This IPA was brewed by Niklas Johansson in conjunction with Siren and Omnipollo having won a home-brewing competition in Sweden. The amazing opportunity to brew at Siren was the prize. Pretty cool. Described as a 'peach cream IPA' this beer has wonderful fruity aroma, tropical with a note or two of peach loops. The beer is very smooth on the palate with that creaminess well evident, the flavour is of fruity with the peach dominating alongside a bit of caramel. It's on the sweet side but unless you're planning to down a few bottles consecutively the balance just about works. A bit different and very good.
A solitary Latvian beer up next – a bottle of Latvijas IPA that I picked up in a Riga supermarket. This was a half-decent IPA, no more and no less. It poured quite a dark brown with a hoppy aroma. The taste was on the bitter side with grassy hop flavours dominating alongside a hint of toffee. I was quite surprised to learn that the brewery, Aldaris, is owned by Carlsberg. For a big brewery like that it’s a pretty decent beer.
In my previous post I featured a Vilnius brewpub and this post features another, Alinė Leičiai. This place is clean and modern yet has some lovely touches that make it feel homely and comfortable. The brewing kit is visible through large glass windows and they have also decorated a wall by the toilets with a 'periodic table of beer styles' which is quite a nice touch. Each table in the pub has its own tap dispensing the brewery's lager - each tap has a counter so you can pour your own beer, drink as much as you like and pay for it when you leave. I've never seen anything like it before. I was more interested in what they had on the bar, where much to my surprise they had a line of hand pumps. I went for the IPA which poured a murky orangey-red colour. It had a big tropical fruit aroma but the initial flavour was far more flowery/perfumery and bordering on the bizarre. Not bad by any means, just quite different. The bitter fruit flavours were there but were dominated by that floral taste. I drank the whole pint and couldn't really decide whether it was genius or not. As an aside, my girlfriend tried the porter which was very solid. If you're interested in visiting the brewpub is located at Stiklių g. 4.
Rule of Thirds IPA is a collaboration between three of the top craft beer breweries in the UK; Siren, Beavertown and Magic Rock, that combines the flagship IPAs of each into one beer. Its an interesting concept and a beer that I couldn't really not try. The aroma of this beer is absolutely wonderful, big fruity hoppy notes on the nose as you'd expect, lovely. Flavour-wise its more of the same but with a dominating grapefruit bitterness, its really quite aggressively bitter and is a bit too much for me. Its well worth trying, especially for those that love their hops, but its entirely possible that its no greater than the sum of its parts. I'd much sooner tuck into a Gamma Ray than another of these.
This IPA is produced for Sainsburys by the Genesee Brewing Company in Rochester in the USA. I had pretty high hopes for numerous reasons - the fact that it was brewed in the US (although I didn't know anything about the brewery when I bought it) alongside it's 'Taste the difference' label made me think I'd be in for a treat. The beer didn't quite live up to my expectations - it's not really a true US IPA at all - although it's not terrible. The beer is malt forward with biscuity flavours dominating. There is a hint of piney hops but its lacking in the juicy citrus tang I had anticipated. Drinkable yes, but even on the shelves of Sainsburys you can find far better IPAs. 
This was the last of six Lervig beers I had at the Draft House Sunday Sessions last week, you can read more about the event in my review here. This single-hop IPA was further proof, if any were necessary, that Lervig can do IPAs very well. This one was wonderfully flavoursome with lovely tropical fruit and a nice crisp mouthfeel.
This was the fifth of six Lervig beers I had at the Draft House Sunday Sessions last week, you can read more about the event in my review here. I was quite fearful of this one when I spotted it on the menu, I figured it would be far too strong and far too bitter for my taste, however I was pleasantly surprised. The flavours are robust yet well balanced; strong flavours of pine and resin dominate with bitter grapefruit notes in there too but it isn’t too bitter and the alcohol content is well masked by those wonderful flavours. I can’t really think of any occasions where I’d actually choose to drink a beer of this strength but I did enjoy it.
This was the second of six Lervig beers I had at the Draft House Sunday Sessions last week, you can read more about the event in my review here. This one is part of Lervig’s Brewers Reserve series. It had a rather curious smell that wasn’t exactly pleasant…the flavour wasn’t bad but definitely toward the bitter end and I couldn’t get really get over the strange aroma.
This beer was kindly shared by a friend at his house on
the weekend. Okell’s is based on the Isle of Man (for anyone that doesn’t know,
the Isle of Man is a small island with a fairly low population that lies off
the east coast of England and is most famous for an annual motorcycle race, the
Isle of Man TT). Interestingly, much like Germany the island has its own purity
law that states that beer can only contain four ingredients; water, yeast, hops
and malt. Okell’s dates back to the 1850s so has been around for a while,
although this beer was very modern in flavour. 1907 was first brewed in 2007 to
celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the Isle of Man TT. This is a really
great beer; the aroma is hoppy and fruity yet malty too. The flavour is intensely
hoppy with bitter citrus fruits yet its wonderfully balanced with some hefty
malt character that gives it some nice caramel notes too, I enjoyed it a lot.
Fort is another Barcelona brewery and I picked up their IPA
during my visit to the excellent Rosses I Torrades (you can read my review of
the shop here) and drank that evening. This is another excellent beer from the
Catalan region and brewers around there clearly know how to handle their hops.
The beer pours a lovely hazy, deep amber colour. The aroma is floral with
citrus fruits in evidence too. The taste is quite bitter with grapefruit the
prominent flavour although it’s nicely balanced and smooth in the mouth. A really
strong effort at an IPA that I polished off in next to no time, certainly up there
with some of the better IPAs I’ve had.
