Amager night

One day of EBCU business at the Autumn meeting this year was held at the Amager brewery in Copenhagen's suburban flatlands, not far from the airport. Like every Danish brewery in mid-November they were in full Christmas mode, and left a selection of seasonal offerings on tap for us to taste when the meeting was concluded.

The core offering, Amager Julebryg, isn't a plain red lager as the style normally denotes. The brewers change it every year, with 2018's being described as a British-style dark ale, whatever that means. It comes out at 6.5% ABV and a murky brown colour. I found it very rough and raw, with the harsh burn of hotpress homebrew. I was not instantly filled with festive joy.

The barley wine called Reindeer Fuel was much better. An even 10% ABV, it smells of heady ripe and mushy strawberries. There's a little bit of a yeast bite in the flavour but it's covered by the smooth and comforting alcoholic warmth and a sweet and spicy mix of honey, liquorice and black pepper. For a sipping beer it was surprisingly easy to drink as well.

Winter IPA seems to be having a moment in Denmark, and Amager's is called Winter in Bangalore: a little on the nose, that name. It's 6.5% ABV, dry-hopped with some American variety or other, and rendered seasonal with the addition of orange peel. There's a sticky, boiled-sweet, aroma and a harshly green bitterness, like stringy asparagus. A certain citrus pith quality passes it as an IPA, but definitely not a great one.

The other tap was pouring a beer without a Christmassy name: Lager Is The New Black, a black lager, obviously. This had the lovely bitter kick of a Baltic porter though at only 5% ABV. Smoother coffee follows and dovetails neatly with the clean lager finish. Like the best of its kind, this one is balanced and easy going but with a multitude of complexities to enjoy too.

As it happened that evening the brewery was hosting a tutored tasting for its fans so we joined in that too, paying our money and taking our... well, what we were given.

That opened with the India pale lager called Pink Farts & Unicorns. No explanation for the name, just that the head of marketing thought it was funny. This is pale yellow in colour and shows a gummy lemon candy aroma. The texture is thin and there's a strangely savoury foretaste with a citrus pinch on the end and a lasting lemon aftertaste. Like so many of the style this is so-so, missing the good points of both lager and IPA.

The needlessly-elaborate name theme continued with Baby Wombat From Hell next, with a literal rendering on the label. This is an "old school porter" at 6% ABV with an aroma which mixes well-done toast and blackcurrants into an attractive combination. The toast continues in the flavour, lighter and crunchier than the usual dark roast or coffee, and there's a luxurious layer of high-cocoa dark chocolate. Pretty much everything a classic porter needs to be, then. Ignore the daft branding.

Amazingly for a fashion-conscious Danish craft brewery there was just one Brettanomyces beer on the roster: Chad, King of the Wild Yeast. This was created as a collaboration with Crooked Stave and described as a dry-hopped farmhouse pale ale. It's a clear shade of yellow with a very busy aroma: fruit and funk; urinal-cake herbs and pine; lavender and a sprinkling of pink peppercorn. I strapped myself in for a flavour sensation but it never arrived, alas. The farmyard funk dominates proceedings and drowns the complexity. There's a dreggy sharpness and harsh piney hops too. I guess you could say it tastes complex, but it's not in a positive way, lacking the mellow integrated flavours that the good examples of this sort always show. Maybe it just needs more time for the Brett to put manners on everything.

The inevitable New England IPA was called Billie the Butcher, created for Billie's Craft Beer Festival which happened in Antwerp a couple of weeks ago. This is a big'un, at 7% ABV and absolutely loaded with vanilla and garlic. A shock at first, it eventually won me round. The bold flavours become charming and I couldn't help but admire the intensity. There's even a little trickle of juice: a touch of peach nectar in amongst the rest. It's maybe a bit rough and unfinished but it's certainly not bland.

What I thought was going to be the grand finale was Double Black Mash, a 12% ABV imperial stout which earns its name by being all malt. It's an utterly luxurious example of the style, presenting a heartstopping wodge of coffee and cake with some even sweeter strawberry balanced by just enough old-world mineral bitterness. That's Amager hitting three for three on the dark beers. Shame they didn't give us a black IPA too.

How to follow an imperial stout and send everyone away happy? With a pilsner, it seems. Greed is from their Seven Deadly Sins series which has been running since at least 2011. 4.6% is the ABV, the texture suitably light, and it's a mostly clear gold with just a slight haze. It's not a pure and happy central-European-style pils, heading off in some odd directions which include floral perfume, red apple and black pepper. An odd beer, but not a bad one, especially considering it was made as cheaply as they possibly could, hence the name. And after all that went before I was happy I could still taste anything.

And so we departed Amager with a feeling that we'd got some sort of handle on what they do. But Amager wasn't the only brewery to host a meeting and offer their wares that weekend. You can probably guess who the other one was. Stay tuned.

Familiar haunts and new ground

I feel I got a good mix of pubs into my recent visit to Copenhagen, leaning more towards places I'd never been before but stopping by some favourites of old as well.

Inevitably I ended up at Fermentoren on Friday night after Warpigs. It seems to be the favourite Copenhagen bar of a lot of people I know and they were all determined to squeeze in. Turning round in the dorway and finding somewhere more comfortable was still an option when I noticed Schlenkerla Kräusen on the blackboard, the only Schlenkerla I'd never had before. This is a lager they've matured as usual and then re-primed with the lively yeast from a younger batch, coming out 4.5% ABV and deliberately hazy. It has the Schlenkerla character -- the unmistakable hammy smoke -- but it's missing the Schlenkerla magic. The flavour profile isn't as clean as usual, showing a plasticky burr beside the smoke, and the texture is disappointingly watery. I'm glad I got hold of it to complete the set but I don't think I'll be rushing back to this one.

The pink beer to the left of it is called Mr Suit, a sour redcurrant beer produced as an Anglo-Kiwi collaboration between Burning Sky and Yeastie Boys. There's a serious acidic pinch in the aroma but it's plainer to taste, and definitely more sweet than sour. It's not sugary, though, and being only 5% ABV means it can be enjoyed without too much effort or analysis. I see this more as one for a warm sunny afternoon on the terrace than a dark and chilly Nordic evening.

Staying pink but going upmarket, so a smaller glass, there was Cloudwater Plum & Cherry Sour. I'll grant that this was stronger than the last one, at 5.9% ABV, but it definitely wasn't better. It was exceedingly sweet, all jam and compote, and thin-bodied. You know when a fancy sour ale ends up tasting like a basic fruit-syruped wheat beer? That.

There was a glass of Ebeltoft's I Am Triple going round the table, tasting unorthodox but delicious. This is a big 9.2% ABV and a bright clear golden colour. The boozy esters usually found in tripel are absent, as is any trace of Belgian style yeast spicing. Instead it offers a light and juicy fruit flavour from which I got white grape in particular. While it may not taste like a tripel I'm at a loss for what other style it actually resembles. Hooray for beers being their own thing.

Some dark beers to finish this session, beginning with the delightfully-named Slithers from Garage in Barcelona. This was well suited to cowering under the heaters at Fermentoren. While only 5.5% ABV it's delightfully thick and unctuous with a comforting and invigorating hit of espresso. No fancy tricks or intricate complexities, just a really well done and simply constructed modern porter.

Dry & Bitter had a black IPA out for Christmas, called Black Wreath. It's very much on the hoppy stout end of the style's flavour profile, packed with roasted coffee notes and some lighter lavender and rosewater. Not that the hops aren't pulling their weight: there's a massive pine bitterness that manages to express itself loudly without upsetting the more delicate side. I don't know how that's done but I like it. There's nothing at all Christmassy about this, but if the name attracts a few extra drinkers in the coming weeks then that's all to the good.

The stemmed glass contains my finisher for that night, Siberian Black Magic Panther imperial stout by Westbrook. This is all of 12% ABV and begins with an enticing vinous aroma. That becomes more clearly port-like on tasting, the luscious sweet fruit and decadent alcohol balanced by a dry espresso roast and set on a smooth liqueur body. What you get here is all your after-dinner drinks in one well-integrated package. Very tasty indeed and a perfect nightcap.

It had been too many years since I last set foot in Charlie's, the delightful English theme pub in Copenhagen, so I made sure to drop in for a couple when the opportunity arose. Harvey's Best, of course, but ticking for ticking's sake also got me a pint of Black Isle Goldeneye from the handpumps. I've just read that the brewery calls this 5.6%-er a "West Coast IPA" but it's a long way from California. The colour is a honey red and it tastes sweetly of perfume, candy and orange jelly. While perfectly drinkable, if unexciting, it did start to turn cloying towards the end. It's probably not designed as a session beer, which is just as well.

New bars, then. Tim Webb was determined to get a couple in at Ørsted Ølbar and I tagged along. In the mood for proper IPA I picked Get Schwifty from Flying Couch. It's 6% ABV but tastes lighter than that, thanks I think to some expert hopping. There's peach and pineapple in the aroma, and a smooth sweet peach flavour makes up the foretaste, joined by juicy mandarin and a cheeky hint of spring onion. "Juicy perfection" would be an overstatement but dammit it's not far off.

A lager followed that: Høker Bajer from Hancock. "Very Budvar" say my notes: the same golden syrup malt notes while still being light and crisp with a low level of carbonation. There's a dusting of candied fruits as flavour complexity, as well as a fresh green-veg finish. One of those all-lagers-to-all-people jobs which are always pleasing to find.

I just had a taste of the house lager when we got to Peders, a fun spit-and-sawdust basement pub popular with the locals, and with a very fine beer selection. Peders Pilsner is unfiltered -- very unfiltered -- and has a lot of that kellerbier wholesome oaty biscuit effect and a light orangey pith. Smooth yes, crisp no, but still very tasty. Maybe more reminiscent of a Czech unfiltered světlý ležák than a kellerbier, if we're being stylistically fussy.

For myself I picked a New England IPA: Magna Aura from Gamma. It brought me nothing new for this style: a big hit of fluffy apricot; a sharp buzz of garlic and a load of savoury yeast and protein dregs. At a mere 5.3% ABV it wasn't as full-on flavourwise as they can often be, but still a bit halfhearted and by-the-numbers overall.

Another one of Gamma's was ordered when we got to the final bar of that long Saturday evening: the barnlike, multi-level, 61-tapped Taphouse. Zero Degrees is a "winter" IPA, brewed with added ginger, clove and orange zest. It tasted to me more herbal than spiced or fruited: dill and mustard, making it doubtless an excellent companion to Danish smoked salmon. I wasn't expecting it to be quite so weird, but it worked quite well, the flavours integrated and coherent. I didn't even miss the lack of hop character.

A London porter finshes this evening and this post. Pressure Drop's Street Porter is a strong one at 6.5% ABV. It's sweet with it, centring on chocolate in a big way with lighter caramel, some aromatic coffee and a whiff of rosewater. All the proper porter flavours in the right order. I guess sharing a city with the likes of Kernel and Fuller's concentrates the mind, porterwise.

That's all the pubs of this trip covered. For tomorrow's post I'm setting up camp in a brewery and letting the beers come to me.

How we got to Mikkeller World

Yesterday's post concerned the inescapable ubiquity of Mikkeller on Copenhagen's beer scene. The company gets at you before you're even on the ground, if you're flying SAS at least. Last year I reported on the beer they'd produced in collaboration with the airline, and I was pleased to see a new edition on the inflight menu this time round. Northern Trails No. 2 is still a 6.6% ABV IPA, but hazy this time. It smells very New England right from the pop of the pulltab: juicy stonefruit and sweet vanilla. The texture is appropriately fluffy. Apricot is the flavour it wears up front but the inclusion of Nelson Sauvin gives it a drier white grape quality too. There's the bitter dank of Simcoe and Citra and a pinch, but only a pinch, of Mosaic's caraway. Overall this is a jolly decent take on the hazy style. The yeast doesn't interfere, the hops are on point, and the inclusion of Nelson adds an extra bit of character that distinguishes it from its peers.

And you don't have to travel far beyond the arrivals gate to find yet more Mikkeller. A compact little bar on the concourse serves a vast range of their beers, offering takeaway cans too, which is a nice touch. As is the selection of airport exclusives. While awaiting our flight home I picked Airport Spontanale, unsurprisingly. 6.5% ABV, it looked like a lambic, smelled like a lambic and almost tasted like a lambic. Alongside the bricky mineral sourness there was an off-kilter vanilla note; a slick sweetness, like diacetyl. That added a smudge to the otherwise clean flavour and I couldn't help but try and taste around it. The beer wasn't ruined by any means, but it wasn't enhanced by whatever it was either.

The bar also serves Mikkeller Airport Brown Ale. This one had a lovely Christmassy aroma: nutmeg and allspice on a sweet bready base. The spice intensifies as it goes, becoming almost like aftershave, before the whole thing finishes on an unexpected metallic bitterness. There's a lot crammed in to this 5% ABV package, and it requires a bit of getting used to, but it's a lot of fun to take time over. Not one to order if your gate has been called.

Ours hadn't, and we decided to try one of the other bars in the very well-catered-for shopping area. The Bird specialises in beers from Kissmeyer, one of Royal Unibroue's craftish subsidiaries. I went with Into the Black, a big black IPA of 7% ABV. As is often the case, it's a deep brown shade instead of true black, and coming with that is a sweet hit of milk chocolate. This segues instantly into an acrid burning finish, without passing through any pleasant hop flavours on the way. I expected better of this but them's the breaks.

John's choice was a double IPA called Stockholm Syndrome. It was another quite harsh one, brimming with pith, rind, and an even more severe perfume taste. A rising orange juice element does soften it a little in the aftertaste, but too little too late for my liking. Both of these just needed an added mellowness brewed into them. Bitterer isn't betterer.

We resume our brief journey through Nørrebro next, where yesterday we'd just left Koelschip, already late for our appointment. But we made time to drop in to Ølsnedkeren -- "beer carpenter" -- for a quick one. It's a brewpub (I think, though I didn't see any equipment) and only serves its own beers. I was intrigued by the White Barley Wine on the menu and it proved an excellent choice. It looked like a pale ale, being a hazy orange colour, but in all other aspects it's exactly like a top-notch barley wine. It's 10.7% ABV and the aroma is warm toffee spiced delicately with hops. A flavour full of rich caramel and fudge follows, smooth and warming and tasting decadently dark. It never gets too sweet or too hot, remaining in perfect balance throughout. Rarely do gimmick beers show such classical calibre.

In the taller glass beside it is Regnsæson, "rainy season", a saison. This is a big beast, 7.4% ABV and dry-hopped with Cascade. I wasn't a fan of the package, finding it too floral and herbal, like a bath bomb or urinal cake, strong on lavender and chamomile while also bringing a dreggy yeast grit and too much alcohol. This served as my occasional reminder that super-strength saisons are rarely any good.

From there it was a short hop back to the city centre and the little plaza called Kultorvet, near Nørreport. Here a former cinema has been converted into a beer bar called SKAAL, and there was a dizzying list to try. J-Day had come and gone so festive beers abounded. I randomly picked something called Christmas IPA from the inauspiciously named Bad Luck Brewing. It was suitably dismal, cloudy in colour and tasting dreggy, with a mild citrus zest which somehow imparted no freshness, and then a dull savoury buzz of caraway. Representative of a certain kind of Christmas experience, I suppose.

From the happy little elves at Mikkeller came Ginger Brett IPA, one of those beers where you wonder if the name came before the recipe. Regardless, it works incredibly well. It's 6.9% ABV and a crystalline orange colour. Sweet candied ginger forms one side of the equation and a modest horsey funk the other. The two don't meld but sit as counterpoints to each other, providing a very real sensation of eating Christmas cookies with a nice glass of Orval. What's not to like?

They love a big long beer name, those Danes, even at Christmas. Hence Santa's Lap May Not Be Suitable For Children, an imperial stout of 9.2% ABV from BRAW, an organic side-project of Copenhagen's Nørrebro Bryghus. I don't know if they included chocolate in this but it tastes like they did: the salty creamy sweetness of rich milk chocolate. There's a more grown-up coffee buzz in the aroma, and the whole thing is easy drinking wintery pleasure with no fancy bells or whistles.

SKAAL had a decent international selection on the screens (including Ireland's own Rye River) and from it I had a go of Totally Mild by the Raven brewery in Plzeň. 3% is the sum total of the ABV and the beer looks quite washed-out on it, a dull ochre instead of properly dark. The texture is watery too, though there are some fun features in the flavour: bursts of floral violet and ginger spicing. It was an enjoyable few mouthfuls but not really recognisable as a mild.

Finally a beer that one of the attendees had brought along and was keen to show off. Herslev has long been one of my favourite Danish breweries though I've never seen their beers abroad and hadn't tasted any in years. This one was called Mark Hø, brewed in an ultra-farmhouse way, with no hops and added cherries plus hay. It ended up tasting like a good mature Belgian kriek, full of real cherry character and a sour hit that owes as much to the fruit juice as to the yeast and bacteria. I was expecting something a little weirder but this did very nicely indeed.

That was just the beginning of the pub crawling. We'll get some real mileage in next.

Welcome to Mikkeller World

Mid-November landed me in Copenhagen for four days on EBCU business, and afforded the chance to see where this most vibrant of European beer scenes is at these days. It turns out there's a lot of Mikkeller. Last time I was in town, the brewer's retail outlets consisted solely of the little basement bar on Viktoriagade; now there are over a dozen premises in Copenhagen alone, with more worldwide. Where to start?

Mikkeller & Friends was the simple answer there, another basement pub, easily missed, in the Nørrebro district, a good hunting ground for specialist beer bars. John and I didn't even trouble ourselves with walking around the convex bar to read the full menu and just ordered from the first section we saw.

For me that was Riesling People, an IPA with grape juice. This is one of those beers where I formed a sensory image in my head of how it tasted and then got annoyed when it didn't live up to that. An opaque shade of yellow, it's savoury at first, showing gritty yeast and an odd saline twang. Then suddenly it turns sickly sweet, a concentrated and syrupy grape taste, like an artificially flavoured candy. I expected clean and floral and wine-like but that's not what I got.

John didn't do much better in my assessment, picking another Mikkeller IPA, called Deception. This was a dark and murky job, with more than a hint of wonky homebrew about it. There's an unfinished, under-attenuated, sugary quality, and a harsh over-bittered pithy burn, turning metallic in the aftertaste. There's probably a decent, old-fashioned, west coast IPA under here but it's in need of serious cleaning. Two dodgy IPAs into the trip and time for a change of tack.

Adjoining Mikkeller & Friends, forming part of the same premises, is Koelschip. I'd heard it was a Belgian theme bar but wasn't prepared for the dark-wood-and-tiles décor, doing a good job of channelling the rustic Belgian feel, and forming a marked contrast against the sparse Scandi stylings next door.

Sour is the principal stock in trade here, and it was the first place I'd ever seen beer from Den Herberg, a relative new addition to the lambic pantheon. Herberg Oude Lambiek, from a bag-in-a-box, was near perfect. A little more sparkle would have been nice, but there was no shortage of flavour: all the waxy, spicy mineral bitterness one would expect, given serious substance by 6% ABV. It's amazing how a strong and flat beer can still be refreshing.

John stayed local with Mikkeller's Spontanlingonberry, a whopper at 7.7% ABV. There's a lot of genuine lambic quality about this: the same sort of palate-drying nitre-crusted brick effect. This runs in parallel to the jammy berries which add an element of frivolity without compromising anything. This is a very classy sort of novelty beer.

Aside from this mini-complex, Mikkeller's other big footprint in Copenhagen is Warpigs, a barbecue-themed brewpub in a repurposed meat-packing warehouse, created in collaboration with Three Floyds brewery in Indiana. Its own wares make up most of the selection, with a smattering of guests and collaborators.

Sitting outside on a chilly Friday evening, I began with Smoldering Holes, a 12.1% ABV imperial stout brewed in-house. It proved as thick as might be expected, piling in rich dark chocolate and bitter liquorice with an edge of cola nut. No sooner had I adjusted to it than it started pushing a new wave of herbal flavours too, basil and thyme in particular. Despite the busyness of it all, it remains nicely sippable all the way down; none of its myriad components coming to dominate or unbalance it.

John joined me in darkness with Warpigs Rain of Terror, chalked on the blackboard as a "black hoppy ale" and 5.5% ABV. It's a simple little number but hits black IPA's good points bang on. There's a sharply bitter dark chocolate and red cabbage foretaste, mellowing quickly to an effervescent and citric lemon sherbet. The two elements are nicely balanced and helped by a chewy malt base which isn't too heavy. Nothing fancy or outré, just understated quality.

The next round brought Pocket Dragon, the Warpigs attempt at a rauchbier. This is 5.3% ABV and a cloudy amber colour. I had convinced myself it was going to be either a triumph or a disaster, and it's neither. It's fine, if far from a classic: relatively clean with a light and pleasant smoky tang; a bit on the sweet side but still perfectly drinkable, even in quantities greater than the little tumbler provided, I suspect.

The hazy yellow chap to the left of it is Warpigs Azacca Pale Ale, a hazy 5%-er with lots of the titular hop's bright and fresh tropical fruit notes. This is another pintable one, balanced and cheery if not exactly bursting with complexity. I was starting to realise that they don't really go in for gimcrack recipes at Warpigs, which is a refreshing approach for contemporary beer.

I sneaked some teeny tasters of some other beers on the go around the table. One was Henry Ded Mon, a triple IPA collaboratively brewed by Warpigs, Mikkeller and The Veil. It's 9.5% ABV and offers an intense mixture of orange juice and garlic, managing an impressive feat of being punchy and powerful yet balanced and quite easy-going. The obligatory brut IPA (pictured) was a collaboration with California's Claimstake Brewing and called John Rohner Is My Homeboy. It wasn't remotely dry, displaying a custard vanilla flavour matched oddly with grapefruit pith. And there was another imperial stout, this one brewed with maple syrup, called Kenn Lee's Revenge: 11% ABV and extremely thick and sticky. The maple is present in no uncertain terms, almost to the point of obscuring the roasty bitter beer. I really enjoyed my single sip but I think I would have struggled with a glass to myself.

The following day I took advantage of their early Sunday opening -- a rarity in Copenhagen -- to try their pilsner, Salmon Pants. This looked well in the tumbler: a rich golden hue with a proper head. The flavour is strange, however. It's dominated by a concentrated fruit sweetness, like orange cordial or peach nectar. Where there ought to be a hop bitterness there is instead a jarring mineral sharpness, part soda water, part tinfoil. While not actively bad, this isn't very well put together, neither for the style nor as a beer in general. A rare miss among this lot.

Three pubs down, several to go, and we're not even done with Mikkeller yet.

Tick tock

The final ever iteration of The Session happens today, and I'm seeing it out the way I'd like to be remembered: scooping furiously. The occasion was the BrewDog Collabfest where once a year each branch in the chain of bars gets together with a local brewery to create a once-off small-batch beer. The results are then distributed around all the bars, sold by the flight. It's a great opportunity to try lots of different beers, and I hadn't been expecting it when I stopped by the Bristol outlet, so it was a wonderful thing to stumble into.

My first flight began with Black Öyster from Örebro in Sweden, via the Södermalm branch. It's a stout of 5.3% ABV, smoky and slightly salty. I found it a little harsh at first, leaning heavily on its dry bitterness. It softens as it warms, however, becoming less mineral and more herbal. A good start.

I never pass an Italian grape ale and BrewDog Bologna had commissioned one from Candigeurra called Extra Brut. This is 7% ABV, bright yellow with a champagne grape aroma. The texture is smooth and there's a panoply of floral flavours on offer: lavender and elderflower being the strongest. There's very real grape too, of course, and a serious bitter hop kick to finish. An absolutely beautiful beer, this, and one deserving of wider production.

I grumbled about New Bristol Brewery on Wednesday. They had provided the hometown Collabfest beer, I Woke Up In This, a double IPA with mango and coconut. It was an opaque orange colour with an unsettling Malibu aroma. Crunchy desiccated coconut is the first and most prominent flavour, the mango barely perceptible in the background, and there's no hop character at all. This was a silly bit of fun but quite inoffensive. And at least here the beer tasted like it should.

More brut IPA? Why of course. Siren produced one called Brut Romance at 6% ABV, though they added strawberries and hibiscus to turn it rosé. Not knowing that, I got flavours of raspberry and blueberry from it, and a whole dollop of tart yoghurt. A dry enzymatic burn finished it off, leaving me again wondering how they can call this an IPA when it doesn't taste of hops. This was more like a generic fruit beer, gimmicky and offering nothing substantial.

Herself was not to be bothered with flights so got a pint. That was of Jammy Bastard, described as a raspberry white stout and coming from Crafty Devil Brewing in Cardiff. It was a murky orange colour, 5.5% ABV, and tasted more like a flavoured witbier, packed full of raspberries and with very little else. It was pleasant, though, having a lovely soft and filling texture: definitely well suited to pint drinking.

I had another chance to drop back in the following afternoon and I thought I would be picking up where I left off but was surprised to discover that, apart from the hometown beer, all of the Collabfest taps had been changed over. Wonderful service for the tickers!

BrewDog Stirling had Stirlinger Weisse, brewed by Fallen. This was 3.6% ABV and a bright orange-juice yellow colour. It wasn't very sour but it was lovely, the added passionfruit coming through freshly and clearly, the whole thing having the clean fruit qualities of a sorbet.

I wasn't going to go past the chilli and pineapple black double IPA called Prickly Heat, brewed by Black Iris of Nottingham. It turned out to be less than the sum of its parts, with a pleasant liquorice bitterness, some mild spicing and a warming chewy texture. The pineapple has got lost in there completely. It's a still a good black IPA, however, even if the far-out novelty factor is lacking.

Dry Your Ryes Mate came from Two Tribes in London, courtesy of BrewDog Angel. It's a red rye session IPA of 4.8% ABV. It looked awful in the glass, a sludgy milkshake-brown. Amazingly, the flavour is actually beautifully clean, with a fresh and zippy green bitterness. The texture is on the thin side, perhaps to be expected at that strength, but the hop flavour lasts and lasts long into the aftertaste. I don't think I've had a session IPA with rye before. The format has potential.

The dark brown fellow on the paddle is called Not Another NEBA and came from St. Hallvards Bryggeri in Oslo. New England brown ale is another new variant for me, and this one has added chilli peppers. I didn't really get much of a taste of them as it's hops all the way here again: a crisp raw-cabbage flavour. I quite liked it but it was disappointing as a brown ale, with none of the chocolate or coffee richness I wanted.

And last in this set is something purple called Something Purple by Piccolo Birrificio Clandestino in Livorno, a rather boring blackcurrant Berliner weisse which, like so many of these, just ends up tasting like a forest fruit yoghurt.

Farewell then, Bristol. And farewell to The Session. I've had a lot of fun since my first contribution in 2007, twisting what I'm writing about to fit the theme. Cheers to Jay and Stan who created it, and all the hosts and contributors over the years. I don't know what my final "beer for the road" will be, but I'll definitely be planning the next one before I've finished it.

Zeroes and heroes

I didn't get to do a whole lot of discretionary pub crawling on my most recent visit to Bristol, mostly going where events took me. Luckily one of the places was Zero Degrees, where I hadn't been since my first visit back in 2014. The beer range seems to have expanded significantly and there was a raft of new stuff to try.

It being almost Halloween there was a pumpkin beer on, called Pumpk It Up. It wasn't half bad either. The spicing was delicate and not overblown, the base beer simple and smooth, and the whole thing very drinkable, if unexciting.

The black lager for which Zero Degrees is rightly famed is now called The Beast. It's a clear dark chestnut colour and tastes as clean as it looks. The lager stylings are complicated by a lovely big hit of liquorice, a flavour impact intensified by the heavy texture, and that's despite the ABV being a very reasonable 4.4%. Excellent stuff.

Staying for a second round I was intrigued by something called an American Mild. It's another dark red one, only 3.5% ABV this time, and with a soft effervescent texture. There's not much roast or fruit but it does have a dusting of lemon sherbet. A bit like the pumpkin beer, this offers undemanding drinking and is pleasingly refreshing.

There was a Zero Degrees Grodziskie as well. Pale yellow, as expected, but the smoke flavour doesn't work well here. There's a lot of it, but it comes across as burnt at first, then unpleasantly stale and rubbery. True to style, sure, but lacking the soft-spoken subtlety of the other beers.

At the bar of the Arnolfini art gallery I took a gamble. Korev was right there on the keg fonts: the literal gold standard of UK lager. Beside it was something called Sulis by Bath Ales, claiming to be "the ultimate English lager". I've long been a critic of Bath Ales and the abundance of diacetyl in their beers. Trusting them with a lager seemed like a daft idea. But I'm glad I did: Sulis is lovely. Almost champagne-like with its crisp toasty quality, it has a gorgeous new-world hop character, of sharp lemon, juicy mango and soft white grape. St Austell's ownership of the brewery seems to be doing them good.

On the handpumps there was 12 Apostles from Bristol Beer Factory. It's an Aussie-hopped pale ale, bright gold in colour and showing lots of fresh and sharp hop favours, grapefruit in particular. That meant it tasted more American than Australian to me, lacking the softer fruit flavours I expect from that country's hop varieties, but I'm not at all complaining: this is a really invigorating citrussy pint.

I had two restaurant run-ins with beer from New Bristol, a local outfit whose wares I hadn't encountered before. The first was at Cosy Club, a rather grand repurposed banking hall. Citrus Hill is a 5.1% ABV pale ale which arrived an unpleasant-looking grey-orange colour. It was thick with suspended gunk, tasting dirty and unpleasant, with a clunking metallic twang as the centrepiece, surrounded by rotting oranges and scrapings from the bottom of the cask. Not recommended.

I chalked that up as a bad job, perhaps more the venue's fault than the brewery's, until that evening at Riverstation. Here they served New Bristol's Pineapple Pale, which sounded like it might be interesting. It was, just not as I'd hoped. Dregs again. It wasn't so bad this time, there being a bonus spice brought by the yeast, but it was still horribly savoury and gritty, with none of the promised tropical fruit. On this showing, New Bristol really needs to clean up its act.

I did find one other of their beers on keg, and I'll get to that in Friday's post.

Bag o' cats

I made my second trip to Bristol this year in late October for a family event. With the wife accompanying me, that meant a fair amount of time in the feline-infested surrounds of The Bag o' Nails pub. Luckily the handpumps did some decent turnover during the weekend.

First for me was Livewire by Electric Bear, an IPA of 5.4%. It either wasn't well kept or, more likely, wasn't well made. The appearance was a nasty greyish orange and the flavour fuzzy and dreggy with a long acidic tang on the end. The centre of the flavour was a sweet strawberry note which wasn't unpleasant, but equally wasn't suited to something calling itself an IPA. Not a good start.

That beer wasn't meant to be a gamble, but I felt genuinely apprehensive about the Little Valley Dark Vale which accompanied it. This is described as a "vanilla porter" and is only 4.2% ABV. I braced myself for a thin syrupy mess. And it's not. Yes, there's a syrupy twang which is utterly unnecessary, but it's not too intense and doesn't overpower the proper beer elements. Those begin with the rich and roasty aroma and continue on a proper warm coffee flavour. You very much get what's advertised: a real English porter with dash of vanilla in it.

Keeping it sweet with a candy concoction from Bristol Beer Factory next, or so I thought. Sugar Plum Shake is a collaboration with Tiny Rebel. Ostensibly a pale ale, it's 5% ABV and a murky shade of orange. For all the lactose in it, it proved surprisingly savoury; heavy, chewy and bitter; spiced like a fruit pie. There's no clanging cloying sugar but a very pleasant real plum flavour, finishing quite cleanly with a tangy acidity reminiscent of Tilquin's Quetsche plum lambic. This wasn't at all what I expected and I think it works quite well. Sometimes it's worth ordering a beer you don't think you'll enjoy.

A stout next: Stanage, by Intrepid. I had to check and double check that it was advertised as just 4.5% ABV. It's a massive beast of a thing with a dense and wholesome dark malt base on which is placed an array of sharply bitter herbal and mineral flavours. I got tar and eucalyptus as the main ones but there's aquavit, mint and liquorice too. It's tough drinking but that doesn't matter as it's well worth savouring. Perfect winter fare, even on a sunny day with the change of seasons still some distance away.

Dagger Ale by Three Daggers brewery replaced one of the above around this point and I finished the session with one of them. It's pretty much a straight-down-the-line brown bitter. A little on the pale side, perhaps, and sweet with caramel notes rather than twiggy or vegetal. Plain fare, but mercifully completely clean. One of those beers I couldn't be fond of but which I'm sure has a receptive audience out there.

The pale and hazy boy next to it is Sonic from Dark Revolution. The brewery claims full-on American hop flavours at a more English 5.2% ABV. The lemon zest aroma at least begins to deliver on that promise but it falls away on tasting. Grainy biscuit becomes the centre of the flavour, and while there's some citric hop bitterness it's muted and faint. I see the brewery also sells it in cans, and that leaves me wondering if this is one of those hop-forward beers that doesn't translate well to cask. I think it might be.

There was time for a couple more beers at the Bag before we left on Sunday. Another hazy yellow session IPA starts us off: BS2 by Croft. Here they've done the hops right for cask or whatever and it's packed with lemony zing. It's a little thin, even for 4% ABV, but the bitterness never turns harsh as can sometimes happen. The haze brings yeast to the flavour profile too, and here it's a delicious seasoning spice and certainly not a flaw. Untraditional for sure, but very tasty.

I don't know if it was herbal stout season at the pub or something but there was another one on that afternoon: 4T's Stout from the brewery of the same name. This one begins on a quite sharp note of toasty roast before mellowing to sweet milk chocolate later. The herbal quality is gentler this time, like an old-fashioned throat lozenge. The ABV is a full 5% which gives it a filling smoothness.  Overall it's balanced and mellow drinking, ideal for a relaxing Sunday afternoon when nobody has to run to the airport... Oh no! Is that the time?

There was one more beer I wanted to try before leaving, and I confess to not giving it the full consideration it deserved. I spotted quite late that the line of available bottles included Tynt Meadow, the unique English Trappist ale launched with great fanfare back in the summer. It's 7.4% ABV and a brackish red-brown colour. A wholesome fruitcake aroma begins the experience, and I know that the producers have tried to avoid tagging a monastic style onto it but it really tasted like a dubbel or quadrupel to me. More like the latter, actually, despite the strength, with a quite intense bitterness, combining liquorice, orange peel and dark chocolate. There's plenty of sweet malt to balance this, however, and it finishes up luxurious and warming: just the sort of thing you go to a dark Trappist beer for.

Those pub visits bookended the weekend. And in between...