Beers in Brats

I hadn't made any plans to go to Bratislava, but when you're in Vienna it's just there, so in lieu of any better suggestions, off we went of a Tuesday afternoon in January. As with Vienna it had been over a decade since my last visit though luckily friend Ben had been through a few short days previously and I just followed in his footsteps, to places that didn't exist last time I was there.

That started at Fabrika, a smart but somewhat souless brewery-restaurant attached to a modern hotel a short stroll from the main station. The minimalist approach extends to their beer names, all derived from their gravity in degrees Plato.

For completeness, and because I was thirsty, I opened with Summer 8°, a lager of 2.6% ABV that looked to have outlived its proper season and survived into the depths of winter. I can see why. Despite the minuscule strength it has loads of character, beginning on husky grain and adding an assertive sharp and dry bitterness. It's not in any way watery nor even watery-looking, being a proper golden shade with a slight haze. If this genuinely is the strength they say, it's quite the achievement.

There was also a 5% ABV dark lager called F13°. This is very black and shows both dry roasted and sweet caramel sides in its aroma. Roast dominates the flavour, almost to the point of making it taste ashen, and overall rather severe for my tastes. I had expected something balanced and broadly in the tmavý style, but this is full-on Schwarzbier, and at the extreme end of that roastiness scale. It requires too much hard work to enjoy and needs just a little softening, I think.

F12° is the pilsner at 4.6% ABV. It's an attractive deep golden colour and the side-pour tap gives it a fine head. Once again there's a promising aroma, giving off light summery meadows plus a daub of honey. The texture is beautifully smooth too. For a brewpub pils, then, it's highly refined. Unfortunately that leads to blandness in the flavour. There's no foretaste as such, and the taste of malt is missing. Instead there's only a twang of grassy bitterness in the flavour, one which builds in the aftertaste as it goes, becoming intrusive by the end. This is very nearly superb but just misses the mark.

I didn't reckon their American-style pale ale would be up to much but had a go anyway. This is F14° at 5.6% ABV. Amber coloured, it's quite perfumey: a sweet and sticky malt base on which has been placed highly floral flavour and aroma hops. It lacks any kind of balancing bitterness and that makes it difficult to drink. As with yesterday's IPA in Vienna, this feels almost like a lager brewer's satire on what hoppy American ale is, and how stupid it is that it's popular. It's not an enjoyable beer, however, turning out cloying and overwrought in a way that real American pale ale never is.

I stuck with the style at the next stop, the strangely hut-like Mešuge. The short but well-chosen beer list here is heavily Czech and I went straight for one from much-missed favourite brewer Matuška: their Apollo Galaxy 13°. No orangey murk here: it's a bright golden colour with oodles of fresh and zingy grapefruit in the aroma. The mouthfeel is weighty and resinous despite it being only 5.5% ABV. It's a little on the sweet side yet still manages a satisfying citrus buzz plus some dank and resinous spicing. In most contexts it would be nothing fancy; here it was a joy to get a properly-made new-world-hopped pale ale at long last.

The dark one beside it is Pivovar Mazák Baltic Porter, another Czech. Though 6.8% ABV is perfectly orthodox for the style, the sweet creamy coffee aroma is not so much. There's no roast and no botanicals. It's more savoury on tasting with notes of red cabbage and gherkin and even a bite of espresso roast. That's more like it. It's full and smooth -- quite unlagerlike -- and I class this variation on Baltic porter as more like a foreign extra stout. As always, however, the only important part is that it's absolutely delicious.

The city's super-serious pedlar of international-grade overpriced murk is a cramped one-roomer, little more than a kiosk, called Žil Verne. What's the haziest murk you've got? Zichovec's Nectar of Happiness 17?  Well give me one of those then. This Czech IPA is 7.5% ABV and smells hot and citric, like if Lemsip were made with grapefruit instead of lemons. The flavour is creamy coconut for the most part, with a spritz of zesty orange juice. A dab of fried onion in the finish completes the picture. It's very sweet, and rendered extra tough to drink by quite a severe heat. I guess it's fine for what it is and will likely appeal to haze enthusiasts. There are none of the standard flaws, but it's not really my thing. I prefer New England-style IPA to be cleaner and cooler, if that's not a tautology.

And in the little squat round glass, the inevitable fruit-and-lactose sour ale, called GeLaTo, from FIRST, a brewery in Budapest. It's 6% ABV, hazy yellow and quite headless. The aroma is harsh and sharp, with elements of burnt grain and vinegar, neither of which is intended, I'm sure. The flavour at least has lots of mango and passionfruit, though there's an artificial plastic edge to it. On the plus side, and for a change, it is actually sour. The downside there is that it's quite thin and sharp, not the dessert it's meant to be. This is a style that's rarely well done and I'm not convinced it's worth the effort.

My going-back train beer was picked up at 100 Pív, a tiny little beer shop with tables where we didn't have time to stop. Pink City is a session IPA from the delightfully named Hellstork brewery in Myjava, north of Bratislava near the Czech border. It could be anywhere, though, because this is a bang average beer, rather strong for the style at 5% ABV and tasting heavily of dry sesame seeds and earthy grit. It's both too heavy and too astringent to be a proper session beer: one half litre can was plenty for me. Rock on, Hellstork, but next time I'll be picking a different style, and hopefully getting to pour it into a glass.

That's all from Bratislava, and indeed this trip. If there's a lesson in all this unrepresentative drinking it's that the Czechs have the edge on their neighbours as regards beer quality across a broad range of genres.

New kits

The newer brewpubs of Vienna are today's subject, or at least the ones I hadn't been to before. Mama Kraft is indeed very new: even my local guide hadn't tried it yet. It's in a handsome basement space adjacent to its parent restaurant, Mama & Bull, which also sells its beers, but you need to come down here if you want to drink next to the gleaming copper.

What to drink? We start with Helles as usual. After yesterday's disappointing headline lagers I'm pleased to report that Mama Kraft Helles is absolutely by-the-numbers for a Mitteleuropa brewpub lager. It's 4.8% ABV with a misting of haze suffusing the medium-yellow body. The body is quite full but the foretaste is fresh and clean with topnotes of lemon zest on a chewy grain base. It goes a little bit eccentric as it warms, introducing a strange beeswax funk, but you're not meant to let it warm up: this is a good quaffable conversation lager; a proper session beer.

They also do a red lager called Die Herzdame. To me this seemed very much along the lines of the signature rotbier of Nuremberg, and that's a bit of a problem for my palate. It's almost acrid in its dryness, not helped by an assertive liquorice bitterness, nor balanced by a splodge of caramel in the middle. I'll grant you that there aren't any flaws in here and I'm sure it's absolutely what the brewer set out to produce. If rotbier is your thing then it should be good news that there's somewhere in Vienna you can drink it. Me, I was glad to be merely tasting somebody else's.

They pick another country's vernacular with the third beer: Wit Bull, a witbier. This is darker than benchmarks Hoegaarden and St Bernardus and they've fully upended the herb sack, resulting in something that tastes in between Oriental stir fry and the second-cheapest bath bomb in Lush. The base beer beneath this is thick and syrupy with an off-putting sweaty tang. I think they've overreached themselves trying to do a witbier. What it needs is a tang of some sort, and orange peel would be ideal. If they used it they didn't use enough. Stick to the lager is my concluding advice to myself as regards Mama Kraft.

On a tram going along the side of the Belvedere palace grounds I noticed a sign for a brewery. That'll be the Salm one, built into the walls. I was there last time and don't need to go again. A check of the the map, however, showed me that the Belvedere has two breweries built into its perimeter: Salm was round the other side and this was the hitherto unfamiliar Stöckl im Park. Driver! Stop the tram!

This one is smart and modern, the pale wood and plate glass of an upmarket restaurant. I'm sure the views over the manicured Belvedere grounds are lovely when it's not pitch dark outside. Along an entire wall there's an impressive, though solely decorative, Salm-built brewery console from the 1950s, rescued from some large brewery that had no further need of it.

Zo, Helles? Stöckl's Helles 1924 is 4.9% ABV and a dark golden colour with only a faint haze. It tastes quite sweet with a tang of banana though subtle enough to be classed as rustic rather than flawed. It maintains its crispness despite this and shows another full and chewy texture. It's fine: hardly a showcase of the brewer's art but plain and palateable.

Across the table, something called Böhmisch G'mischtes which they claim is a unique Austrian speciality, though it must be an endangered one if so because I didn't see it anywhere else. From the name I'm guessing it has something in common with Czechia's polotmavý amber lager. To my palate it was spot on as a Bavarian-style dunkel, centred on light caramel with an oily, nutty richness, a bit of runny chocolate and a balancing edge of roasted dryness. It's wholesome and filling stuff, the essence of süffig. It's a shame that such things have gone out of fashion, presumably to be replaced by mediocre Helles.

She was having another one of those. I decided to chance the Stöckl Weizen. This looked a bit strong, being a muddy dark orange, though the ABV is only 4.9%. It's a little on the dry side but there's a decent wodge of green banana on a light body making it fresh and summery, not cloying or hot. This is a straightforward and workmanlike weissbier, easy-drinking and thirst-quenching without being any way bland. That'll do.

Our final brewpub is quite a grand affair. Kaltenhauser Botschaft Fünfhaus is built into the imposing Brauhof Wien Hotel on Mariahilfer Strasse. It's smart and spacious, though they've slightly incongruously put faux-industrial features into an airy baroque beer hall. I'm sure no small part of the smartness and slickness is because it's owned and operated by the local tentacle of Heineken.

Their Helles is named a Zwickl, hazy yellow of course, with a light 4.7% ABV. This was the best example of these I had all trip, with all the requisite features in the correct proportions. That's a freshly herbal aroma leading to a flavour of bright and zingy lemon and basil. And that's it. Quick finish and order another. It is mostly definitely designed for drinking in large measures but is perfectly sippable too.

It was quite the novelty to find a Stout on the list. 5.2% ABV looks good for the sort of thing we drink at home, likewise the aroma of roast and the flavour of dark chocolate and liquorice. Where it falls apart is the mouthfeel: it is unacceptably  light bodied and I suspect it might be cool-fermented. The result left me thinking of watered-down Baltic porter, and nobody wants that. I deem this to be not stout in either style or nature. Another reason to be glad of the decent everyday stout that so many Irish breweries make so well.

Still I persisted with unAustrian beer styles despite knowing better, and had the IPA next. This is properly American-style at 6.5% ABV with properly American Amarillo, Simcoe, Mosaic and Cascade hops. It's dark amber in colour and smells sweetly tropical, of passionfruit, pineapple and bright yellow candy chews. Again, though, it's thin bodied and the hops don't sit right on it, coming across as harshly vegetal with a strong metallic twang. The basic elements of the IPA flavour are there but the chassis simply can't carry them. It seems they just can't get the hang of warm-fermented styles here. Time to switch to something more in their wheelhouse.

That was the Wiener Lager: there hasn't been one today yet. It's a little hazy and pale copper coloured; modestly strong at 4.8% ABV. The aroma is perfect for the style, with its toasty baked melanoidins, like bourbon cream biscuits. The flavour is plainer. It's not rich but clean and crisp and very easy drinking. Despite the difference in colour and smell, the experience isn't very different to what you get with the Zwickl. That's not a complaint after the adventurous-but-wonky beers which came in between. Lager is what these people do best.

And that's it for Vienna for now. On my third trip in twenty years it's gone down a little in my estimation, beerwise, but maybe that's because of my choices. There is plentiful unpasteurised Czech lager served from the tank, and if I didn't have a blog to feed I could have happily stuck with that.

In tomorrow's post I'll be doing a quick circuit of the city next door.

Old haunts

"The less gimmicky beers will have to wait for my next visit" I wrote after drinking hemp beer, chilli beer, rauchbier and whatnot in 7 Stern on my last visit to Vienna in 2011. The place hasn't changed much since then, nor since my first time there in 2003. I suspect the fundamentals have been the same since this vast rambling premises opened its doors in 1994. It's a sound formula and there's no need to change it. The chilli beer still tastes amazing, but less gimmicky I promised, so less gimmicky I will review.

Wiener Helles is your typical brewpub kellerbier, 4.9% ABV and hazy yellow. Beginning from a very dry, almost acrid, base, it adds unsubtle perfumed hops, ramping up the bitterness as it goes. The experience is jarring, the overall flavour rough and jagged, its malt and hop elements not really melding well together. Taken together it's quite the opposite of what I look for in the beer at the top of a brewpub menu list. 7 Stern's fondness for the weird stuff leaking through inappropriately, perhaps.

I had better luck with 7 Stern Dunkles. Though only 4.9% ABV, this is a big fellow. Heaps of dark unctuous molasses is suggested by the aroma, followed by dense treacly goodness as the flavour. A vaguely herbal cola-nut bite is the only nod to complexity. But this one doesn't need complexity. It's made for chewing through and then ordering another. I wasn't there to do that but appreciate the use case nonetheless.

1516 is another 20+-year veteran of Vienna brewing, and still at it, still brewing its licensed clone of Victory Hop Devil, though the pub is now wonderfully smoke-free. I opted for something called Kimber Ale, described as being Alt-like. It looks the part: deep brown with a lagery foam on top. The foretaste is slightly roasty, giving it a porterish character. The crisp middle and caramel finish bring us back to Alt. It's fine, not very exciting, and strong for what it is at 5.2% ABV. This is another one designed for drinking, not analysis.

I figured the Dubbel Winter Ale would have more to say for itself, brewed as it is with fig, plum and cinnamon. This is a deep garnet shade and smells somewhere between a Christmas cake and a mince pie: currants and brown sugar, with a late pinch of clove spicing. For all that, it's still a bit thin and I don't think the base dubbel is up to Belgian standard, making it seem like the fruit and spices are there to cover up its shortcomings. The discussion on whether to stay for a second round was a brief one, and off we went.

While I had been back to both of these since 2003, one place from that trip I hadn't revisited was Fischerbräu. I recall drinking in the twilight of a crowded beer garden so it was a different experience late on a January afternoon, the outside space deserted and only a few of the tables inside the small inn occupied. Still, they fry a good schnitzel, and the beer...

Just two on the taps. Fischerbräu Helles is a dun hazy yellow and tastes a bit... unfinished. There's a dense malt weight and a porridgey sweetness. It's hearty fare, loading you up with honey and brown sugar, but it doesn't resemble what I understand as Helles, as was the case at 7 Stern. Maybe German brewpubs have spoiled me for Austria.

The other one was Meistertrunk: 6% ABV and red-brown, so I'm guessing some class of a winter bock. This one is also weighty but suits it better than the Helles. The flavour delivers caramel and marzipan, but in a clean way, finishing with a proper noble-hop leafy bitterness and a twist of black pepper. It's interesting and also fun, very well suited to sipping and exploring slowly.

Vienna certainly has no shortage of brewpubs and I got to try a few that were new to me as well. They'll be covered in tomorrow's post.

Craftbier an der Donau

Unsurprisingly, the modern trend for off-kilter beers has reached Vienna too, and barwise it's centred on Ammutsøn, a self-described "craft beer dive" but really a pleasant little bar with two poky rooms and an ever-changing array of local and international beers on tap.

I went international to start, picking Pina Colada, a fruited sour job by Lithuanian brewery Sakiškių Alus. A small glass of this 6.2% ABV one cost a handsome €6.75. Was it worth it? Not really. It fulfils the promise of the name, smelling and tasting strongly of both coconut and pineapple, with a creamy texture. The most surprising feature is the lack of murk, presenting clear and golden in the glass. While an accurate recreation of the cocktail in beer form it's not very beery and certainly isn't even remotely sour. That makes it pretty basic -- drinkable, enjoyable for a few sips, but really not very exciting beyond that. When ordering beers like this in places like this for that sort of money I expect something more interesting.

For my second I decided to stay relatively local, with one from Bierol, a brewery up north in the Tyrol. It's another fruity sour beer, this time with IPA in the mix too, called MK Ultra Mandarine. The aroma was a pleasant surprise: all musky and spicy, sandalwood and cedar, like aftershave or manly shower gel. Although quite light-bodied, there's a greasy texture and lots of booze heat, showing off its 7.4% ABV and more. The flavour is funky, but again in that lockerroom cosmetics way rather than farmyard. There's also herbal lemonade and a vanilla sweetness but none of the zesty mandarin I was expecting from the name. Still, it's a fun one, with new dimensions unfolding with each sip. I could ding it for being a little unbeery but the flavour at least makes up for that by being so multifaceted. It's perfectly acceptable fare and I'd like to find out what else this lot have been brewing.

Seemingly the most mainstream craft brewery in these parts is Brew Age and I saw their Alphatier IPA on tap in several "normal" bars and restaurants. It's 5.6% ABV and a disturbing beige colour. Thankfully it tastes nowhere near as dreggy as it looks, offering a clean and juicy flavour, big on sweet mandarin up front before adding a citric bite to the finish. There's a smidge of garlic and grit, but not to an offensive degree. Overall it's very well done and makes a good ambassador for Austrian New England-style IPA.

The next two I picked up as a matching pair at BeerLovers, a proper Aladdin's cave of an off licence. Both are from Brauhaus Gusswork in Salzberg. The first is a 5% ABV stout called Das Schwarze Schaf and is ostensibly dry -- lots of toasty roast to the fore -- but balances it beautifully with a richer chocolate middle. There's even a touch of cherry or raisin, something I would normally expect only to find in much stronger and thicker affairs. Because we have loads of them at home, I sometimes forget how rare session-strength stouts are abroad. These guys have really put the effort into making theirs a good one.

For something stronger, and hopefully along similar lines, there's Die Schwarze Kuh at 9.2% ABV. This does has the same basic dryness but the flavour heads off in a different direction otherwise, going big on the bitterness for strong kicks of liquorice, marjoram and boiled green cabbage. It's serious, but no less enjoyable for that. Though it's not exactly unctuous, there's a certain creaminess to the texture, keeping the carbonation at bay. Overall another very well made stout; not as accessible as the above, though I'm sure it isn't supposed to be. (edit: Barry tells me the Gusswork brewer studied at UCC and worked at Beamish & Crawford. Strange that his stouts are so good then, eh?)

Finally, I don't go past hemp beer when I see it and I saw one on the menu at the Kaltenhauser Botschaft beer hall, about which more later. Brau Schneider is the brewery and the beer is called, simply, Hanf. It's 5.3% ABV and warm fermented, presenting a clear pale yellow. The aroma is lightly citric, coming from a crisp lagerlike body. The flavour isn't very strong but does have the white pepper spice I enjoy in hemp beers. I would have preferred much more of that, though even the little bit was nice to get, it's such a rarity. More peppery hemp beers, please.

Fancy craft isn't really Vienna's thing, and the more traditional styles are far more commonplace. It's there if you look, however. Tomorrow we'll begin exploring the city's many brewpubs.

Waltzing back in

After a two-year hiatus, New Year trips are back on the agenda. Vienna, as a city that puts a lot of effort into celebrating the event, had been high on my list for a while. And it didn't disappoint: there was a proper party atmosphere in the streets, lots of live entertainment, hot wine and no drunken idiots with explosives. All good clean Teutonic fun.

My first Vienna lager on arrival was Ottakringer Original, one of the mainstream brands but one I've quite possibly never had before. The brewery, not far from where we were staying, is a large independent, competing mostly with Heineken's local brands. The beer is a beautiful copper colour and given plenty of body from its 5.3% ABV. Its flavour opens on the rich melanoidins which I associate most with the style, but cleans that sweet side quickly, leading to a drier and crisper finish. There's a tiny peep of grassy noble hops at the end, making it clear that the malt doesn't get everything its own way. I liked it, finding it characterful yet accessible. I deem it a perfectly acceptable industrial flagship for the city and the beer style it gave the world.

There's another copper-coloured lager in the range: Ottakringer Zwickl Rot, though because it's unfiltered it presents more as a muddy brown than shiny metal. I found it on draught in The Long Hall, a modern and airy Irish pub with pleasingly minimal paddywhack trappings. It tastes nowhere near as dirty as it looks, delivering a burst of sweet caramel up front, leading swiftly to a perfectly clean lager finish. It's not very exciting or complex, but it's 5.2% ABV so provides a merry buzz with minimal effort. Another essential service from the local bigboy. 

At the opposite end of the trip I finally found a pub with its brandmate Ottakringer Helles on tap, which promptly ran dry when I ordered it so I ended up paying over the odds at the airport shop to complete the set. It's surprisingly good for something that has been sitting in a green glass bottle in an airport fridge: not a trace of skunking. There's not much hopping in general, mind. It's plain, broadly sweet, and has a touch of the plasticky tang that I associate with hop extract in industrial beers from this part of the world. As a refreshing pint of lager which needs serve no other purpose, it's fine. Little asked and little offered. Original is the one to go for of these three.

Big O doesn't have the Vienna lager market to itself. I also found Hirter 1270 from Privatbrauerei Hirt, claiming to be the oldest in the country. I can't be too angry with their marketing bullshit because the beer is lovely: much darker and sweeter than I would expected from a Vienna lager, with overtones of Czech tmavý, I thought. There's runny caramel with a burnt edge plus wafts of floral pipe tobacco and no real bitterness. Like many a Czech dark lager it runs the risk of turning overly sweet but just manages to avoid it. While it's not what I thought I was in for, this one is very enjoyable.

Of course, all the mainstream Germanic beer styles are well represented in the beers available in Vienna. At one point we found ourselves in a branch of Centimetre, a small chain of restaurants that seems to specialise in massive portions of meat and carbs, served by the wheelbarrow if you like. Tragically, it wasn't dinnertime, so just a couple of beers then.

For me, Stiegl's Bio-Bock, russet coloured and a bock to its bones, syrupy of texture, sticky-sweet in the foretaste, followed by a hard green bitterness, laying on cabbage and spinach in a way that feels like it should be good for you. Thankfully it finishes quickly so the sugar doesn't cloy but I still found it hard work to get through. I occasionally feel guilty about not really liking bock, and make a point of calibrating my palate when occasions like this arise. I definitely still don't like bock.

For m'lady, a dunkel. Specifically Hofbräuhaus Traunstein Dunkel, imported from a small town just over the border in Bavaria. It's brown and a little bit murky, smelling of vegetal noble hops but giving the dark malt free rein in the flavour for notes of soft caramel and spicy cola. It's beautifully smooth and poised, balancing its dominant sweet and recessive bitter sides very well. There's a comforting wholesome warmth about it as well, suited to the fake-ski-lodge vibe of Centimetre.

I bought Schremser Roggen randomly from a Spar, though if I'd noticed the green glass or two-weeks-ago expiration date I might not have. It looks rye-ish enough, being murky and amber coloured. 5.2% is the ABV. There's a touch of skunkiness in the aroma, and also a very Belgian mix of farmyard funk and stonefruit esters. A glance at the label tells me it's warm-fermented, and I would say very warm indeed. It gets even sweeter on tasting, piling in unfermented wort and concentrated honey, plus the kind of buttery popcorn effect one gets from very sweet weissbier. There's absolutely no sign of rye's bittering or drying qualities, only a pinch of damp grass in the finish. This isn't at all what I though I would be getting, and I'm not sure that the age is a factor in what went wrong. Who is buying a rye beer and is then pleased when it's monstrously sweet?

Heineken does need to get a word in before we leave, and here's their ubiquitous Edelwiss, sampled at the airport on the way home. It's pale and surprisingly clear, perhaps because it was on keg rather than bottled, rolled and poured as it would be in more civilised surroundings. It's a very sweet example of a weissbier, adding oodles of toffee to the already jangling banana. That's the lane it picks and where it stays, offering no further complexity. Your tongue would need to be hanging out for a weissbier to pick this one, but then it probably doesn't get served in many places where choice is an option. Thanks again, Heineken.

That's the basics covered. but Vienna has much else to offer the more adventurous beer drinker. We'll start taking a look at that tomorrow.

Tick, tick... Brum!

The first international trip covered on this blog, indeed the one that prompted me to actually get it started, was to Birmingham. I hadn't been back since, which rankled especially since I had missed the city's longtime Real Ale haven The Wellington. An unplanned layover in the city after Christmas gave me a few hours to right that particular wrong, and do a little bit of updating on my Birmingham beer geography.

The selection at The Wellington is indeed impressive, and the first one that caught my eye was Thai-Bo by Welsh brewer Coach House. Old lags may remember this as produced by the much-missed Otley brewery. Nick Otley gets a shout-out on the pumpclip, though not the collaborator on the original, Melissa Cole. I never got to try it first time around so wasn't going to pass up this second chance.

It's 4.6% ABV and ostensibly a wheat beer, spiced up to resemble a Thai curry. There's a pleasing light dusting of coconut, very much savoury here rather than the Bounty effect you get in stouts. There's a zestiness which I took for something like satsuma at first, before twigging that of course it's lemongrass. Although the flavour pulls in lots of different directions, and it's very much a novelty job, losing sight of the base beer, it's a fun one. Served cool and cask-conditioned it slips back very smoothly. Nice.

The house beers are from Black Country ales in Kingswinford and there's a mild, so that had to be done. It's called Pig on the Wall and is a hefty fellow for the style, I think, being 4.3% ABV. In the glass it's dark ruby rather than black, with an even and lasting head on top. The flavour is a little sweeter than I like my mild, emphasising plummy forest fruit but missing any balancing roasted dryness. Instead there's a sticky burnt-caramel effect, one which lingers longer on the palate than was welcome. I guess it prevents the beer from seeming watery, and it does taste and feel full and wholesome. But I like my mild with roast and I'm too old to change that now. Regardless, I was delighted to get to try another example of this rare style.

Then I went around the corner to The Colmore where they were serving two more of them. The Colmore is a Thornbridge/Pivovar joint, so the list leans heavily on Thornbridge and the Tap beers. It's an impressive space too, all pale oak and high ceilings, like the lobby of a posh alpine hotel.

Mild number one here was Knäck, a 4%-er. This is very black and, oh hello roast. The fruit is missing and, as I suspected would happen from the previous example, it's thin and a little watery. That's not to say it's bad -- not at all -- it's just different and much more to-style when I think of mild. What was interesting (to me) was that this lighter and drier sort of mild is not necessarily more drinkable than the thicker and sweeter one. I would be hard pressed to decide which is best if faced by them both in a competition. Thornbridge's is more what I would deem typical, but I think the forest fruit of the Black Country one is an important enough component of the whole picture that that's my favourite. There's still plenty of flavour in Knäck and I really enjoyed my pint of it.

The second is a different proposition altogether. Wilder's Folly is 6.5% ABV so belonging to that sub-genre of strong dark milds, of which Sarah Hughes is perhaps the modern archetype. It's black, again, and still dry and roasty. There's a stout-like creaminess to the texture but also a hint of the forest fruit that mild does best. While it's fine, and I recognise the historicity and all that there, for a dark beer at this strength it doesn't really have the complexity and richness that I'm after. Without quaffable drinkability, something as subtle as dark mild isn't a viable proposition. Up the fruit and make it sippable, Thornbridge. Then we'll talk.

Enough tradition. Next stop was the thoroughly-modern Tilt, a pinball bar with a very fashion-conscious beer list. There wasn't much of interest. I settled for Plan Bee, a honey Scotch ale from Pope's Yard multiplied by Simple Things. Yeah, me neither. What I got for my £5.50 was a muddy brown half pint which did smell strongly of actual honey, though not much else. I feared it would be a mucky mess but there's quite a clean profile on the go here, honey and candy, plus the ghost of some Highland toffee that's been largely fermented out. It doesn't really fit the "wee heavy" profile very well: there should be more sweetness and a much weightier body. The guy at the next table had a plait in his goatee, so I guess there's that.

Thank you to everyone who responded to my request for Birmingham recommendations with Tilt. I'm glad I've seen it, but I won't be sending anyone this way myself.

A quick one in the vicinity of New Street station was Merry Brummie by Birmingham Brewing, a spiced rye ale pouring at Cherry Red, more a café than a pub, but with cask. It's a dun brown colour and smells of mince pies and Christmas pudding. The spicing isn't excessive in the flavour but there's not much else going on. The texture is thin and it delivers an unbeery incense or bath salts vibe. I get what they're trying to do but the thinness spoils any festive qualities: too spiced to be sessionable; too weak to be sipped merrily. Even at 4.7% ABV there are better ways to do this.

And so to the airport. There was just one beer new to me at the Wetherspoon: Greene King Fireside. I wasn't expecting much. Yep, it's brown and though not twiggy as such it has an olde worlde character, tasting predominantly of gooey liquorice and old fashioned toffee. I see where they're coming from: there are dark burnt sugar qualities which do indeed suggest fireside drinking.

I was quite pleased to have got this much done in the few hours I had available. It was particularly heartening to see mild in such rude health. December is a much better month than May for promoting and celebrating it.

My kinda haze craze

A surprise Christmas present was a Rothaus beer I'd never had before: Schwarzwald Zäpfle Naturtrüb, the unfiltered version of their flagship lager. The brewery has quite a cult following but I've never really seen the particular attraction of it: lots of breweries do traditional German styles very well.

I'm making a stand-out point for this one, however. Yes I have tasted unfiltered German lager very like it before, but always in Germany and on draught. Rothaus appears to have mastered the art of bottling the wholesome freshness and shipping it abroad. It's the hazy yellow of a witbier and that's probably the reason I got fresh zesty lemon as the first flavour. Behind it there's crisp cracker and sweeter fruit: apricot and melon. It's bright and sunny in a way that German lager normally isn't.

They call these "fir cones" when packaged in 33cl because of the bottle shape. I've seen nothing to indicate whether or not this exists in larger measures but it absolutely should.