Cheer up

I don't know what the deal is with the rather Van Klompian artwork on Nello's Blond. Neither the boy nor his dog look particularly pleased to have been immortalised in label form. The beer inside is 7% ABV -- definitely at the high end for most blondes but not quite up at the level of the diabolically-themed sub-genre. By way of further complication, it smells boozy enough to pass for a tripel, though the aroma is more about the fruit than the spices, with some enticing pineapple chunks coupled with more prosaic cereal notes. The grain wins over the tropical fruit on tasting, the central flavour element being a bit porridgey -- but in a good way: the crunchier pinhead sort of oatmeal rather than gloop or stodge. It finishes on an upswing of intensely sweet peach nectar with a mild nutmeg spicing too. The balance of dry and sweet factors make it very drinkable and refreshing, aided further by moderate carbonation. But as I only had one bottle, I had to reach for its companion to keep the buzz going.

The happy pair are present and correct again on the label of Patrasche, though the terracotta surround suggests that this will be a dark beer, and so it is. 8% ABV and an opaque brown. Again the carbonation level is low and the texture a little thin for a beer whose colour and strength suggests boozy warming weight. There's a crème caramel character to the flavour at first: sweet vanilla topped by bitterer treacle. As it warms you also get a serving of banoffi pie and sticky toffee pudding from the sweet trolley, with burnt hint of coffee to finish. No boozy digestif to round the meal off, however -- this could easily pass for 5% ABV or less. While I enjoyed its complexity, it did leave me feeling a little shortchanged. Perhaps that's why himself is looking so nonplussed.

The Walking Deid

Zombier from Fyne Ales is a 6.9% ABV porter based on an award-winning homebrew recipe. It pours a dense, dark, opaque brown-black with just a thin layer of ivory foam on top. Disappointingly for a homebrew recipe, they haven't hopped the shite out of it: homebrewers are usually good for that sort of thing. Instead there's a nicely subtle sticky, smoky dark malt flavour plus sharper edges of liquorice and leather. Despite the high-ish strength it's light enough to be easy drinking, though the carbonation is a little bit overdone. Any heat from the alcohol only makes itself felt when the beer has warmed up and the glass is almost empty.

Not quite the taste explosion I was expecting from Fyne and some talented amateurs, but very good at what it's trying to be.

Waifs and strays

I should really have covered this Sainsbury's American Pale Ale back when I wrote about its sister IPA in October, but to be honest I didn't notice it was even in the fridge. Once again it's from North American Breweries under the false flag of the Tap Room Brewing Company of Rochester, New York. 5.3% ABV and rather fizzy with it, showing a lovely rose gold colour under the foam. There's a bit of soapiness in the aroma though thankfully it's not found in the flavour. Not much else is, however, just a half hearted squeeze of satsuma and some light toffee. Easy drinking and inoffensive, it's also utterly forgettable.

Thanks again to Thomas for the bottle.

Not a stray beer next, but a stray tasting note. I found this on a piece of paper I'd left on my desk some months ago, though I've no memory of the circumstances in which it was scrawled. It's for Red Hook's Long Hammer IPA, and it seems I quite liked it, finding it possessed of a similar sort of marmalade flavour to good British IPA, though with perhaps a bit of a cheeky lime shred through it. At its core it's quite sweet and biscuity. There you have it; I ought to take my own recommendation and buy it some time. Thanks, past me.

Panning for gold

Sometimes there are wonderful things to be found in the bottom of the Brew Dock €4 bargain bucket. Fishing beside me, Richard came up with a bottle of Adnam's Broadside. My own lucky dip yielded Schlappe-Seppel Kellerbier.

At first I was a little suspicious of an expiring German kellerbier: after all, it's a style that isn't meant to travel far from its time or place of origin. About the distance from the barrel room to the table is ideal.

Once poured, I was surprised by its paleness, a vaguely hazy blonde rather than the brownish murk I, perhaps unfairly, associate with the kellerbier designation. And whatever about the visuals, the taste is clean and clear as a bell, starting on a candyfloss malt base complicated by a mix of lively fresh lemon sherbet and lightly green celery notes. That effervescent sherbet texture makes it wonderfully drinkable, which again, is the whole point of kellerbier.

Impressive stuff, and not at all what I was expecting when I pulled it out.

Crushing hard

What are those people with the exploding stockpots up to? Why are they so terrified? As usual with Brasserie De La Senne the entertainment starts before the cap comes off.

Crushable Saison was brewed in collaboration with Tired Hands brewing of Pennsylvania. It's 5% ABV and certainly looks like a saison: yellowish and hazy to the point of opacity, and it has the massive amounts of fizz you'd expect from the Energizer bunny of beer yeasts. The similarity more or less ends there, however. While there's a hint of wheatiness and barnyard in the aroma the dominant smells are sharp grapefruit and lemon zest. There is less sharpness in the flavour and far more juice: mango, nectarine and peach, with just a rasping dryness on the end as a final reminder of its true nature.

Taking an innocent saison and C-hopping it nine ways from Sunday is probably neither big nor clever but it does make for rather good beer. This is one for drinking hyper-fresh, so you've probably missed the best of it by now, but hopefully there'll be a repeat or a clone. I can see this being a very agreeable younger sister to Taras Boulba.

Into the sunset

My wonky palate is no stranger to WTF reactions: beers I like that nobody else does; beers I can't be having but which are lauded far and wide by those in the know. It rarely bothers me, though if the plaudits are loud enough I will go back for second and third helpings of something I didn't enjoy, and sometimes this pays off eventually: Timothy Taylor Landlord is my reference example of a beer that took me ages to "get" but whose attractions I now understand. It's extra pleasing, though rare, to watch a popular beer I don't like gradually fall out of favour with the commentariat. Are your ears burning, Doom Bar?

Why all this concern over the relative merits of beers? It's The Session once again and the theme is Against The Grain: those instances where our tastes vary from the wider drinking community, and the broader question of what makes a beer actually a good beer: what we're tasting, or what everybody else thinks?

I'll admit that when it comes to making recommendations I do distinguish between the ones I like and which lots of other people say they do too ("This is an excellent beer") and the ones where I'm on less sure ground but want to share my experience ("I'm particularly fond of..."). The bottom line, of course, is that taste is subjective, but there's a lot to be said for the consensus. While the front and back ends of the beer rating bell curves are full of herd mentality nonsense, there's lots of very useful information in the middle ground and I believe it is possible to determine the relative value of a middle-range beer from what value the raters and advocates have collectively assigned to it. Cheers to them.

Today's beer hasn't had enough Beer Advocate ratings to warrant a grade, but scores just 14% on RateBeer. Was it the attractive shiny packaging that attracted me to it? The chance to tick a beer from a brewery that no longer exists? Or was it the €1 price tag? Probably a combination of all three is what made me ignore Richard in DrinkStore's warning that Cains Calcutta Pale Ale was no good. In favour of his argument it's a piddling 2.8% ABV, brewed for the tax break and also two days past its best before. But look at the (African?) elephant carrying the hop flower! Awww!

It's a happy darkish amber colour with a thin layer of fine white foam on top. It smells quite minerally with subtle hints of sugar and spice. No wateriness at all about the mouthfeel: it's thick, even a little sticky. Yes, there's not much by way of flavour: mild toffee is the most prominent quiet element, followed by something slightly metallic. Not far off brown bitter territory, really.

This recreates admirably the sensation of drinking real beer and is certainly far better than any alcohol free beer I've tasted. There's little point in me recommending it to you, or lauding it as something to trawl the bargain buckets for, but I consider my euro well spent.

Start right

2014's beer reviews begin with an American classic: Hop Rod Rye from Bear Republic in northern California, recently arrived on these shores with its stablemates Racer 5 and Red Rocket. I'm a new covert to hop-forward rye beers, with Kinnegar Rustbucket and Dungarvan's Mahon Falls showing how its done. And now it turns out the Americans are making them as well. Well done them.

Hop Rod Rye is 8% ABV and made with a whole 18% of rye. Fancy! No, I don't know if that's good either. Can't argue with the aroma: super fresh mandarins laced with acidic pine. The flavour blends the elements beautifully: mouthwatering bitterness, the juicy fruitiness -- and the less subtle toffee elements of the amber malts are offset by the grassiness of the rye.

All of these bits, by themselves, can unbalance a beer badly but they really work well together here. It's not an easy drinker, and makes one very aware of everything that's in it, but as heavy hoppy American beers go, it's definitely up there.