HoppySlosh Guinea Pig: Emelisse 4-piece Intro Pack

Where would we be without friends?
Specifically, where would we be without friends who know our quirks and oddities, and gladly play enabler to our boundless fascination with all things beer?

A couple of weeks ago, the Missus, the Kidz and myself hooked up with Marloes, Martijn & Mats(*) (or M3 as we like to call them, for somewhat obvious shorthand reasons) at the MAS in Antwerp, where gifts were exchanged in the form of books, candy and beer.

*) You'll note that Mats isn't officially a member of Satinoxide, even though he was physically present during the conception of Still the Sun. Marvels of Metal and all that.

I had recently voiced my anticipation regarding Emelisse's impressive arsenal of someday(*) beers. Hence, greatly did I rejoice when I was ceremoniously handed a clip holding no less than four different brews.

*) as opposed to everyday beers.

Emelisse is an upcoming (although not really new) Dutch brewery, known for their bold and appproachable takes on styles typical of craft brewing. Instead of taking the easy way out and brewing yet another version of the Holy Trinity, they brew relatively big, yet accessible beers.

In order of sampling, here come the contents of the 4-pack then.

Rauchbier

Only one of these in the 4-pack.

Seriously. It takes a whole lot of guts to launch a smoked beer, even in current climes.
Once you're up to your neck in the craft brew scene, it's easy to overlook this fact, but most people I know like (and in fact prefer) simple beers. Beers well within the comfort zones established by fifty-odd years of declining beer culture. Smoked beers are definitely way out of that comfort zone, and Emelisse presents theirs boldly, in-your-face and utterly bullshit free. I love that bottle, the effortlessly slick label and the no-nonsense, here's-what-it-is name. Zeelandians (Zeelanders? Zeelandegasks?) are a direct lot, and this beer's presentation couldn't be more Zeelandian if it had winkles in it.

Winkle beer. I'm not sure about that.

The Rauchbier opens quite enthusiastically. Not quite a gusher, but best keep that glass close and hover over the sink, just in case. Pours a beautiful dark amber, close to chestnut brown with a firm, robust head.
While it's called a rauchbier, don't expect ashtrays ,chimneys or hot tarmac in the nose: this beer smells like smoked meats. In fact, the Missus declared it smelled "as if someone's dunked a salami in your beer". It smells chewy and a bit greasy, yes, just like a sausage.

Bière aux saucissons, plutôt.

I know, that doesn't sound quite as appealing as it is, but a good smoked beer really is a bit like meat and beer in one serving, only in a good way. And this Rauchbier is a good example of the style: mildly but noticably smoked, and very accessible without being easy. Besides meaty smoke, the nose reveals slight impressions of caramel and a wee smidgeon of resiny hops.
Flavour is precisely what the nose promises, with a sweet, almost cloying malt base, and a good mouthfull of meaty, almost acrid smoke. While smoked malt itself isn't bitter at all, the smoke gives the beer an impression of bitterness.
A well-crafted beer, in a non-quotidian style. Kudos to the brew crew, and we've still got three more bottles to go.

DIPA

That bottle on the left looks just like mine.

A Double IPA then. Less uncommon than the Rauchbier, but still nowhere near as common as, well, common beer. Ever since the Murkans shook the slumbering world of beer awake, IPAs in varying strengths and multiples have been swarming the market, but unfortunately, Europe is still trying to catch up with this style. Apart from Chouffe Houblon and Troubadour Magma, DIPAs are few and far between for the unconnected beer geek.

First off: IPAs are typically bold, hoppy beers, usually with a firm, sweetly malty backbone to complement a pronounced hoppy bitterness. "Double" would mean the same as in any other style, hinting at a heavier malt dosage. Probably not really "twice the amount of a single" but definitely more than just "a heavier single".

Emelisse's take on the style is a bit meek, surprisingly. No mistake: this is a Double IPA, chock-full of malt and oozing hoppiness, but it's surprisingly easy. While the hops are prominently on display, they're not really going anywhere in particular. No tropical fruits, no particular citrus notes, just hops doing a generic hop buzz thing.
Most DIPAs (and quite a few IPAs) I've encountered seem to tell a hoppy story, leading the drinker by the nose with alluring, titillating swirls of enticing hops. Emelisse's DIPA, while tasty and skillfully brewed, is less imaginatve, more straightforward, and ultimately, not very interesting. Perhaps this is batch-related, as it would seem the brewery uses different hops in different batches. Pity that's not described on the label.

This second sample of Emelisse's staple beers reveals a trend which will continue throughout the 4-pack: this is a base beer. More on that later, now onward to beer #3.

BIPA

Three beers in and I'm seeing quads already instead of IPAs.

Beer geek humour; pay no mind.

How can I not love a brewery whose introduction kit contains nothing but daring beer styles? A Black IPA is a beer designed to arouse beer geeks the world over. Think of it as a hybrid beer, a mix between a roasty porter and a hoppy IPA. BIPAs are quite rare in Continental Europe, so rare in fact as to be virtually non-existent. But here is one, coming from not half an hour's drive from my own doorstep, in a country which most of my fellow-Belgians consider to be the zythological counterpart of Outer Syberia.

The BIPA pours just like it should: dark, voluptuous, nearly-black and slightly oozy. A bold nose of hops (not dissimilar to the DIPA), complemented with a firm roasty backdrop. The best of two worlds, as the style dictates, and effortlessly pulled off again. The trend, however, persists: this BIPA too feels like a base beer, which could be so much more than what it is right now.

Number four then, and it's a biggun:

RIS (sorry: IRS)

Death and taxes.

Sorry. Beer Geek humour again.

The Russian Imperial Stout is to beer geeks what K1 is to alpinists.
It's the big league.
Valhalla, the Graspop Backstage Area and the Playboy Mansion, all rolled up into one and magically turned into beer.
Everything that's big in a stout, multiplied and pimped to often ridiculous extremes. RIS is a not a style for the faint of heart, and in a country which most of the world identifies with bland lager carelessly poured into thimble-sized glassed from lurid green bottles, it is positively daring to include one in your staple range. Again, it exemplifies what Emelisse is trying to accomplish: quality beer which is neither boring nor safe.

The RIS pours oily and viscous, as it should. It's quite still, even for a Imperial, but still manages to establish a hesitant head. The nose is spectacular: a discreetly boozy bomb of coffee, roast grains, heavy late summer blossoms and a distant hint of bittering hops. A beer you can sniff all night long.
In the mouth, the RIS releases those same flavours, focusing slightly more on the booze than strictly necessary. Luscious mouthfeel, lingering acridity and a long, slow release of deep dark roasted malts. A tad astringent near the finish, but yet another effortlessly successful beer.

But there's the snag: effortlessly.

It feels as if Emelisse, while being bold and daring in their choice of styles, aren't putting in much of an effort to really make them shine. Understandable, perhaps: the brewery has definitely got an eye for the commercial aspects of brewing (hey, it's a living, so money needs to be made, I totally dig that), so pulling out all the stops in their main range of beers, while tempting, would be  commercial suicide at this time.

Instead of that, you get four beers stting somewhat safely within the confines of their respective genre. While the genres are decidedly ballsy, the beers themselves stand out mostly because of their restraint, and come across as subdued, tamed examples. Introductions, if you will. Text-book standards almost.

All four beers are solid, yet bridled examples of their own different style. All four styles are peculiar, interesting, and decidedly uncommon in terms commercial availability. Yet all four beers feel, in their essence, like base beers. Base recipes, which really could use a bit of something special. Starting points from where they could be ramped up, explored and exploited. They need a bit of brewer's attention, uplifting this element or that, thereby elevating the beer from its base version into something more illustrative of its true potential.

In fact, Emelisse has a more limited range of white label beers going around which are precisely that: pimped versions of the base beers. I previously, and to roaring approval, tasted a white label version of the RIS, enriched with Sorachi Ace hops and (no kidding) coconut. I cannot begin to describe how vastly enjoyable and superior it was to the base RIS. I've heard reports from other beer aficionados (with varying levels of geekiness) with similar experiences, all across their range of beers.

So, I'm between two chairs here. On one hand, Emelisse has all my sympathy, and I call myself a fan. A brewery which focuses on non-boring beer styles, flawlessly executed and tastefully presented, how could I not?
But on the other hand, their base range of beers is a bit on the safe side, and their full potential seems to be restricted to (or deliberatelt reserved for) their White Label range. While far from boring, these four beers don't quite reach the expected potential inherent to their specific genres.

I realise that's mostly my Inner Geek complaining here. A beer geek who's been spoiled already by some pretty radical brews coming from two continents away. Whatever may irk me about the lack of balls in the beers themselves should be interpreted as nitpicking from one who's accustomed to encountering these four styles, if at all, with all the stops pulled. To the more easy going beer amateur, these truly are exceptional brews, worthy of any detours necessary to acquire them.
So don't let this note of criticism refrain you from embracing this brewery. They're a beacon of hope in current day beer culture.

My eternal gratitude to M3! How'bout we visit the brewery together someday?

Greetz

Jo

The Sinner's Series: Gluttony (Amager Bryghus)

From Kastrup, Denmark, comes a brew I simply could not resist when I encountered it on the shelves of De Molen's Beershop.

A fat fellow, munching hops with his belly.
Irresistible to beer geeks.

Amager has a whole series of brews in the theme of the seven deadly sins, each as cutely packaged as this one. Each is entirely different, but focusing on what, to the Amager crew, the sin would be when committed to beer.

I only got to take one, but I've my heart set on trying them all someday. But until that day,  here's to Gluttony.

From left to right: yeast, beer, sin.

Impossibly clear pour, pale and golden and just...wow! A bit of sediment at the bottom turns the beer just a wee bit hazy, and I fully recommened pouring the beer entirely, as the residue further uplifts anything I'll say from here on downward. But seeing as how I don't have a glass capable of holding 500ml of quality booze, I drank the first bit like that: clean and clear.

A modest, pillowy off-white head cushions the hops in the nose.

Gluttony is all about indulgence, and what better way to indulge a beer (or the geek drinking it) than by massively hopping it?

What a nose it is: chock full of fruity, grapey fragrances, decadently rich without becoming forced or overpowering. There's white grapes, a whiff of passionfruit, and that caramelly undertow so typical of (D)IPAs. The Simcoe is definitely there, and the Centennial/Amarillo duet too. Hercules I'm not familiar with at all, but from what the Yinternet reveals, I'm guessing it's responsible for that crisp bitterness at the back of the palate. Always nice to encounter new or uncommon hops, and I'll be looking out for this one when next I order me some hops again.
Citra I'm not picking up at all, and the Sorachi Ace is so well hidden as to be nearly absent. Which is a good thing, as both have the tendency to overwhelm other hops when added in anything other than modest doses. The beer has a hint of woodsy, tannin-like astrigency which I'm guessing is coming from the Sorachi Ace, but I could be mistaken.
Also: kudos to the marketing crew for naming and shaming all those hops, as well as the other ingredients (pilsner malt, Maris Otter and Munich, and an American Ale yeast). Far too few breweries bother with putting anything on the label besides the obnoxiously patronising "quality malts and carefully selected hops".

A mildly weird dusty fragrance all the way at the back, reminiscent of an empty grain silo.

Minus the truck.

As the beer relaxes, I'm picking up hints of cantaloupe, sweet tangerine, toffee and caramel.

Once sipped, the beer explodes in the mouth with a crisp, tart and slightly puckering bitterness.
Amazing how the bitter aromas tumble and swirl all across the palate, bouncing off the tongue, across the hard and soft palate, to the back of the throat, leaving the senses reeling in its wake.

Whereas most IPAs focus on hop flavours, backed by sweet malty chewiness, this one's more suited for bitter lovers. That backbone is there alright, but its sweetness is masked by lingering hoppy bitterness. A nice touch to a genre which sometimes doesn't focus enough on bitter. Looooong bitter, fruity aftertaste. Not unlike what you get when you've btiten through a grapefruit's skin.
Make no mistake: this is a beer for hop heads, but also for bitter geeks.

Not bitter geeks.
Bitter-geeks.

Underneath this bitter main chord, a myriad of delicate flavours play hide and seek. Orange rinds and marmelade, and sweet soft caramel candy, and tropical fruits. It's really quite hard to stay focused when the beer starts rolling around in the mouth, and in the end, the main impression is one of bewilderment. Of befuddled WTF-ness. Here's a beer going out of its way to defy description.

A firm, almost chewy mouthfeel, rendered deceptively drier by the alpha acids, makes the beer incredibly smoothly drinkable in spite of the high EBUs. Not bingeable at all, this is a sip-and-smack beer alright.

From the packaging and the imaginative label's design, to the concept, to the execution, all the way to the ridiculously decadent and lingering experience of actually drinking it, this is a beer hitting all the right spots, ticking all the right boxes, making me happy happy beer geek indeed. What Amager's done here is turned exaggeration into an art form. Or as they themselves admit, sin into virtue.

Comparions, for the heck of it.This reminded me of 8-Wired's Tall Poppy and Hop Wired, amalgamated into one beer. If you like either (or both), then I'll eat a hop plug if you don't like this one.

Amager crew, mere kudos will not suffice. Granting absolution lies beyond my jurisdiction, so my verdict is: keep sinning. For the love of Saint Ambrosius, keep sinning!

Beer: Gluttony
Brewery: Amager Bryghus
Style: DIPA
ABV: 9.4%
EBU: -
EBC: -
Served: 500ml bottle

Greetz

Jo

Mühle & Bahnhof (De Molen)

I like sour beer. I like beer with a bit of character, a bit of daring. Some good old ballsy spunk.

Seriously, Google?
This is what you come up with when I do a search for ballsy spunk?
Oh. Wait.
Perhaps, given the phrasing, I should count myself lucky.

The guys at De Molen are certainly ballsy when they're at their best, and from what I've heard, their take on the medieval, salty-sour Gose style is supposed to be...well...something else, if nothing else.

Mühle. Check.
Bahnhoff. Check.
Psht. No check.

First impression: beautiful colour. And no. Head. Whatsoever.
Just falls flat in the glass the moment you pour it, and the bottle doesn't even have the decency to go psht.
Skepsis rears its ugly head.

Thank you, Google. Much better.

A weird, lactic nose, with a whiff of sea breeze maybe. Not unlike that Tyttebær I had recently; almost medicinal and decidedly unconventional. There's a hint of butter there, as well as an aldehyde/solvent-like backdrop.Not exactly nail polish, and not even something hinting of paint brushes, but yes, a certain chemical pong that not many people I know would appreciate. Combined with the lethargic carbonation, one would be tempted to believe this beer is simply, well, fucked up.

But wait!

That for science crap I keep spouting? I'm serious about that.
So here goes.
Back with you in a minute.

Oh.
Wow.
Oh wow.

Now that's...peculiar.

Take a typical, true-to-style South-West Flanders Old Brown Ale (yeah, I know already, I didn't invent the bloody name of the style).
Take that lactic sourness, bordering on vinegary acidity. Take the hints of wood and the clinging film of vinous puckering fruitiness. Now add to that a hint of what was going on in the Tyttebær, a murmur of pharmacist/dentist's office mixed with muscle spray, only much milder than in that Norse concoction. Add a pinch of salt, both in the flavour (yes, there is a bit of silt in the taste and on the tongue) and in the mouthfeel. As if your glass were rinsed with sea brine.
Then read the label and yes, there really is a bit of coriander hidden in there as well.
An aftertaste of medium length, fruity and oaky like a sour alre should be.

There's so much going on in here, but most of it is conflicting with either everything else, or with my preconception of what constitutes beer.
The stillness, yet the fine, delicate tingling on the tongue.
The sourness, yet that hint of caramelised bitter-sweetness.
Spices, yet an utter absence of a spicey character.
Tartness, bordering on grimace-inducing astrigency.
Finesse, muddled up in rustic straightworwardness.
A bourrée of beer.

I have recently tasted De Molen's Lief&Leef, which is their take on a classic sour ale in the (here we go again) South West Flanders Old Brown Ale tradition. That particular brew is completely congruent with the style and any over-par example of it, and in fact mostly surprising in how superlatively balanced and elegant it is.
I've had De Struise Brouwers' Weltmertz, which defies the boundaries of the genre and takes it to town in a daring, novel and again, refined direction.
This Gose, while related in style, leaves me out of my depth. It's stunning, no doubt. But perhaps Google was right when it popped up that pic earlier. Just like Kazachstan's best known citizen, this beer is gutsy and full of chutzpah, disarmingly alien and quaint, but at the same time extremely confrontational. You have to appreciate the fine parts of it, and make no mistake, they're there. But in order to do so, you need to be able (and willing) to wade through a bit of shock factor, a bit of obsessive transgressiveness, ere you reap some reward.

Now you can say about this brew whatever you want, but to me, it's yet another example of how De Molen seems incapable of letting me down. While this is nowhere close to the go-to brew I'd hoped it to be (may I remind you, Constant Reader, that I like sour beers?), it is, essentially, bottled conversation. Pour this for a beer geek, and tongues will roll. Voices will be raised. Arguments will be fired back and forth. More bottles will be popped and comparisons made.

All this, if I understand this beer at all, because of a pinch of salt.

De Molen crew, you've done it again.

Beer: Mühle & Bahnhoff
Brewery: De Molen
Style: Gose (a mediaval salted sour ale)
ABV: 9.2%
EBU: 11
EBC: 30
Served: 330ml bottle

Greetz

Jo

Neuen Horizonten verdammt!

Way out of my comfort zone, on the murk side of Holland, and ever so discreetly bordering on Belgium proper, lies Germany.

Map not entirely up to date.

Remember what I said about Belgians and their low esteem of foreign beer? Well, all of that applies particularly to Germany, whom whe've still not forgiven for that string of military fisticuffs sometime ago.

German beer, to most Belgians, is perhaps even worse than Dutch beer for a single reason. In our opinion (and I must stress this is just me voicing the average Belgian's culturally dictated appraisal of foreign beer, and certainly not my very personal own) the Dutch  are merely incapable of brewing anything other than nauseating lager. Just order any commercial Dutch pilsner and you'll come to understand us backward Belgians a bit better
The Germans are worse because they choose to brew bland beers. Yes, the infamous reinheitsgebot puts certain (stringent) limitations on German breweries, and to the historically more liberal Belgian brewer, this equals bland, uninspired, dull beer.

But hark!

My buddy Frank (no, not that Frank, the other Frank again, the one...oh whatever, just Frank will do for now) made a generous contribution to my beer cellar recently, and among the acquired stash was this charming fellow:

Naturally opaque yeasty white-beer , in proper English.

My first real weissbier (I'm deliberately not counting any Belgian white beers or blanchekes, nor any of the more ubiquitous German weissbiers you might encounter the world over), this came highly recommended by just about anyone interested in beer, as it's something of a standard for the style.

Hefeweizen (weizen and weiss would appear to be synonymous) is a wheat beer (meaning it's mostly made from malted wheat, instead of malted barley), with a pronounced estery flavour coming from a particular strain of top-fermenting yeast.

The Paulaner pours spectacularly, with the densest, pillowiest head I've ever had the pleasure to encounter. True to style, the beer isn't clear but shows a typical wheat haze, which makes the warm orange colour really stand out. Beautiful pour, this one, and my Belgian roots are already withering.

That nose. Oh Saint Arnoldus blessed be, that nose is out of this world.
Coming back to Belgium, ever since beer got stuck in the elevator of trendy beverages, "Belgian" is now officially a flavour, rather than a denominator of nationality or origin.. A tripel can be whatever you want, but if you say it has a "Belgian" taste to it, even beer geeks in Singapore will know what you mean(*).
Why am I bordercrossing back to my home turf here? Because if Paulaner's nose is at all representative of the hefeweizen style, then "German" should be a flavour too.

*) especially of you throw in other buzz words like funk and barnyard.

Where Belgian yeasty beers tend to focus on fruits (banana, citrus, apple, pear, what have you), this hefeweizen displays a dazzling aray of spices, ranging from clove to nutmeg, and probably some others in between. Words fall short, but this beer smells amazing.
In the mouth, you get that same spicy, mulled impression. Combined with the naturaly crispy sourness which all wheat bears display, what you have here is an immensely drinkable, yet surprisingly complex beer. A beer which instantly makes me regret any diminutive comments I may have ever made regarding Prussian beer.

Frank's gift did not end there. Paulaner Hefeweizen is a benchmark in its own right, but so is this one:

Schneider Weisse Tap 5: Meine Hopfenweisse

Schneider has a range of these "weizens", numbered and somewhat quaintly named. To turn language barriers into true Iron Curtain-style obstacles, this Hopfenweisse is actually a weisse doppelbock.

Yeah. Makes more sense in the glass.

Not just any doppelbock, but a hoppy one to boot. In a way, this makes the Schneider5 something between a weizen and an IPA.

Pour is remarkbly clear (wait for it): even though it's a lager (which no, is not synonymous with cheap ass pilsner you heathen), it's still a wheat-based beer, and hence I'd expected it to be hazy. But no, the first half (waaaaaaait for iiiiitttt) presented as a dark, lightly coppery lager, with a lanky head.

In the nose, there's a dazzling burst of hops going on: herbal, piney and resiny, undulating into flowery and back again. Not sure which hops are in this beer, but the nose made me think of some of  the UK ales I've sampled a year ago in London, with an almost soapy character to it. While it's not a hop bomb like so many (often US or NZ) hoppy IPAs, it's definitely a hoppy beer, make no mistake. But like UK hoppy ales, the hops take on a different identity from what we're used to over here. And while the result is a bit alienating, it is (if nothing else) intriguing.
Flavour-wise, weirdness abounds. The strong hop profile, combined with the fruitness of the wheat and the relatively high alcohol content (8.9% ABV) turn this in a perfumed beer, delicate but wafting at the same time. It's nothing like a modern era IPA, despite having a distinctly hoppy profile, and it's nothing like a weizen either, in that the wheat plays second (if not third) fiddle to the hops and (I'm on a limb here) the yeast.
Besides soapy hops (and this sounds less appealing than it really was), there's the fruity, almost lactic tartness of the wheat, and a gammut of spicy yeast: cloves again, mace and a hint of lemon peel, again teased by that ambiguous flowery note.

While very, very tasty, it's also a bit tiresome, as if it were a wheat beer with ADHD. Oh and that remarkably clear pour?

Guess what came with the second half?

Now I'm not fussy about the clairy of my beer. A live beer, a proper living beer, is allowed (nay, expected!) to be a bit hazy. But this is perhaps a bit much. Zoom in on that pic and you'll find bits of debris floating about, happily contributing to a lot of things, but not to aesthetics. The contrast with the clean, clear lager pour of the first half could not be greater if the beer had suddenly lit up a bright blue neon and started humming the theme to Allo Allo.
In other yeasty beers, adding the sediment will emphasise the yeast characteristics, but in this already very yeasty weizen, it added nothing but murk, so I advise pouring it carefully, in a large enough glass, and simply leaving the sediment in the bottle.

So.

Where, except waaaaaay out of my comfort zone, does that leave me?

I'm intrigued. I'd never imagined wheat beers to be this complex, and the fact that they're both German makes me all  boingboing with anticipation: a whole "new" country to explore. So many styles, now famous thanks to the booming craft- and home brew scene, which I know nothing about: alt, weizen, bock, what have you...

These were two fine specimens in their own right, and excellent ambassadors to German brewing. Just by themselves, they've established that there's more to German beer than gallon-sized jugs of watery Oktoberfestbier, and have made of me a man with a mission: to learn more about Germany and its beers and, if at all possible, spread the word across the border, that Prussia is still a force to be reckoned with.

I'll make sure not to mention Ze Var.

Until then,

Greetz

Jo

HoppySlosh steps out

Last weekend, I hooked up with my buddy Frank (no not that Frank, another one. I know a Frank or two).

Yet another two franks.

This particular Frank (much like the other Frank) happens to like beer so I brought a couple of bottles to sample. Not because we like drinking cold beer, of course. But for science.

And fully clothed, I hasten to add.

First up was my own unpronouncable Brew#4: (zn+1=(|Re(zn)|+i|Im(zn)|)2+c, z0=0, with a trace of Mandelbrot). I'm really pleased with this one, which has delicate smoke on the nose, a bit of meaty chew and a fair bit of booze. Quite pleasantly balanced and although it's on the sweet side for me personally, I'm chuffed to bits about this one. Frank, being a tough customer to please, would have liked to find something less sticky at the end, and I agree. More on Brew#4 and its future offspring when I get to brew them.

We paired this with a fairly generic amber beer (Cad'Rousse) thereby supporting the less fortunate of this world whilst drinking beer. Sometimes charity really is a easy as that. 
Cad'Rousse (brewed by Grain d'Orge, not my favourite brewery by a long shot) is decidedly easy to drink, which is both its greatest strength and weakness. It's fairly nondescript, never offensive, but never leaving much of an impression either. At 7.5%ABV, this one is deceptively easy to drink (and hence to get just a wee bit sloshed on), altough I'd much prefer something a bit more identity to it. Paired with Brew#4, it was nice to see what I'd got right about amber beers, and what was missing.

Special treat for Frank was a beer he'd been talking about incessantly ever since we started having late-night forrays in zythology:

The EKU of Ye Dayes of Olde

I remember EKU from way back when I wasn't even drinking beer, when it was dubbed "the strongest beer in the world" (even though Bush/Scaldis was already around for a long time). At 11%ABV, it's nothing to scoff at, but my skeptical side reared up when I read the label: Gebraut nach dem Deutschen Reinheitsgebot. For some reason (and I'm blaming the bad reputation of German beers in Belgium), a reinheitsbier at 11%ABV didn't exactly fill me with optimism.
However, I'm glad to say that EKU was quite okay. There's an obvious kinship with Bush (and even some Bières de Garde), caused by a monocline focus on malty sweetness. Very little is happening in this beer besides sticky sweet malt and throat-tickling booze. While this sounds worse than the beer actually tastes, this really is a beer for which you to find the right occasion.

We concluded the evening with a solidly pleasant bottle of 2012 Cuvée van de Keizer:

The blue one, obviously.

Another sweet beer, but, in true Anker style, massively spiced, with bits of orange peel, liquorice and just a wee whiff of cardamon coming through. Not sure but I thought I detected cinnamon too. This is one of those beers you can easily cellar for a couple of years, in the knowledge that it will only get better while you're twiddling your thumbs in anticipation. But even fresh, this one's a winner.

The next evening, we swam hoppier waters and compared the Troubadour Magma 2012 with its basic version.

Nothing says "big beer" like calling it Magma

The basic Magma is somewhat unique in Belgium, where IPAs (let alone Double, Triple or Multiple IPAs) are few and far between. The Musketeers don't label this one as (even a singular) IPA, but it's clear from the get-go that this is what it is. Beautiful orange hazy pour, fruitpunch nose and a solid, luscious, caramelly malt backbone. With a beer like this, you can't go wrong. 

Well, turns out you can: Frank wasn't too happy but face it, Frank's not too hoppy to begin with.

While the Magma is a great beer, I have had little success trying to sell it to less devout beer drinkers than myself, who tend to find the hop aromas and bitterness somewhat overpowering. Being a Hop Head, I think the balance is just right, leaning towards the slightly too sweet, but that's inherent to the style.
The 2012 version replaces the Simcoe dryhop for this year's(*) new black: Sorachi Ace.

Because a picture of just any old hop will do just fine, right?

Sorachi Ace isn't my favourite hop, being rather weird in flavour and aroma. In this beer, the fruity bitterness of the basic Magma is replaced by a woody, bubblegummy, slightly melony flavour. As expected, Sorachi Ace hints at barrel aging, without actual barrels having been involved. It's definitely a flavour you need to get into; at first it's mildly off-putting, but it does grow on you, and when sampled side-by-side with the basic Simcoe version, it's interesting as well as tasty.

*) you'll note that while Sorachi Ace is 2013's new black, the Magma we're talking about here is the 2012 version. Looks like either the Musketeers are way ahead of the trending market, or they create trends themselves by not giving a damn about them.

For fun (I mean for science!) we ended the session with that gnome of some renown:

Yeah. I get it now. Double tripel equals sextuple. Or how a label can be too clever sometimes.

Amazing how light and refreshing and balanced the Chouffe Houblon is after the more typical sweet undercurrent of both Magmas. Amazing also how much more subtle and refined the little gnome's hop presence is: the Tomahawk/Saaz/Amarillo combo is bold, but delicate, much more so than either one of the Magmas' more bellicose hoppiness. Because the Chouffe is drier, the hops present themselves less as counterweight to the sweetness of the malt, which is where the Magmas get most of their identity. Ironically, at 59 IBU, the Chouffe Houblon is more bitter than the Magmas (the basic version sit at an already impressive 50), but is more aromatic, with less perceived bitterness, than the Magmas.

Very interesting tasting session, which drove home the point what a superbly crafted beer the Chouffe Houblon is. Also, it made me realise once more that what constitutes a tasty beer is different for anyone, and that what makes one person go all "wow" can make the other go "meh" of even "yuck".

After all that hard work, all invested parties slept soundly, if perhaps somewhat too little, and woke feeling much more enlightened (admittedly, enlightenment was struggling for emergence and only prevailed sometime well past noon).

Greetz

Jo

Tyttebær (Nøgne Ø & Mikkeller)

Nøgne Ø has made quite a name for itself in the craft brewery scene. Norway's best kept secret isn't easy to find outside of Scandinavia proper, but I still managed to grab hold of a bottle of Tyttebær when I was visiting the beershop at De Molen Brewery.

Tyttebær, aka Lingonberry

The Lingonberry then. Cousin to the cranberry, this fruit features quite prominently in Scandinavian cuisine. Mikeller, having recently found a bit of a fad with sour "wild" beers obviously thought this would make a great combination. Myself, I'm less than enthousiastic though.

Gusher alert! Despite keeping the bottle upright and well rested for the better part of a month, it released a steady jet of sticky-sour beer all over my kitchen. While not a re-enactment of the eruption of Mt.Helens, still a good quantity of beer was lost. Not the best of starts for this berry.

Things perk up when the beer finally makes it into the glass.

Will you look at that beautiful orangy-red colour? Delicate lacy head on top, oh yes, if you finally do get the brew where it belongs (i.e. in your glass instead of all over the kitchen top), it's a sight worth grabbing a mop for.

In the nose, you get a mildly sour punch of weirdness. I'm sure it's the Lingonberries, but this beer definitely has a medicinal pong to it. If anything, it smells like wintergreen.

Oh look, another obscure berry.

Wintergreen is that stuff which makes athlete's muscle spray smell like, well, muscle spray. It's what you smell whenever you walk into the fysiotherapy ward of a hospital, and it's a close match to Air of Dentist.

Oh and this stuff.

No, I cannot honestly say that the Tyttebær smells aluring. But hey, for science!

Up-front is the Tyttebær taste which, again, rings all manner of medicinal alarm bells. It takes a while to get used to this: it's not actually unpleasant, but it takes a long time before the human psyche overcomes the association with muscle trauma, and I can easily imagine how people would be utterly put off by this.
Seriously (and bear with me, I'm getting to the good part in a bit): this is a beer you'll need to muscle up for. Unless you're willing to give it credit (and a bit of time), you're likely to pour it in the sink. And don't get me wrong: that would be a bit of pity.

Picking up after quite some time is a gentle, friendly sourness, which is really what makes this beer drinkable. If it had been sweet, it could easily be mistaken for some exotic kind of cough syrup. Kudos to the brew crew for getting the sourness just right: it's nowhere near to being acidic, but remains mildly lactic, yet distinctly sour, perfectly counterbalancing the weirdness of the Lingonberry's intrinsic flavour.

And waaaaay at the back, when the sourness has cleansed the palate, leaving you smacking your gums for something more, are the Bretts. Mild Bretts, but noticable. Again, this little layer is essential to the beer's drinkability, making it slightly chewy, and gives an overall lingering flavour, neatly tying up all those loose ends encountered earlier.

Bit of a hit and miss here: on one hand there's the understated sourness of the basic brew. It's not quite on par with old style Gueuze or derived fruit lambics, but it still has a few things going on in the background which elevate it from being "just sour".

It's unlike any sour beer I've ever tasted before. Note that this is both its greatest merrit as well as its greatest flaw: the Lingonberry can easily be summed up nicely as "not for everyone". If you can overcome the weird associations with ripped tendons, strained ankles and Tiger Balm, then what you're left with is a beer resembling a layered sour jawbreaker of a bear, which will lead you (brazenly but diligently) from one flavour into the other: from berries to sour to Bretts, in a long and lingering, but ultimately pleasant joyride.

Recommended for sourheads and beergeeks. All others would do well to abstain, as this beer is probably simply lost on them. No discredit to either them or the beer, but really is quite polarising: love it or hate it. While I can't say I'm loving this as much as I'd like, I'm still siding with the former: this makes me curious as to what Mikkeller's been up to with their Wild series.

Beer: Tyttebær
Brewery: Nøgne Ø in a collab with Mikkeller
Style: wild/sour fruit beer
ABV: 8%
EBU: -
SRM: an orangy red hue
Served: 500ml bottle

Nice one, but not for the faint of heart.

Greetz

Jo