Ankers away!

Yesterday's megapost came to you from the Leuven Innovation Beer Festival which happened last month. I mentioned that it was organised by the Hof ten Dormaal brewery. They were also kind enough to send up a selection of their beers for us EBCU delegates to have with our lunch once we'd finished our meeting in the room at the top of the building.

The first one I tried was their collaboration with Weird Beard, the tortuously-named If Only The Hof Had A Beard. See what they did there? It's a soured IPA of a mere 3.8% ABV and poured a hazy yellow colour. The carbonation is low but it's not thin, despite the strength. The centre of the taste is a beautifully zingy lemon rind flavour, fading to a clean chalky mineral finish. This refreshing mix of mild sourness infused with hop sparks makes it fit neatly into one of my favourite sub-categories of beer. I'd drink this by the pint if I could bring myself to order it by name.

I didn't realise that Dormaal had hitched their wagon to sourness quite so securely, but the other two were sour also. Duindoorn too much so. Ostensibly it's a Flanders red, and a strong one at 6.5% ABV. It looks awful for a start: a murky amber brown. The aroma is strongly funky, real dirty farmyard stuff, which isn't a flaw by itself, but combined with a taste that is pure unadulterated malt vinegar, it doesn't go any way towards making this more palatable. Maybe there's a sour beer bro out there who thinks he likes this sort of thing. I, meanwhile, would be willing to support an assessment that it's objectively awful.

I thought I was in for more of the same with Winter 18, a 9% ABV coffee-infused barley wine, soured and barrel-aged for some reason. It smelled rank, like cold stale black coffee. The flavour is better, however, the sourness a nuanced black cherry balsamic, followed by Turkish coffee notes adding a balancing sweetness. It's not one I'd drink a lot of, but a small glass provided plenty to think about.

The bottles of Torpid Mind by Czech gypsy brewer Badflash may have been supplied by the Czech delegate at the meeting as he was also wearing the t-shirt. It's an imperial stout of 10% ABV with smooth and creamy coffee flavours, livened up by just enough bitterness from leafy green-veg hops and any cloying sweetness washed away by black-tea tannins. No gimmicks here in this serious yet fun thumper.

The following morning was our last in Belgium. The vague plan had been to head for Brussels and tramp the well-worn path of familiar pubs before making for the airport. Before checking out of the hotel I opened a map and zoomed out of Leuven, noticing that Mechelen was nearby. It's also handy for the airport and neither of us had been before. That settled it. Train in twenty minutes?

Like many a town in the Low Countries, Mechelen takes its time to get going on a Sunday. When we arrived late morning one of the few options available was the town's ancient brewery, Het Anker, famous for the Gouden Carolus range of beers. That's where we headed.

Having booked our tour we had a couple of minutes to kill in the brewery bar where I opted for Anker Pils, never having seen it before. Our tour-guide-to-be passed by the table and made a disdainful comment, which I thought odd for someone employed to put a positive spin on the brewery and its wares. On the tour later on we learned that Het Anker ceased brewing pils decades ago and this one, created to meet local demand, is contracted out to another brewer in a neighbouring town. As a Sunday morning pils it's fine: light, sweet and crisp, mixing a gentle lemon zest with dry grain husk. It's refreshing and uncomplicated and I was happy with it.

The tour of the quaint facility across the courtyard ended back in the bar with a run-through of the core range. I've covered most of them before but not Carolus Tripel. It's sweet for the style, showing higher fruit levels than normal, and corresponding lower spices. Served on draught it was clear and clean, though still with a big boozy punch. It's OK, but not a classic Belgian tripel by any measure. I'm not inclined to believe the bottled version will be any great shakes either.

Among the recent brand extensions is Cuvée van de Keizer Whisky Infused which started life as a one-off in their Indulgence series in 2015 but went on to become a permanent feature, and was on tap. It arrived a gorgeous clear red wine colour with a nose of plump raisin and, yes, whisky. The flavour is whisky first, then smooth and vinous malt-driven beer afterwards. There are no warm fruity esters, no booze heat despite 11.7% ABV, and generally no sharp edges. This is smooth to the point of being, well, dull. It's certainly nowhere near as complex as I was expecting.

A lovely glass of Hopsinjoor finished me off for the brewery, and a lovelier Oude Gueze Boon at charming waterside bar De Gouden Vis finished me for Mechelen. Back to the airport, then, with enough time to check out its new beer offer.

For all the time I've been flying out of here, Interbrew/InBev have had a near monopoly on the beer supply: nothing but Leffe, Hoegaarden and Stella. That arrangement seems to to have come to an end and there's now a fancy new food hall with a range of fancy, if expensive, Belgian beers, including gueze from Beersel. There's even a house beer: Bistrot Airport by Brouweij Dilewyns, best known for its Vicaris range and situated not far from the airport. I was poured a goblet of thick orange beer with lots of suspended floaty clumps in it. The aroma is thickly sweet, like hard candy, though thankfully its flavour is drier, with wholesome breadcrust the main feature, backed by a subtle note of exotic jasmine. This is an unadventurous beer, but unmistakably Belgian, so ideal for the weary traveller.

This weary traveller quaffed it down and went home to Dublin, full of the joys of multifaceted Belgian beer.

Get innovative!

And the winner of the Most-Overstated Beer Festival Name goes to... "Leuven Innovation Beer Festival", for the fourth year running. I spent a long afternoon here but didn't really see what was so innovative about it. The format was perfectly sound: organised by Belgian microbrewer Hof ten Dormaal, hosted in the former Stella Artois brewery, now an exhibition centre, and featuring 17 breweries from across Europe plus a couple of American ones, all mostly pouring a selection of their beers from bottles.

My journey began at the sole German representative, Schwarzwald Gold, from the south-eastern corner of the country. And I will admit that Pomme D'Or, a beer made with apples and fermented with cider and champagne yeast, does carry at least some air of innovation. I've certainly never had anything like it. It's around the 8% ABV mark, and has the funk aroma of a heavy aged cider. The flavour mixes juicy sweet cider with a damp, autumnal funk, finishing on a crisp note of wheat. It's odd, carrying influences from both cider and weissbier. It's tasty too: complex and warming, like it has been pre-mulled. Pleasingly it's still identifiable as a German weizenbock, despite all the... well... innovation.

Next door was Birrificio Sorrento which had a couple of grape ales on the go, and it's my new rule to never pass an Italian grape ale by. I started on Elèa which was 7.5% ABV, a medium amber colour, and exceedingly plain; disappointingly so, in fact. There's a helles-like sweetness and only the fainest hint of grape must. Definitely not what the style demands.

I had higher hopes (it wouldn't be hard) for their other one, Ligia. This is a lighter 6% ABV and spicy like a tripel. Not a bad beer in and of itself, but there was no trace at all of grape, so I was even more let down by this one. I guess if I drink enough of any style I'll eventually find examples I don't like, but to be honest it genuinely never occured to me that it could happen with Italian grape ales. Innovation again.

I was back at Sorrento towards the end of my visit to try one more: Syrentum, a saison with local lemons in the recipe. There's a bubblebath aroma but fortunately no soap in the flavour. Instead there's an intense lemon zing; very real, like homemade lemonade with all the bits in. Once again the style guide is thrown out the window, but this one at least tastes nice, and at 5.5% ABV is well capable of refreshment on a balmy Campanian evening.

South Plains is a brewery that's easily mistaken for an American but is actually Swedish. Its yee-ha Brett IPA is called Hophead Harry, coming in at a modest 5.5% ABV. I wasn't a fan. This one is horribly, cloyingly sweet, opening with a shock of sharp perfume, before proceeding to an artificial floral candy: think Parma Violets or Rhubarb-and-Custards, '80s kids. It's cloying and difficult, the Brett doing nothing to clean (or dirty) up its sugary excesses. A hard pass from me.

Randomly to Poland next, and Browar ReCraft, from near Katowice. Milkołak ICE is, as the name implies, a milk stout. And it's fine. A little strong for one of these at 6% ABV, but with the appropriate sweet condensed-milk aroma, and a flavour which balances that with dark roast and husky cereal grain. Straightforward, boring perhaps, depending how you take to milk stouts, but on-point as far as I was concerned.

The UK was represented by Vibrant Forest, a south coast brewery I'd heard of but never encountered. I went with Dahlia from their selection, a Chardonnay barrel-aged sour beer with added Brettanomyces: you know, like everyone is making these days. It looked like wine, being a pale yellow-green and quite flat. My first impression was of Fino sherry: that slightly sharp, salty, almost vinegar-like edge, then spicy oak and sour green grape. As in many a well-made beer of this genre, the Brett doesn't come on very strongly, adding little more than a sprinkling of funk; a seasoning. Classy stuff, this, if just a little un-beer-like.

Lo Vilot, the Spanish brewery, had a wide selection on offer. I went with Psicocherry, a light, soured, cherry beer, and it's probably the reason I didn't try any of their others. It's plain and watery, candy sweet, with an unsubtle sourness tacked on to the end. I got the impression of a brewery trying to be on trend but not really getting how to do it. This did not compare favourably with the beer that preceded it.

From Moscow, the alarmingly named Red Button brewery. Soledad was my one from them, an IPA with Thai blue tea and lychee. The aroma is floral and enticing, while the soft and sweet lychee really comes to the fore in the flavour. The main contribution of the tea is turning the whole thing a vivid purple colour. Overall it's clean and refreshing, not bursting with hop flavour, but at 5% ABV that's somewhat excusable. This is decent overall, confining its gimmickry to the colour.

On Europe's eastern frontier, in the Ural mountains, you'll find Crazy Brew. I gave their Russian Imperial Stout a spin, of course. There's a gorgeous café crème aroma from this 11%-er but it unravels after that, turning too sweet at first, and then slightly plasticky. I couldn't pinpoint anything specific that had gone wrong with it, it just didn't taste right to me.

Let's stay with imperial stouts from points eastern and check out Tumaine, also 11% ABV and hailing from Estonia's Pühaste brewery. There's coffee in it, though that wasn't apparent to me from the flavour, which starts on gentle chocolate and rosewater then builds gradually, aided by an incredibly dense texture, to liquorice and other medicinal herbs. There's quite a lot of alcohol heat, combining with the thick slickness to make it a kind of liqueur. It's an intense experience, but not necessarily a great one, lacking finesse.

Possibly my favourite name of the festival was Anarkriek by local outfit 't Hofbrouwerijke. It's not a kriek, however, but a porter with cherries, a big-hitter at 8.5% ABV. There's a very interesting contrast in the mix of dry roast and sweet cherry liqueur chocolate. Then it's let down by a savoury autolytic twang and a faint vinegar burn. This may have been left in the fermenter longer than was good for it, but there's potential for greatness here.

I got more cherries from Nacht, a dark ale by Purpose Brewing in Colorado, yet it wasn't brewed with cherries. It appears to have been brewed with damn near everything else, though: coconut, orange peel, vanilla beans, grains of paradise and wood aged. As well as the cherries I found chocolate, hazelnut and raisin in abundance, like a boozy liquid version of a Cadbury's Fruit & Nut bar. Beautiful.

The Purpose beer that garnered most attention on the day was called Smoeltrakker #68. Assuming it has been honed through 67 previous iterations, that's hardly surprising. The base is a sour blonde ale and it has then been aged in bourbon barrels -- how innovative! The end result is beautiful, however: bright and spicy oak, perfumed with incense-like cedar notes, overlaying a mild cleansing tartness. This is no show-off, there's nothing extreme or overdone about it; just perfect balance and harmony. Maybe 9.1% ABV is excessive, but I'll live with it.

The other American brewery was the intriguingly named Pen Druid, out of Sperryville, Virginia. From their offer I picked Telemachus, a 7.5% ABV sour murky brown thingy. There's some herbal aniseed in with the sharp acidity, but also lots of dreggy yeast fuzz. Clean it up and you might have a halfway decent Flemish oud bruin, otherwise I'm not sure what it's supposed to be, only that I don't particularly like it.

It's sour here on out: I guess that's all you need to make to be considered innovative these days. Swiss brewery Trois Dames were at the show and their line-up included Fiancée (Chasselas), a sour saison with grapes. Sounds promising! It's a pale yellow colour and quite assertively tart, with close to a vinegar edge. Fortunately a juicy complexity in the background goes a long way to offset this, though more in a tropical fruit style than wine grapes. Once you get used to it it's quite easy to settle into; pleasant if not spectacular.

The brewery's more spectacular one was the spontaneously fermented Sauvageronne, which had a kick of real lambic about it: from the flat murky orange look to the saltpetre spiced flavour, with a rounded oaky smoothness from the wine barrels it was matured in. The lambicness shouldn't be surprising as the brewery did blend in some Oud Beersel beer years ago, at the beginning of the long-drawn-out solera ageing process. While the painstaking blending and re-blending paid off -- the beer is great -- it's still a little too vinegary to sit side-by-side with Pajottenland's finest.

With night falling and the pubs of Leuven calling, my final beer token went on Weelde, another lambic-a-like, this time from Dutch breweries Oersoep and Nevel, in collaboration. As well as the spicy bricky nitre, there's a lot of tangy fruit, and grapefruit in particular. It's cleansing, invigorating, and like the Smoeltrekker above, quiet and respectful, without being any way boring. The perfect reset beer ahead of the evening's second phase.

Whatever about the innovation aspect, this festival was great for showing me corners of the brewing world I'd never encountered previously. Thanks also go to the guys from Galway Bay, also exhibiting, for the occasional between-ticks tasters. One more wrap-up post to come before we depart.

Taproom fashion

L'Ermitage Nano Brasserie opened in Brussels last autumn. It's in Anderlecht, just around the corner from the more-established Cantillon. And while the latter is a living fossil, preserving equipment and methods that have died out completely in the city, L'Ermitage is the height of modernity, a converted light industrial space with bright coloured murals and furniture made from hacked up packing crates. It could be in Brooklyn, Bermondsey or Barcelona -- the generic taproom chic.

Dr. John and I popped in on a Friday evening, raising the average age of the clientele considerably by doing so. In the interests of sampling efficiency I ordered a flight. That began with Soleil Session, a white IPA. It started well, with a bright fresh pineapple aroma, but went rapidly downhill on tasting, coming out dreggy and unfinished-tasting. Behind the yeast there's a strong -- harsh even -- hop bitterness that's shocking at first but you get used to it. When it settles down there are still no real redeeming features in this slipshod mess. Not a good start.

A pale ale was next, a bit of a thumper at 6.4% ABV, brewed with added green tea and jasmine, going by the grand title of Théorème de L’Empereur. The grandeur is cut short and I think the guy writing my notes was losing patience already as he's just written "plasticky and unpleasant". Perhaps that's all you need to know. Consider yourselves warned.

Surely they'll get the porter right, I thought. You can't go wrong with a porter, especially a big strong one like Noire du Midi at 6.9% ABV. It looked every inch of it too: a dense obsidian topped with tan foam and giving off a powerful waft of strong coffee. No doublecross this time, it really tastes of coffee, and the umami buzz in the background indicates it definitely hasn't been put on tap too young; quite the opposite. I liked its oily texture as well as the coffee roast flavour. While not the greatest beer of its type, it was a relief to find a good one.

Another white IPA followed, onwards and upwards. Chute Libre was brewed as a collaboration with Swiss brewery La Nébuleuse. It's 6.4% ABV and a happy hazy witbier yellow with a lovely orange juice aroma. There's an absolutely perfect blend of its wit and IPA aspects in the flavour, at once piney and dank while also spicy and fruity, and above all clean, and perfectly refreshing with it. An exemplary expression of the style.

How was John getting on? Well he seemed happy with his choices. I was more dubious when I tasted them, however. Lanterne Pale Ale (left) was another dreggy one: overly hot and with too much savoury caraway. It's not actively unpleasant but was just too raw and unfinished to be enjoyable, I thought.

Laboritoire D'Alchimie 2 (right) is described as a New World Pilsner. That suggests to me some element of fruit, be it bitter citrus or sweet tropicality. But this tasted pretty much like a normal central European pils, mixing up grass, celery and dry chalky soda in a clear golden package. It's light to the point of watery and just not very interesting, beyond the intriguing mystique of the name.

So that's L'Ermitage. Maybe they're still getting their act together and more of the beer will be more polished next time. At least there's somewhere to go after the bar at Cantillon closes each day.

Some light pubbing

A random assortment of beers and bars from my recent Belgian trip in today's post, beginning with an icon. Fresh off the plane I stopped in the splendid Halles de Saint-Géry market hall for a bite to eat. The bar had a few options from Heineken's Belgian arm but I went straight for the flagship, Maes Pils. The best thing about it was the ribbeke glass: no pissing about with chalices here. It tastes sweetly of maize first, finishing on a drier husk. The carbonation is far too high making for prickly and uncomfortable drinking. I got a slight smoky staleness as well. Not an experiment I need to repeat.

There was another golden beer in the fridges at the meeting venue the following day: 100 PAP by 3 Fontaines, a brewery which I can't believe hasn't been forced to change its name by a certain lambic producer. This one was produced as a fundraiser by a migrants' charity and I understand has changed styles since its inception. It's now a blonde ale, or possibly even a pale ale, at 6% ABV. There's a lovely tropical aroma showing mango and pineapple. The flavour is clean and dry, quite lagerlike, with a little crisp caraway seed and some sweeter peach. Simple and decent fare, overall.

You want some wow factor? How about Jester Zinne, the collaborative sour saison from De La Senne and Jester King? How about Jester Zinne for €15 a bottle in Le Coq instead of the €32 that Moeder Lambic was asking for it? It's a modest 5.9% ABV and begins fruitily with fresh and juicy apricot, laced with oily coconut and followed with enough of a bricky gueze kick to make it taste more like a lambic than a saison. It's beautiful stuff, balancing the fruit and aged sourness perfectly, kind of like a junior edition of Cantillon's Fou'foune.

Friday lunch, as is becoming routine for these meetings, was spaghetti at Monk. They've just launched their very own house beer, Strandhut, brewed by the bar staff in collaboration with Stadsbrouwerij 't Koelschip in Ostend. It arrived to the table in a large bottle, a muddy pale amber colour and failing to form a head on pouring. I asked one of its co-creators what style they were going for and got a Klompian shrug in response. I'll call it a Belgian blonde ale so. Even more worrying, asking about the ABV elicited the same annoyed grumbling. "About 6%" he said, adding they didn't really record it accurately. It's quite a thin beer, but pleasantly bitter and spicy, with the level of herbs and lemon rind you might find in a witbier or even a tripel. As a food accompaniment it could definitely have benefitted from a heftier body; as a cheapish house beer: yeah, sure, why not?

Compare and contrast with the beer for dinner that evening, in the cosy embrace of first-rate beer restaurant Nüetnigenough. M'colleague Dr John had picked De Ranke's Guldenberg from the menu for us, a proper tripel of 8% ABV. This is an especially dry version of the style, lacking the honey and candy they often show, and replacing them with grain husk and white pepper. There's a certain apple and grape quality in the middle but it reverts to type in the end, turning acidic. It's a bit of a workout to drink, but I enjoyed the challenge and would come back for more.

The big discovery of the trip was Gist, a recently-opened beer bar not far from Grand Place and Centraal station. We visited a couple of times, enjoying the excellent beer selection and the laid-back vibe which will hopefully continue as it becomes more famous, but probably won't. Funnily enough, at the last EBCU meeting in Milan, I encountered Stradaregina's Sourflowers 02. And here in Brussels for the next one I found Sourflowers 01, the elderflower one. I didn't get much elder from it but there was a gorgeous brett-apricot aroma, and a flavour mixing peaches and gunpowder on a puckering tart base. It's not far off the level of excellence found in Jester Zinne and I'm glad it seems to be a longterm beer that travels. Grab it if you see it.

Gist had two cask engines on the go, but sadly neither was pouring lambic. I had a glass of Psycho, the table beer from local producer No Science. It's a pale yellow colour and at once spicy and flowery, beginning on honeysuckle and incense and ending with a hard kick of citrus and wax. At 4% ABV they've pushed through the limit of what constitutes a table beer, I reckon, though it does deliver that simple yet complex mix of farmyard flavours that the style is all about.

For his part, John went with Excuse Me While I Kiss My Stout (2018 edition) by Hedonis Ambachtsbier, a Belgian client brewer with which I'm not familiar. It was an 8.2% ABV imperial job with added mint, maple and hazelnut. For all that it wasn't overly sweet, balancing the syrup with bitterness and real coffee, and never getting too thick or hot. It's a balanced sort of pastry stout.

I finished that evening on a Canadian beer, Dunham's Berliner Passion Weisse. The aroma of this is pure sugary passionfruit but the flavour is bizarrely sharp, almost vinegary. It doesn't go all the way there, thankfully, keeping plenty of fruit around to offset the acidity. There's not much going on between its two facets, but what's there is enjoyable.

The inevitable few rounds in Moeder Lambic Fontainas began on yet another new house beer, Moeder Every Day by Jandrain-Jandrenouille. Like the earlier table beer, this is 4% ABV and a pale blonde, showing just a slight haze. Lemon zest emerges first, backed by crisp lagery grains. A tiny bitter yeast kick adds Belgian complexity, but that's as advanced as it gets. It's a beer that's not designed to be pored over or thought about, and I guess even Moeder Lambic has to have one of those on the list.

100 років УНР ("100 Years of the Ukranian National Republic") from Pravda in Lviv had a whiff of more than just nationalism about it. This is a strong stout of 8.5% ABV, densely black in colour with a tan head and smelling harshly of old cigarette smoke. The flavour was surprisingly sweeter, the ash turning to more avuncular pipe tobacco, plus a solid base of chocolate and treacle bread. This is strong yet subtle, and surprisingly easy to drink.

John, meanwhile, opted for Heavy Porter, another No Science offering. It's fairly classic in the way it's constructed, beginning on chocolate, adding in some meadowy floral hops, and finishing quickly and cleanly. This too is dangerously easy drinking, at a not inconsiderable 6% ABV.

I just had a quick sip of someone else's √225 (not pictured), a saison from Swiss brewery BFM. A sip was enough to know it's absolutely terrible, with a harshly concentrated vinegar acidity that's simply painful to drink, or even to smell. Moving on swiftly...

... to the much more friendly-sounding Imperial Hoppy Berliner Weisse from Mont Salève. It's oranges all the way here, from the colour through to the sweet orangeade flavour, complete with a pithy bitterness, leading to a tang of aspirin. The sour side is very mild, and the overall picture is refreshing and fun, more like a tart pale ale than a Berliner weisse. I was shocked to discover it's a full-on 9% ABV, so at least the "imperial" bit holds up.

My companion's finisher was Adelardus by Kerkom, one he knew but I didn't. It's a straight up dubbel at 7% ABV, a dark wine-red colour with a vinous aroma to match. The flavour is much more typical, indeed spot on: cereal and caramel form the foundation, overlaid with bass notes of plum and raisin, then ripe red cherries on the treble. It's rich, smooth and remarkably warming at the relatively low strength.

I'll come back to our other Brussels venue -- another brewery -- in tomorrow's post, but after finishing up here it was off to Leuven. A quickie Saturday night pub crawl began with exemplary glasses of Stella (don't laugh) in the raucous but wonderful Café In Den Ouden Tijd opposite the station, and finished on disappointment at De Blaue Kater, which has moved from its dark and cosy alleyway to a new location across town where it has evolved into a grand multistorey pub and venue. In between there was M-Café.

This modern bar at the front of the city museum was very quiet when we rocked in. It wasn't want of fancy beer that was keeping the punters away: my first was from Warpigs, their Snack Family pale ale. It's a murky orange colour and smelled fabulous, all zesty and spicy. That proved deceptive, as the flavour was disappointing: some mild jaffa, a touch of caraway, but that was it. I got through my glass OK, and enjoyed the part right before each sip. I was left unthrilled, however.

Something even more bro-ish for John: Spacelord, a coffee imperial stout by a Belgian brewer delighting in the name Malterfakker. It was another poor effort, heavy and sticky, lacking the fresh coffee flavour it needed to brighten it, doubling down on syrup and putty. Far too much hard work at this time of night.

I'll get to the beer festival we went to in Leuven later in the week, once I finish with Brussels in tomorrow's post.

Project expansion

EBCU business brought me to Brussels in mid-April. The Thursday night rendez-vous was at Brussels Beer Project, and I was looking forward to returning. On my previous visit in 2015 the taproom was still in set-up mode; now it's in full swing with a huge range of their own beers on tap and bottled, merchandise and takeaway at the front of the shop and seating available amongst the barrels out back.

I began my explorations with Jungle Joy, a blonde ale with added mango and passionfruit. This goes heavy on the fruit juice but stills retains its essential beeriness, offering a fun and refreshing blend of bitter and sweet notes. The stated ABV is a substantial 6.6%, yet it's light and approachable. I can imagine it getting a little sickly after a while, but a small taster really brightened my evening.

The fruit buzz continued with Rise Again, a grapefruit pale ale. This is a pleasant clear amber colour with a heavily dank and resinous aroma. Sweet sherbet begins the flavour and is quickly followed by the herbal resins, finishing on a sharply metallic aspirin bitterness. The grapefruit doesn't make much of an identifiable contribution, being utterly dominated by the big hops, and that's probably for the best. It is just a little too heavy, overall, turning cloying and sticky very quickly.

There were four intriguing-looking experimental beers on the menu and I decided to get them as a flight to try them side by side, and save myself some walking.

#Exp0040 was described as a "smoked blond milk stout", which I'm sure the brewers found highly amusing. It arrived a clear golden colour and smelling very dry and smoky. As expected, the flavour was strongly smoky too, and quite acrid with it. There was no lactic side, just a slight stickiness. Overall it's just an average effort at a smoked ale of the sort any mediocre home brewer could turn out. Experimental indeed!

Moving on, #Exp0043 was described as a tangerine Belgian ale. There's a strongly spicy perfume from this amber-coloured job, and it tastes primarily of talc: all powdery flowers. A gentler and softer mandarin note hovers in the background. It's OK, but not the best tangerine or Belgian-style beer I've ever had.

Next in the sequence is, predictably, #Exp0044. This is an American-style pale ale, 5.7% ABV, and absolutely spot-on for the style. It's punchy and zesty first, with a juicy orangey middle and a bitter grapefruit finish. Pure, no-nonsense, quality.

The final one, #Exp0046, was listed as a "cherry sour" which I thought a bit odd for a Belgian brewery. Maybe "kriek" has too many fuddy-duddy associations for the cool kids of craft. Anyway, it's hardly sour at all, going very heavy with the cherry syrup. I got a hit of cheap red wine on the front, and then just sticky sweetness until the end, accompanied by an artificial metallic bitterness. All very substandard.

Back to the regular line-up, then, and I couldn't resist trying the vaguely Irish-themed Captain O'Connor, a red ale with seaweed. It's only 4.8% ABV and not terribly full-flavoured, but I liked what's there: crystal malt sweetness with a spicy salty kick, reminding me of salted caramel. Simple and enjoyable.

Staying on a low alcohol vibe, there was Red My Lips, a session ale. This is a dark orange colour rather than red, and tastes of hard candy with a bonus hop spicing. The texture is light and effervescent, and overall it's clean and decent, a little on the sticky side perhaps (the theme of the evening), but not overpoweringly so. I could well imagine a session on it.

Last orders brought You Want Me, the double IPA, though a light one at just 7.5% ABV. It's a bit light on flavour too, showing just some mild jaffa and a slight pithy bitterness. It's not heavily textured, boozy or sticky, which is all to the good, even if it does veer away from the style spec. I was really looking for something with more poke on which to finish my visit.

I did manage to squeeze one more Brussels Beer Project offering in late that evening on a visit to La Porte Noire, the renowned subterranean bar that had hitherto escaped my attentions. Soleil Levant is 5.7% ABV and brewed with jasmine and orange blossom. I got much more than that in its flavour and aroma, however: a veritable bouquet of honey, elderflower, apple and apricot. There's a considerable, and by now predictable, sticky weight to it, but it was fine as a sipper.

A mixed bag, then. So it goes with Brussels Beer Project, and probably always will. I like their commitment to turning out lots of specials, even if they aren't always brilliant. The taproom is a great place to explore what they're up to, in small doses. And there's always the reliable Delta, Dark Sister and Babylone core beers to fall back on.

More Brussels explorations tomorrow...

Just a beer

Friday evening, that's all I wanted. Fortunately the fridge contained the very item: a litre can of Eichbaum Premium, picked up in Dunnes. Into the Maßkrug and away we go.

It smelled fantastic, even while pouring, all fresh grass and wilted spinach. The appearance was a little surprising for a mass-market German lager: a definite haze running through the pale yellow liquid. The flavour is sweet at first: warm fluffy bread and spongecake, tasting like much more than its modest 5.5% ABV with a texture to match. The hops take a moment to arrive but do a great job when they do. There's a fun savoury fennel and caraway character with overtones of peppery celeriac and a metallic cabbagewater finish. The veg counter doesn't take over completely and the lingering aftertaste is marzipan.

This is a far better beer than I had any right to expect for a fiver. And while it is near-Märzen heavy, it's still quenching, quaffable and absolutely perfectly suited to the task I assigned it.

That emboldened me to return to Dunnes and check what other Teutonic delights they might have in store. New on the shelves was Schlappe-Seppel Dunkel, and I'd been pleased with an earlier one from their range a few years ago. Into the basket it went. There was a lovely waft of fresh green noble hops as soon as the cap came off and it poured a clear garnet colour with a generous topping of long-lasting café crème foam. Full marks for texture too: it has the smooth fullness of a doppelbock and certainly punches well above its 5.2% ABV. The flavour? Great! Sweet treacle balanced by the light and leafy hops, offering two kinds of bitterness. There's nothing extreme about it and it's very easy drinking, warming as it goes, making it perfect for the snowy day on which I drank it. I'm two for two, what's next?

I'm not sure why Durlacher Hof Weissbier was placed on the shelves across the aisle with the less interesting beers in Dunnes. Maybe because it comes in a can and they have yet to hear the good news from the aluminium evangelists. It's another workmanlike performance, however. Though 5.3% ABV it tastes light and summery. The banana is accompanied by sweet and refreshing pineapple juice, then there's a pleasant clove spicing in the finish. It does turn a little too sweet and syrupy for my taste towards the end; before that it does everything a weissbier is supposed to.

Sometimes just a beer is enough; sometimes just three is better. Prost!

Visit Kimmage!

My little corner of suburban Dublin now boasts its own brewery. Breweries are rare in Dublin full stop, so having one in the neighbourhood is a strange feeling. Four Provinces began life as a client brewer back in 2014. I covered the first two beers, The Hurler and The Piper, way back then. Towards the end of last year they fired up the standalone kit and immediately expanded the range which now features the original two, plus two new ones, all in cans.

One of the newcomers is Válsa, a Vienna lager. It looked the part, and more, when poured: a dark copper-coloured body topped with a thick dome of beige foam. Grassy noble hops pile out of the aroma, and the flavour too has a strong old-world bitterness with even a metallic edge to it. It needs a substantial raft of malt to carry that properly, and sure enough this is delivered. The dark malts are laid on so thickly as to create a milk-chocolate taste, and I'm not 100% sure I wouldn't guess this was a porter when tasted completely blind. A crisp roasted grain-husk element just adds to the effect. Around the point I was deciding it's all a bit much, it all cleaned away quickly and neatly, leaving no sugary or acidic residue at all. Given a little calibration time, it's possible to settle into this one and enjoy it as a full-on, full-flavoured, power-lager. Think doppelbock, but only 5.2% ABV.

The other new one is actually a porter: Láidir is another heady one, producing an ice cream float of tightly packed beige bubbles, almost like it's been nitrogenated. The aroma is strongly sweet, chocolate again, with jammy fruit and cheeky liqueur, like a Black Forest gateau. Expecting a sugarbomb I was delighted, on the first sip, to discover it's powerfully bitter, with a sharp and invigorating leafy hop bite. A citrus edge emerges, making me suspect Cascade or a similar US variety is involved, though it's actually done with Galaxy. While the cakey dark malt is still there, it contributes more to the texture than the flavour, giving the whole thing a beautiful creaminess. This isn't a black IPA, though, as a proper toasty roast overtakes the hops in the finish. Overall it's an absolute beaut, reminiscent of my benchmark Irish stout Wrasslers XXXX, but softer and more accessible. Highly recommended, and probably best when fresh.

Four Provinces has plans to make use of its neatly contained outdoor space, with a launch party and eventually a regular al fresco tap room when the law allows. I expect I'll be seeing more of you in Dublin 12 in the weeks and months to come, then.