Three beers from 100 bridges

All going well, by the time this is published I'll be in Wrocław. It's the home of the Stu Mostów brewery, which has become a regular fixture at the Galway Bay pubs in Dublin. I thought I'd better get my notes on their range up before I have a bucketful of other Polish beers to tell you about.

At the January tap-takeover in The Black Sheep I gravitated straight to Salamander Black IPA, a beer style I try to encourage where possible. This was a good example, redolent with spices and herbs, with liquorice in particular, alongside peppery red cabbage. The dry roast bitterness is perhaps a little higher than I'd like, especially given the quite thick and sticky consistency, and the prodigious 6.8% ABV. Overall, though, it had enough complexity of flavour to prevent any of the extremes from dominating completely.

I followed that with WRCLW Pils. This is a beautiful example, showing the kind of creaminess normally only found in the finest German pilsners. It's packed with bitterness too, offering loads of spinach, as well as a certain level of diacetyl which adds a richness rather than being an off-flavour. This is a wonderful harnessing of all that makes good pilsner great.

A short while later I was in Against the Grain where WRCLW Imperial Stout was pouring. The tap badge says it's nitrogenated but it really didn't look it: just a thin skim of ivory bubbles which faded to nothing very quickly. The body is jet black and there's plenty of density, fitting for its 11% ABV. The flavour was too sweet for my liking, however: lots of banana esters, plus sugary toffee and milky coffee. There's a modest bitter herbal kick in the finish but it's not hard enough to bring the rest of it to heel. A big slice of banoffee with a liquorice chew on the side? I'll pass.

The forecast for the coming weekend in Wrocław is a warm one. If I have to stay to drinking pils that won't be a hardship on this showing.

Wegbiere

Even though there aren't many Wetherspoon pubs in Ireland they still come in useful as places to grab a quick pint on the way to somewhere else. Two such in today's post.

I could have sworn I've had Ringwood Old Thumper before. It's certainly not a rare beer, available bottled in Ireland and frequently on cask in the UK at the pubs of its parent brewer, Marstons. But I couldn't find a review of it so here we are, tapping this out in a laptop in The Linen Weaver, Cork's JD Wetherspoon, ahead of the 2019 Easter Beer Festival at Franciscan Well. It's a 5.1% ABV strong ale, a dark red colour and thickly textured. The flavour is rich and fruity, bringing ripe strawberries, plump raisins and a marmalade bitterness. This picture is completed by a wholesome brown-bread base. While not an exciting beer, it's a very decent take on the style, offering plenty of flavour; balanced though leaning towards the malt. I'm sorry I left it this long.

A month later and the O'Brien's Summer Drinks Festival took place at their Blanchardstown branch. I popped in to The Great Wood across the way since I was in the neighbourhood. The only unfamiliar beer they had on was Admiral, an English-hopped IPA from Acorn in Barnsley. It arrived a dark ochre colour and tasting every inch the old-school bitter. Strong tea and milk chocolate were the mainstays of the flavour, with no discernible hop aroma or flavour, just a harsh metallic bitterness. This made for quite tough drinking. While it was definitely well-kept and showed no off-flavours, it still felt flabby and tired. A throwback that's difficult to throw back.

I expect there'll be a lot more of these random drop-in cask ales featuring on this blog once the central Dublin branches of Wetherspoon open.

They go low

If low-to-no-alcohol beer is going to be the coming thing in beer -- and it seems to be -- that ought to be reflected in these pages. Here, then, are a smattering of that genre being given the usual once-over.

Vedett Extra Session IPA offers some alcohol, all of 2.7%, enough for a bit of a tax break in some European jurisdictions. The visuals aren't great: it pours like an American light lager, a watery yellow with the head crackling quickly away to nothing. "Powerful citrus" is promised on the label, and the aroma is certainly lemony. It tastes like lemonade at first, then introduces a plethora of Belgian herbs, adding more than a hint of bath salts or, more uncharitably, Lush shop. There's not much of a base to carry it, and it's up to you to read that as unacceptable wateriness or refreshing lightness. I can see both sides. On balance, I think I liked it. It doesn't do anything strange or clever within the spec, but it's also a boldly flavoured hop-forward session IPA, one I could drink more than one of.

At the bottom of the scale is Mikkeller's Drink'in the Sun, an "American style wheat ale" at just 0.3% ABV. I'd seen lots of mentions of it but hadn't previously taken the time to give it a spin. The appearance is promising: a bright and slightly hazy orange-gold. The texture is a little watery, and there's a worty sweetness of the sort I associate with the mainstream no-alcohol beers. However, the hopping is assertive and interesting. I get summery notes of mandarin, pineapple and coconut, finishing on an aspirin bitterness. I really wanted to like this but I feel it doesn't quite work. The wort and the aspirin undermine the good work of the hops, removing its ability to be properly refreshing, the way full-strength beer is.

A teensy bit stronger is Brooklyn's Special Effects at 0.4% ABV. It's a dark lager, pouring a handsome shade of auburn. They've badged it as "hoppy" and indeed there's a very pleasant lemony tang at the front of the flavour. This bitterness builds quickly, passing through grapefruit before turning to aspirin. It fades just as fast, though, so no harm done. The body is light and clean though there is a certain sweet wortiness hovering in the background. It's counteracted by a dry black-tea quality, which combines well with the hops to make it genuinely refreshing. I doubt anyone would mistake this for an alcoholic beer -- the tell-tale compromises are there -- but I actively enjoyed drinking it. It doesn't over-reach the way the Mikkeller one does.

Shout-out to my boy Quentin for recommending this next one: Perlenbacher IPA Non Alcoholic from Lidl. 0.5% ABV, it's amber coloured and smells worty, but in a good way, like a brewery at work. This is a major part of the flavour too, and there's a lemon hop flavour and a tang of aspirin, very similar in profile to the previous beer, but lighter and lesser. The texture is quite thin too. I think this needs a little more bitterness to make it taste closer to real beer and offset the busy malt. There's nothing unpleasant about it, however and it works well as a thirst-quencher.

This can of Flat Tire from Swedish brewer Brutal aka Pistonhead came as a freebie from Geoff in 57 The Headline. It's also 0.5% ABV and pours a wan cidery yellow with no head to speak of. Mosaic and Centennial are the signature hops, and sure enough there's a mix of the citrus and tropical notes they're known for. The wortiness is down to a minimum and there's a deliciously dry base for the hops to perform on. This one tastes closest to real beer of the set, just not a very good beer. Like the Vedett, the lack of malt substance to carry the flavour lets it down. I could still see myself drinking a few in succession, however, which can't be said for most of them.

And one of our own to finish: Main Sail from Dungarvan brewing, the only 0.5% ABV beer from an Irish micro that I'm aware of. So far, anyway. It's a bit thin and slightly worty but does a great job with the compensatory hops. There's a lovely crisp citrus bitterness with notes of lemon cookies and sherbet. This is every bit as good as the hoppy non-alcoholic offerings from many much bigger breweries.

Vedett wins this round: the benefit of having between five and nine times the alcohol content of the others. It seems you can't just strip the stuff out and expect things to taste as good. The Pistonhead one shows that adding loads of good hops really helps, however.

The other stuff

On the periphery of the Toer de Geuze there was a modest amount of pubbing done in Brussels. Here's what came my way therein.

Our hotel chain, Thon, has its own house beer, a refuge from the otherwise AB InBev-dominated bar. Thonner'ke is brewed by Den Triest and is 8.5% ABV. That earns it "Triple Blond" as a style descriptor, but really it's a pretty basic blonde, more Leffe than Duvel, but without all the joy filtered and pasteurised out. It's a dark hazy orange with a generous head. The aroma is spicy -- nutmeg, cinnamon, clove -- though the flavour is a plainer mix of bread and banana. Pouring the last of the dregs into the glass improved the complexity a little, and overall it's sweet and wholesome but hard to get excited about.

In a convenient Irish pub nearby I encountered Ramée Blond, a 7.5% ABV tripel brewed by Palm. It poured clear until the last dregs went in and has a fun peachy aroma. I was expecting it to be a bit of a candy-bomb from this, but instead I got an assertive bitter citrus peel foretaste against a background of dry tannins, for a kind of lemon tea effect overall. The ABV is on the low side but there's still enough heat in the taste to pass for the style. This is a very well-balanced example and a happy discovery for me.

With the Toer over, the inevitable visit to Moeder Lambic Fontainas got me a couple of beers from Gent's new brewery, Dok. First up, Still Røkin', described no more explicitly than "rauchbier". It's a murky amber-brown colour and has a gentle aroma of kippers with a slice of orange on the side. A quite acrid, harsh, bonfire smoke opens the flavour. It fades quickly enough, though leaves a rasp of rubber in its wake. There's not much else going on; the only other noteworthy feature is the heavy bready body, more than is suggested by 5.5% ABV. This is a very simplistic affair, offering almost nothing beyond the initial promise. So much for Dok's effort with smoke. Let's see how they do with hops.

Uw Dikke Ma Zit Aan De Zuid ("Your Fat Mum Sits On The South" -- it's a football thing) claims to be a juicy IPA. It's a wholesome and mostly clear pale orange colour with fine white foam on top. The aroma mixes the promised citrus juice with sweet candy, oily dank and a more worrying savoury element. I thought one or other of those would come to dominate, but the flavour plays out the same way. There's a sickliness to it, aided by another big and heavy texture. The sesame sharpness helps offset the worst of this but it's still tough going to drink. If you're looking for easy-breezy hop juice, this isn't that beer. Unfortunately it's also missing the clean assertive bitterness that would otherwise make it a good old-school US-style IPA. It falls between two stools and isn't very nice as a result. Not a good first impression from Dok, then.

Up the hill to Gist, to follow a recommendation from Joe for the En Stoemlings lager Papy Vandepils. Obviously unfiltered, it's a witbier-yellow colour. There's a slightly fermented funk to the grass in its aroma. The flavour is perfectly clean, however, with a piquant bitterness behind a very Belgian farmyard buzz, dusted with old-world spice: white pepper or nutmeg. All that happens quickly, tailing off to finish as the cleansing, refreshing lager I was looking for. It's an unusual combination of flavours, but an enjoyable one.

A new-to-me Musketeers beer next to it: Cross the Desert, a 6.5% ABV blonde ale. It's a completely clear yellow with a striking aroma of bubblegum and mango candy. Although it has a big sticky texture to match that sweetness, the flavour is bitter and herbal with just a little balancing peach sweetness. It's an interesting take on the style, doing more with it than most, something at which Musketeers is quite adept.

An all-Stoemlings round followed. On the left is Пушкин Projekt, a Baltic porter created collaboration with Victory Art in Moscow. This is dark brown rather than black, and a little weak at just 6% ABV. A further surprise was the burst of smoke on smelling, though it is the clean and hammy sort found in Schlenkerla. Unsurprisingly that's a big part of the flavour too, the bacon balanced decadently with chocolate. One might be disappointed if looking for a straightforward Baltic porter, but for smoked lager fans it is inarguably delicious.

The yellow fellow beside it is Hoppy Madame, broadly a witbier, with additional Aramis and Strisselspalt hops. Only 4% ABV, it tastes lighter: thin and watery with not much character in general. There's a grain crispness, a gentle lemon sherbet and some summery lavender. I'd like to say it's refreshing, but the dryness is just too severe for comfort. Another point against it is the undelivered promise of the name: I wanted hoppy and it's really not. The lager above achieves this beer's goals much more effectively.

Moving on but keeping it Brussels, Crianza III is relatively new from Brasserie De La Senne. It's a mixed fermentation red ale, and I'm assuming from the name that Spanish red wine barrels were involved. There's a warning on the label to keep the lees separate from the main pour, and my waitress did exactly that. It's a burnished copper colour with an off-white head and a typically Flanders-red aroma: a rich summer fruit tartness with sappy oak overtones. The ABV is a substantial 7.4%. It's remarkably easy going for that: the sweet and luscious strawberries and cherries at the forefront, their sugar balanced with a distinctly tart edge. The resinous wood of a mature red wine follows, adding complexity without covering up the fruity fun. While it's distinctly sour, it's balanced too, avoiding any harsh vinegar tang. This mellow sipper is the beer I find myself wishing for every time I taste Rodenbach Grand Cru: an enhancement on the basic style which doesn't turn extreme in the attempt.

I haven't had any beers from BrewDog's Overworks tame wild beer facility. I guess Funk x Punk is the beginner beer from that: a mix of Punk IPA and something wilder. It's an orange-juice orange colour and smells of mandarin with a more serious heavy apricot Brett fruity slickness, The juice dominates the flavour: super spritzy mandarin, more like a soft drink than a 5.5% ABV beer. Brettanomyces adds a subtle but delicious complexity: nothing severe or barnyardy; more an accessible juiciness. This is balanced, refreshing, and honestly an excellent use for your wild facility.

Imperial stout for the lady: Velvet Vengeance, at 8% ABV. Lots of cocoa and chocolate in this, and while it's pleasant it offers nothing I've not tasted many times before. Perhaps it's better in bottled or canned form: the coldness of the draught version, I'm certain, strips out a degree of complexity. It deserved to be let warm up and supped considerately, so probably not the best beer to chose when you're legging it for the airport.

I don't know when I will next be in Belgium. The beer scene has changed significantly since I started going regularly. Maybe it'll be interesting to leave it a few years and see what happens next.

Acid party

My second post on the 2019 Toer de Geuze begins at Lindemans. This brewery, more than any other, brings a carnival atmosphere, with a wheel of fortune, two bouncy castles and beer sampling conducted 50 metres in the air atop a crane. Vertical tasting, wha'? It also has the best shop on the route, where I bought my takeaway bottle of Megablend 2019.

Not without tasting it first, though. I had been disappointed by the 2017 version on the previous Toer, but this year's outing was much better. There's a huge aroma of pepper and gunpowder making it immediately attractive. This comes through in the flavour though in a slightly muted way and there's no deeper complexity, at least not yet. It's still highly enjoyable, however. The spicy side of lambic is my favourite feature and they've done a great job of accentuating it here.

On the right, looking every bit of its name, is Platte ("flat") Lambiek. I'm quite fond of the straight unaged lambic occasionally found on cask around Brussels. This is a good example, being quite sweet and almost juicy, with notes of mandarin and tangerine. It's simple, with no spice or wood, not even very much sourness, but delightfully refreshing and moreish.

I almost bought a bottle of Lindemans GingerGeuze, and I'm glad I tried that one first. There's a strong smell of fresh ginger from this 6% ABV hazy orange blend, and a dose of disinfectant as well. The flavour is exceedingly unsubtle, making it a ginger alcopop by completely losing all sight of the base lambic. The ginger is enjoyable on its own terms, making for something that's OK as a beer but a complete disaster as a geuze.

The clear yellow beer beside it is Goyck, a collaborative blend Lindemans makes with Brouwerij Varenbroek near Antwerp, consisting of lambic (of course) mixed with a blonde ale. It has the stonefruit aroma of many Brettanomyces beers; that slightly gummy apricot effect. This is coupled with urinal-cake herbs and lots of sweet elderflower, the latter continuing through to the flavour. The fruity funk is still there too, giving it a cantaloupe taste. I'm not sure it's an improvement on straight geuze but if the intention was to take the sour edge off while still retaining the basic character then I think it worked.

From one party brewery to another: Boon. The set-up here was largely the same as before with a big Oktoberfest-style tent and two bars, one with the "connoisseur" selection. The monoblends featured heavily and I picked numbers at random.

Vat 91

Vat 92

The first pair are Vat 91 and Vat 92. Both are a powerful 8% ABV. The first doesn't really justify that strength, being quite light and soft. There's a minor smack of saltpetre on the finish, matching a bricky nitre aroma, but no real punch and not a whole lot of sour. The other one offered a great deal more, the mellow spiciness balanced by an assertive bitter kick and a spritzy acidity. Fresh and crunchy green cabbage sits next to a plaster-of-paris alkalinity. Yet none of this, nor the strength, turns it into a monster: the complexities are all very well balanced beside each other.

From geuze to lambic, and next was Lambiek Foeder 82, a rather plain offering with an orange rind flavour bringing tartness without turning full-on sour. Again the ABV, at 6.5%, is rather high for the modest taste.

L: Foeder 14, R: Foeder 82

While that was clear, Lambiek Foeder 14, next to it, is a cloudy shade of orange, so I'm guessing is a younger creation. And once more the second beer is the one with all the complexity. There's a mouth-watering citric zing and lots of lovely peppery spice. Although the strength matches that of 82, it's a touch on the watery side. This does make it very easy-drinking refreshment, and the mere €2 price tag helps as well.

One of the most interesting phenomena of the trip was observing the emergence of Schaarbeekse Kriek. The cherry used in these seems to be a heritage variety, the forerunner of modern cultivars. Boon's example is a very deep red shade and smells quite sickly, like jam. While nowhere near as sugary as regular Kriek Boon it's still quite candyish, showing lots of cherry sherbet and donut filling. The cherry flavour is nicely intense, though, so the potential for ageing into something excellent is very high.

Stop three on the Sunday was De Cam, the simplest set-up of all the venues yet somehow they still managed to make a mess of it. You buy your bottle from the makeshift bar and either take it away or pick up a glass to drink it from. And this is where the system broke down, with the glasswashers on a go-slow. Not in the mood for swigging room-temperature geuze, I waited with my De Cam Oude Geuze.

And because it was room temperature it exploded everywhere once I pulled the cork out, and took ages to pour. I was already in a bad mood before I took my first sip. Despite being three years old, it tasted unfinished: sweet and worty with lots of sickly popcorn butter and sticky candyfloss. There's a brisk spritz but nothing I'd call properly sour. Between this and my recent experience with their bilberry geuze, I think I've fallen out of love with De Cam.

That brings us to our final stop, Hanssens blendery in downtown Dworp. The sun was out and so were the crowds: the tiny courtyard and cramped bar uncomfortably packed with long queues for everything. I still managed to get through a fair few beers so maybe it wasn't as bad as it seemed.

L: Framboos, R: Cassis

I began with Hanssens Framboos, a sickly shade of orange-pink and quite flat looking. There's a pleasant raspberry sweetness -- real and not syrupy -- but its positive influence is undermined by a harsh vinegar burn which makes it difficult to enjoy. There's no subtlety or nuance here: you take what you're given from the first mouthful.

The purple beer there is Hanssens Cassis, a much better offering. There's loads of farmyard funk in this, plus just the right amount of burning sourness. The fruit needs all of this to settle down before emerging, contributing solely to the finish. It's a wonderful contribution, though: juicy blackcurrant bringing balance and complexity. Amazing how two beers with probably quite similar base recipes can taste so different.

This next canary-yellow chap is called Oudbeitje ("oldie"). It certainly didn't taste mellow, having a marmalade character which ramps up in sweetness to become artifical orange-flavoured candy. The vinegar tang is back as well. I couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be (strawberry geuze, apparently), though I do know I didn't enjoy it.

The Schaarbeekse exploration continued at Hanssens, and I was able to taste theirs next to the regular version.

Hanssens Schaerbeekse [sic] Kriek is a dense purple colour, almost blue, in fact. The cherry flavour is huge: all real cherry juice and ripe flesh. This is matched with an invigorating tartness which complements the fruit without overpowering the total picture. What we have here is kriek done big and loud; the kriekiest of krieks I've tasted. 6% ABV helps boost that, as well as giving it a lovely Bakewell-tart cakey warmth.

So Hanssens Oude Kriek was bound to be a let-down after that, though it was far from a disaster. It's thinner looking but still nicely purple. The flavour tilts more towards sour and it offers much less fruit richness though it's still well-balanced. There's an enjoyable balsamic resin quality as well. A very decent effort but I would still recommend trading up to the Schaerbeekse.

I took a variety of bottles home with me, including the special edition beer Hanssens made for the occasion, and I'll get round to drinking them in the not too distant future, I hope. It wasn't all sour fun that weekend, however, and I'll cover the rest of my beering in Friday's post.

Geuze Bus Tours II

I mentioned unfinished business off the back of the 2017 Toer de Geuze: the two participants I missed out on last time. This year's Toer, earlier this month, was a chance to resolve that. The bus schedules meant that I visited two places twice, and one of those was one of my prime targets: Timmermans.

It also happened to be among the worst-set-up experiences of the weekend. Getting to the beer involved a painfully slow, non-discretionary, single-file trudge past the vessels and equipment of an admittedly pretty lambic brewery. Towards the end there was a chance to try Timmermans Jonge Lambik, from the maturing barrels in the attic. It definitely tasted unfinished, with the same sort of harsh bitterness you get in a hopped wort prior to fermentation, and flat without being smooth. A background oaken spice hinted at the beer it will hopefully become, in time.

The snaking queue eventually disgorged into the roomy tasting bar at the end of the tour. Unfortunately the people staffing this were not at all set up for serving the thirsty hordes descending from the rafters, the process further hampered by an unnecessarily complicated token system. Fight to the bar to see the pricelist; work out how many of which colour tokens you need; queue to buy tokens; queue at each part of the bar where the beer you want is being served. Ballache. On the Saturday afternoon I did manage to procure and quaff a Kriekenlambic from the cask engine. It was a deep pink colour with an unsubtle cherry syrup and an only slightly mellower wax bitterness. It was drinkable, and I was gasping, but not as good as a plain handpumped lambic, I think. With that it was on to the bus and away to the next venue.

On Sunday we were prepared. At the entrance we asked to skip the tour, and the lovely Timmermans folk escorted us through the courtyard and straight to the bar. It was early doors and none of our fellow visitors had made it to the end of the plod yet. And it still took ages to get served. I went with the one remaining unfamiliar beer: Brewer's Desire, a one-off created in 2016, released in 2018. From the brewery's official description I don't know how it differs from ordinary two-year-old lambic, but apparently they're very proud of it. Honestly, I couldn't see why. There's a harsh and almost bleachy sharpness dominating the flavour. I did find some more subtle lemon rind and a pleasant mineral sourness, but the finish is acridly acidic, there's no spice, and none of the smooth finesse of age. It would be passable were it not for the horrible bleach thing.

A lovely, more orthodox, Timmermans Oude Geuze cleansed my palate after that, and I deemed Timmermans resolutely done.

The other producer to feature on both days' itineraries was Tilquin. They certainly warranted it too, with a superb range of beers on offer and, behind the bar, a team who knew exactly how to keep the queues moving.

So, on the left there we have their Assemblage de Lambics, a 6.4% ABV blend which presents murky and headless. As one might expect from an expert blendery, there's an excellent balance of fruit, minerals and spice: all the lovely things about lambic in perfect harmony. Somehow it manages to both scorch the throat and quench the thirst at once. Sheer wizardry.

Next to it is quite a scabby portion of Guezérable, a geuze made from maple syrup. It's probably for the best that I didn't get more of it as it really doesn't work as a flavour combination. The funky, sticky syrup retains its full character and fights with the clean spritzy lambic beneath. There's a woody, sappy element which turns acrid in the finish. The one redeeming feature is that you can taste around the gunk and appreciate the excellent base beer, but the added syrup brings nothing positive to it.

Quite a few of the Tilquin offerings were from their two Experimental Fruit Series. I began exploring these with Groseille Blanche (white currant) from series 2, on draught. It's a hazy dark yellow colour and, like the others so far, has a great lambic base, assertively sour with a hard minerality. The sweet and juicy berries peep through this beautifully; a total contrast but a perfect complement too.

Also from the series was Myrtille, arriving a gorgeous rich purple colour. The flavour is packed with funk and spice, tasting of cork oak and old leather in particular. The bilberries add a certain softness to this without coming across as sweet, and I certainly would not have been able to identify the fruit tasting blind. This tastes very mature, any puckering sharpness long since mellowed away. The funkiness more than compensates for any loss of character. Overall, a thoroughly ungimmicky fruit lambic and another winner.

All this experimentation has to lead somewhere, so I'm guessing that's what the Oude Grosseille Rouge is: a bottle, 6.6% ABV and a pinkish-orange colour. The distinguishing feature here is a woody dryness, like a berry seed. There's a saltpetre spice at the base but I think most of the significant tartness is coming from the redcurrants. A dusting of pepper finishes it off nicely. It's balanced and complex, making great use of the different components. The experiments paid off, then.

Finally, for no particular reason, I gave Tilquin Faro a go. This was sugary and slick, but oddly not especially sweet. There's lots of oak spice next to soft candyfloss and a sort of blackcurrant bitterness, though no fruit is involved. The smoothness makes it very easy to drink and gentle on the palate, demonstrating for me the reason faro was developed in the first place. Unlike most extant examples, this one isn't janglingly sweet or sickly.

Pretty much wall-to-wall classics at Tilquin, then. The Toer rumbles on, however, and the four guezeries in the next post will visited on more of a quick-fire basis.

Clouded issues

A couple of offerings from Manchester's Cloudwater Brew Co. today.

Cairde Gan Teorainneacha ("Friends Without Borders") is a collaboration with our own White Hag brewery. It's a black IPA, the almost-dead but increasingly-common beer style, and is 6.2% ABV. The aroma is mildly citric, showing a gentle cabbagey greenness. A bitter-first flavour follows, with more of that acidic boiled veg, tailing off into pithy grapefruit and lime rind. Beside this is a fun chocolate note, complemented by a creamy texture. The finish is dry and a little sharp. It's not spectacular by any means, but it's decent: one of those black IPAs that has tuned the balance between big hops and dark malts just right.

Cloudwater has a new numbering system for its beers, and A•W 18 IPA is its IPA for the autumn and winter just past. It arrived in October and I caught up with it at UnderDog in late March. 6.5% ABV and in the New England style, it's an opaque orange-yellow colour, bright rather than beige, which is pleasing. The foretaste offers an equally bright sherbet or sorbet effect: sparkling tangerine and mandarin. A harder grapefruit bitterness balances this afterwards. While unspectacular, this is very well made.

Cloudwater's moment in the limelight seems to have passed. They don't appear to get the same level of attention as they used to. But, like many a high-profile UK brewery before them, they've continued making solid beer after the hype has faded. This is as it should be.