from 2006 (p.12 here), say that 63% of all the beer sold in Ireland is lager (stout is most of the rest, with ale a mere 5%). The typical Irish pub certainly offers a dizzying array of locally brewed lagers. You'll find Bud, Carlsberg, Heineken, Miller and Coors Light side-by-side on almost every bar. More upmarket places will also have draught imports like Stella Artois and Beck's Vier, and bottles of Sol, Corona and Tiger as well, while pubs serving a less affluent clientele will have local Amstel and Fosters bringing up the rear.

When Ireland's first lager brewery closed up shop in the summer of 1893 after a meagre 19 months in business, I'm sure Mr Stoer who owned it never dreamed that the daring new style he found in Bavaria and the US would one day rule supreme in Irish beer. Yet when the latter-day beer pioneers Oliver and Liam set up The Porter House in the 1990s, it was inevitable that lager would be a key component in their success. The first brews were called Probably Lager and WeiserBuddy, each with its own distinct and individual branding.

Of course, the multinational which holds the licence to brew Carlsberg and Bud in Ireland threw a fit, and the beers were hastily renamed. I've already covered the Porterhouse's Bud clone back here and today I'm looking at the other two lagers they make and sell: Temple Bräu and Hersbrucker. And yes, I'm well aware that by writing about fancy-pants microbrewed beer I'm breaking my own Session rule on plain everyday lager. Sue me.

I got my first sip of Temple Bräu in just before the rain started and we had to leave the beer garden of Porterhouse North. I hadn't tasted it in a long long time so had basically no expectations, other than what you see here: a fizzy yellow lager aimed at the mass market. I was still surprised, however. It's nice. The body is quite full and comes close to the creaminess you get in the best German pilsners. The aroma indicates a definite hop character and it tastes pleasantly bitter with a long aftertaste. All is not completely rosy in the beer garden, however: there's a bit of a metallic tang as well, right in the middle of the whole thing, though not enough to spoil the enjoyment. Despite its flaw, Temple Bräu remain a tasty quaffer for sunny afternoons.

Inside, I moved on to Hersbrucker. Once upon a time, this was Mrs Beer Nut's regular tipple but she quit a couple of years ago, citing an unpleasant change in the beer. I had never been a fan so was very much on the alert as I took my pint back to the table. Rightly so, as it happened. Hersbrucker, slightly darker than Temple Bräu, is damn near undrinkable. The only thing that saves it is its watery hollowness. The flavour starts with nothing but is followed by a massive disinfectant flavour: pure essence of hospital. Sharp, tangy and unpleasant. I did, in its defence, finish the pint, but I couldn't help thinking that I might have been better off with a pint of Carlsberg, sadly.

I was going to leave this post here, but the guilt about drinking microbrewed lager got the better of me. I had to go back to my roots.

It's very hard to find a pint of Harp in Dublin. It was still relatively common in the mid-1990s but pretty much disappeared soon after. Diageo brew it in Dundalk and just about all of it heads north across the border. Fortunately (or not), there are a couple of hold-outs around town, one being O'Neill's of Suffolk Street, a vast pub that seems possessed of the desire to stock every draught beer that exists anywhere on the Irish market. They have a Harp tap. Since it's the beer I drank most when I started drinking beer, I felt I owed you all a pint.

And it's not awful. I was astounded at how unawful it is. It's not in the least watery and has quite a sweet foretaste with a bit, but not much, of a bitter kick at the end. To be completely frank I doubt I could tell this blind from your typical pale Czech lager. In fairness that's probably more a damning indictment of what the multinationals have done to the established lagers of Prague and Plzeň than any kind of kudos for Diageo, but still: I could actually drink Harp without complaining. That's an eye-opener for me.

And that's all I've got to say on the yellow fizz of Ireland. Post your linkages somewhere on here, or e-mail me or whatever. A round-up will be forthcoming some time in the next week. In the meantime, I'm off to Belgium for the weekend where I won't be so much as tempted by a Jupiler. I'll likely be Twittering my way through Cantillon's public brewday tomorrow, but unfortunately won't be able to read your jealous howls until I return.

A nice glass of merlot

I'm heading back to Cantillon this weekend for their public brew day. On my last visit I picked up a couple of beers to take home, one of which was chosen on pure novelty: the grape lambic Saint Lamvinus. Even though the label recommended not opening until the year after purchase, I needed to know whether I had to buy lots more next month, or save my bag space for something else.

Adding fruit to lambic is not a new or exciting thing. Cherries and raspberries are probably the most common, though blueberries and peaches aren't unknown. But this was the first time I'd seen someone decide that grapes -- merlot, to be precise -- could go in instead. An alcoholic beverage made from grapes? That's the kind of radical thinking that always interests me.

It pours a light bright hazy red, sparkly with a girly pink head on the top. I had been hoping for big juicy grapey fruitiness, but this is Cantillon, so what I got was dryyyy. It's sharp and acidic very much in the same way the standard Cantillon Gueuze is. As a result the fruit comes through more as tart redcurrants or raspberries than juicy grapes. However, it's still relatively mild. I've tasted many a beer far more vinous than this. I suppose that shows that grapes are just another fruit -- as suited to making booze as any other.

I don't think I can justify paying the extra €2 or so that Saint Lamvinus costs over Cantillon Gueuze. Perhaps after the recommended year's maturation it'd round out nicely, but I still dunno that I'd bother. I can't see it getting any sweeter, that's for sure.

The other one I'm auditioning is Grand Cru Bruocsella their 3-year-aged (that's right: barrels are in) lambic . They describe this as "a cereal-based wine", even though it's a mere 5% ABV. My usual question for non-fruity Cantillons: how is it different from my beloved standard Cantillon Gueuze? Well, it's sourer. Remember the shock of your first ever sip of Cantillon? It's like that again. The nose is nearly pungent, with even more of a damp moldy funk than usual, and the taste just pierces the sides of your jaw quite disconcertingly. The texture is almost totally flat. I've no doubt that this is an acquired taste, but I think the extra sourness just tips it over into imbalance. I'll stick to the regular, thanks.

And finally just a quick reminder that The Session: Love Lager kicks off on Friday. Go out and have some yellow fizz in my honour. I'll be in Brussels drinking something better.

Some dateless moose

It probably says a lot about me that the best summers of my young adulthood are forever bound in my memory to a particular off licence beer promotion. The one spent dossing about Belfast (there was no work to be had, honest) was all about the dirt-cheap Michelob Golden Draught on sale at the tiny offy just off Botanic Avenue (we had to clear our fridge of its extraneous contents, like food, and shelves). I left college several years later and took up my first proper job the following June. Having rented what seemed like a massive one-bedroom apartment in Harold's Cross, I discovered that the Londis opposite the park was doing six-packs of Moosehead Lager for a fiver. It seems now as if every evening involved climbing the hill up to the shop, filling my German army surplus rucksack with Moosehead and striding jauntily homeward with the sun on my back. It was probably only most evenings, however.

Moosehead Lager has been a regular fixture on the Irish beer market ever since, though the price has gone up quite a bit -- it being an early victim of the Great Euro Changeover Gouge, in which the licensed trade indulged shamelessly. And of course my interest in lager isn't what it was back when we had warm summers, so I have not felt the need to indulge in any Moose-related nostalgia.

And then, just a couple of weeks ago, I noticed a red-label Moosehead Pale Ale on the shelves in DrinkStore. Like much of the stock there it was covered in dust so I searched the bottle for a best-before date. There was none. I asked the proprietor who assured me it had just come in, but went to fetch the box. No date on that either. I'm not a stickler for dates -- no Irish ticker can afford to be -- but it does make a difference with pale light beers: that stale mustiness you get is really not nice.

I decided to take a chance anyway. Fortunately, through the miracle of Twitter, the brewery found me and taught me how to decode the encrypted born-on date on the bottle (the first letter is the month, the next two the day, and then the year followed by 52, so my G03852 means my beer was made on 3rd July last year -- should still be fresh enough).

On pouring, I discovered an incredibly pale beer, pretty much pilsner-coloured. No aroma to speak of, but there's a bit of body to it. Unfortunately, once the taste kicks in, this body gives the impression of being sugar-derived. Not that it's especially sweet, but there's no hop character at all -- there's really nothing to the flavour except that minor sugariness. Perhaps ice cold it might be enjoyable, but the carbonation would likely be all wrong without the refreshing lager fizz. I retain my fond memory of Moosehead Lager, but I won't be buying the pale ale again.

While I was at it, I opened another pale ale from eastern North America. Genesee Cream Ale is another super-pale ale which doesn't really resemble ale at all. There's no head on this one, despite unpleasantly large amounts of fizz. The body is bad-lager-thin and there's a vague dry, sour, burnt corn kind of flavour, a bit like nasty English keg ale -- Worthington's in particular -- only with fizz instead of nitro. Not pleasant, even though I was having it cold. "Cream" and "ale" are two words I really wouldn't associate with this travesty.

So, there you go: proof that ale -- lager's sophisticated cousin -- can be just as deserving of lager's reputation for bland rubbishiness. Remember that this Friday is lager time on The Session, and you lot can tell me whether your own local yellow fizz matches the quality of these ales.

Famous British reserve

Is Fuller's Brewer's Reserve No. 1 supposed to be about 30% cheaper than the Vintage Ale? I was surprised. Though there's probably something seriously wrong when I pay over €6 for 500ml of beer then make off into the night giggling at my crafty steal.

Anyhoo, this is a new one from the iconic Chiswick brewer, and is presumably the first in a series of limited edition ales they're planning to produce. As I mentioned not so long ago, barrels are in. This 7.7% ABV ale has served nearly a year and a half in whisky casks. To be honest, I don't think they did it a whole lot of good.

You get a very clear amber ale with an off-white head. The nose is slightly sour and lambicky, and there's a definite tartness on the first sip. However, it really makes you work to find the vanilla and whisky notes, unlike 1488 which shoves them right in your gob. On the plus side, I enjoyed the slight scotch-like throat burn, but overall I think I'm siding more with this Englishman than this one.

Having expected some sort of huge sticky, woody monster, I feel I got off lightly with what's really quite an understated easy-drinking ale, one which also rewards slow sipping. But I do think the price is just a bit on the high side. At €10, Fuller's Vintage 2007 represents better value, in my opinion.

Up the Badger's Arse

Deveney's off licence in downtown Dundrum has set up a regular series of themed beer tastings -- a laudable effort at broadening the horizons of south Dublin's beer drinking public. I went along to the first one on Friday, just to give some support, of course, and nothing at all to do with the free beer. My fellow ICBeebie Ken lives nearby, so I dropped in on him beforehand to sample a very tasty pale ale he had cornied in his shed (Ken's brewery goes by the name of Badger's Arse, and you can see him impressing Oz and James with his coffee stout here).

When we eventually got to Deveney's, Ruth had queued up her samples -- from J.W. Dundee, Goose Island, Speakeasy, and Sierra Nevada: the USA being the evening's theme. We offered constructive criticism on the order of tastings and then got to talking beer and the specialist beer market in general. She said that the importer who dropped off Samuel Adams Triple Bock told her not to open it as it would scare the punters. I'd noticed it around before, in its sleek non-descript nip bottle with the outrageous €9.99 price tag, and reckoned it wasn't worth satisfying my curiosity. The Samuel Adams range are a mixed bag -- for every classic there's at least one stinker, in my experience. €9.99 is just too much of a gamble for that brand. But with minimal goading, Ruth agreed to pop one open for us.

Mind blowing, is the operative term. This totally flat, super-thick 17.5% ABV beer is a walking tour of dark ale flavours, with a fully live and interactive cast of characters. We start at chocolate: heavy, bitter, 80%+ cocoa, dark chocolate. From there we pass through rich coffee and maple syrup (an actual ingredient) into fresh liquorice, tawny port, fine cigars, and back to steaming hot chocolate puddings. The whole experience put me in mind of the Lost Abbey Angel's Share I had at the Great British Beer Festival, except instead of coming from a cask in a different country available for a couple of days last year, this came from an off licence a few minutes' bike ride from my house. Magnificent, and worth every cent being asked. Ken agreed, and Ruth had two sales on her hands immediately.

The bonus is that the teeny blue glass bottle has a cork. One sip goes an astonishingly long way with this, and after a small post-prandial glass it can be put back in the cupboard, like any good digestif.

This is just the sort of beer we almost never see in Ireland. Get your hands on it now.

Finally, thanks Ruth and thanks Ken for the beer and a fun evening. If you're at all local to Deveney's, be sure and sign up to their mailing list via deveneydundrum@eircom.net. If the tastings go on like they started it'll be well worth your while.