still easing into spring

Beermad seems to be back on track, with its biannual schedule.  They're also touting this as being completely COVID-unrestricted, so maybe the glasses will be back.  Assuming, of course, it was a hygiene thing that pushed them to using the plastic cups the last time.  I take a gamble that the first day in the morning won't be excessively crowded and metro it on out to Case de Campo.  Not too crowded actually, but it is only about noon.  There's plenty of time for people to decide it's time for a Saturday beer.

I seek out Dichosa, which was in Vallecas but I didn't get a chance to sample.  There they are, conveniently near the entrance, and with barrel aged stout to boot.  It's a wine barrel, which I'm not not completely sure about, but what the hell?  I'm happy to give De Tranquis Ribera del Duero a shot.  It smells like wine immediately, although it looks like a good stout.  It also has a distinctly winey taste, very red, with a little tannin skin on it.  The stout part seems to give the drink a creamy undertone, but no earth or smoke.  The flavor notes are very high, so it's more like a turned-down wine than a jacked-up stout you'd expect from barrel aging.

What else is new?  Ossegg Pivovar.  I was immediately intrigued by the Czech name, and unsurprisingly the brewmaster is Czech.  It seems it's a collaborative investment of Czech and Spanish capital, with a mix of talent as well; so traditional for Spanish brewing!  They boast of the quality of their ingredients, imported from Czechia, and the solidness of their Czech recipes.  I decide on Karlovy Vary dark lager, because I still feel like staying on the dark side a while longer.  It's not super dark, but it is super fizzy, with a cap of strong thick head, just like a Central European would want.  Not too aromatic, which isn't too surprising for its kind, and also very light flavor with just a touch of lager grain.  It feels fizzy in the mouth, almost like a tonic or mineral water, but without any weird salts or sulfurs.  It's remarkably subtle, in comparison with other crafts you might call it bland, but it has the weight of tradition behind it.  Really, as a mealtime or snack beer it would be perfect.  Still, as a standalone it's a little sad, like it's missing something, either stronger flavors or conversation, to add some spice.

The Hop Wear people are here, as they usually are, and they recommended I stop at Octavoarte.  I'm happy to take some advice on breweries I don't know yet.  They have mostly varieties of ale, and now I am in the mood for something lighter colored and brighter tasting.  I choose Cryptohop Hazy IPA.  Not actually that hazy, but a good IPA color and bright head, not overabundant but resistant.  There's a slight citrus hops scent, but it's more teasing than powerful.  Interesting caraway/cardamom flavor, but a lot of citrus or fruity hops though.  As a hazy, I was expecting it to follow the juiciness of the older NEIPA denomination, but this is more of a spicy hop-West Coast feel.  Is that surprise the "crypto"?  After a while I do start to detect some kind of hoppy citrus, like a modern IPA tends to have, but it's very light, hide-and-seeking, not the open performance that the typical NEIPA would have.

Another newcomer for me is Dos Dingos, another example of craft beer pulling the world together.  Argentinians, learning beermaking in Australia, deciding to serve the world their take?  Can't say no to that.  I decide on another shot at a juicy ale and select their Brekkie NEIPA.  This one looks a little more classic with an opaque color and a good fluffy head almost like whipped cream.  It does fizz away, though.  There's a hoppy, piney aroma, sharp like a good specialized IPA.  The beer isn't really bitter, just putting forth a tinge of citrus taste, but it is smooth and soft.  It has a lot of modern IPA feel, the taste is pretty much NEIPA on the nose, citrus and barely any bitter, but it has so little body that it's almost a light lager.  Still, a very refreshing and tasty beer on its own, something you could have on a beach, on a porch, in a beer garden.

There are a few people wandering around who seem to have bought hats from Chouffe, like this is Belgian Oktoberfest.  They are also selling the Beermad glasses, along with shirts and bags, so I guess they think we've had enough of a chance to get souvenirs in the last few years.

It's almost time for me to leave, but I have time for one more and I want to find something special.  I think I can go back to the dark side since I found my good NEIPA, and I see Raíz Cuadrada's Cenascura Oatmeal Stout (with milk balls!) jut waiting for me.  This one isn't on tap, but I get a fine serve from the bottle.  It has a good color, not too much head, recognizably stouty aroma - earth, basement, growth.  It's slightly sour and milky, not really sweet or malty.  It's not bad, but I think it feels a little bit papery, actually kind of an "organic" feel; that is, something sour and natural, or at least naturally fermented.  I would wish for something hardier, but it has a good backbone and isn't too bitter or salty.  To be honest, it's rather nice as a stout on its own, although it wouldn't be bad with some little snack too.

Not payment, just bartering, very traditional

And that was my spring Beermad...and now I hear there's another fair before the month is out?  I guess I should enjoy them while I can, you never know what the future will bring.  Like monkey pox.

a work of art

It's not the scariest thing or the most beerfest traditional, but you can't say no to a good Czech beer.  There are good memories in Sibeeria, too.  Although Candinskij looks like it should be some kind of sour or fruity ale, but it is actually a stout.  A sweetened stout, along the lines of pastry, with maple syrup and coffee.  Interestingly, this is a collaboration with Candycane Coffee, so an explanation for the name I guess.  This is a beer to look forward to on a rainy, rainy weekend, something to give you a little warmth as you sit around at home watching horror shorts and online marathons.

While only dark brown and not soulless black, it looks rich and heavy, like a real stomach filler of a stout.  There is definitely coffee in the aroma, although not much sweetness.  There is a touch of stouty earth, perhaps.  The taste starts with a little bitterness, easily linked to the coffee, with a bit of sweetness to balance.  At the end of the swallow, there's a high note of maple, a lot like maple candies.  The name works out after all.  Something in the mix of flavors brings out some licorice, which isn't what I would look for in a stout, but it's not too much so it's bearable.  The beer is quite thick and a luscious mouthful, yet not leaving a lot of sticky aftertaste.  Despite being such a weighty drink, it doesn't really overload the stomach.  It's not a beer you would down without realizing it, but it's no difficulty to take in either.

Supplier: Labirratorium

Price: €8.55

trickling west

Although La Cervecista might be thought of as a crafty rather than craft store, there are good beers for sure.  Especially in the Czech selection, Primátor is there, as well as Bernard!  I have not seen Bernard for quite some time in the Spanish stores, so I shouldn't let this opportunity slide.  I had a little trouble deciding between the amber lager and the Bohemian lager, but in the end Bohemia seemed best.

A very classic look, dark straw yellow and perfectly translucent, not to mention the head sitting on top like frosting.  The aroma is a little bit cleaner and with less grass than some German lagers, but it's still identifiably in the type.  It's an interesting mix of apply sweet and beer bitter in taste.  The beer is a very light feeling liquid, a good choice for a summertime drink with a view of the street.  While it is incredibly easy to drink, it isn't a nothing beer and not quite like Corona or similar light beers fit for the beach.  I feel this is more of an urban beverage.  After a while I start picking up a little saltiness, kind of a sea-water sort of sensation, but not to an unpleasant level.  It's almost like having a salty dressing on a salad.  It's refreshing and calming at once, and with enough presence to be good company on an evening when temperatures are starting to fade from Madrid summer.

Supplier: La Cervecista

Price: €2.40

not the black forest, but ok

Más Que Cevezas had a shipment of Sibeeria a while ago, a brewery I haven't had the pleasure of coming across for quite some time.  Since the Sweet Baby Jesus incident, in fact.  It's exciting to see new beers come in, but an old friend is also nice to see.  I thought they would fly off the shelves, but there were a few left, of a couple of styles.  A couple of IPAs and a porter.  Ohhh, we all know which one I went with.  It's a vanilla and coconut porter, at a very mild 4.7%, and I was told a very easy drinking brew. 

It has a fairly thin appearance when poured, although the beige head is pretty frothy to start.  It does diminish quickly.  The strongest part of the aroma is definitely the coconut, it's almost like a piña colada.  Even the underlying scents are slightly sour and tangy, giving the beer a tropical feel in the nose.  The flavor is less tropical with the vanilla coming on strong, but the coconut still has a dominating presence.  It's smooth although it feels almost...oily?  Like coco butter I guess.  It remains constant in flavor balance all the way through, a nice light but filling drink, at home under a beach umbrella or shabby chic bar chair.

Supplier: Más Que Cervezas

Price: €5.07

modern specialties

Although there's quite a bit of standard German beer floating around, there isn't very much Czech beer.  Sure, you can find Pilsner Urquell, sometimes even unfiltered, and occasionally Staropramen or Kozel.  I've been told it's because Czech beer just doesn't travel very well.  I guess that's the mark of its delicate quality and natural ingredients, but every once in a while you do come upon something less usual.  I think the first time I had Primátor was with a "Prague Meal" during some beer/gastrofest years ago, although I might have picked one up from Cervezorama even before that.  Well, I got Exklusiv, a "light, strong beer", a while ago, but hung on to it without really knowing why.  I guess my future self knew it would be fitting to go with a talk about 19th century beer and brewing industry development, since that's when Bohemia's pilsner style took off.  Now, Exklusiv isn't a pilsner, in fact on their website they call it a Maibock, but it's an example of good beer and good Czech beer, so that's good enough for me.

It's surprisingly strongly colored, something like an Imperial IPA might come out, with an orangey beige head.  The aroma is slightly appley, but pleasingly tart.  The flavor is bitter, but it has an odd medley of bitters, with a range of notes and depth.  It certainly doesn't taste like chocolate, but that dark bitterness is there, all the way up to citrus pithy pokey bitter.  It's a light feeling beer, dancing over the tongue, and going down easy in spite of the strong flavors.  After a bit some sweetness starts to come out, sugary rather than syrupy as sometimes happens.  It seems like an interesting blend of a craft IPA and a lager, the kind of thing you might expect from a small craft brewery, but not from 19th century industrialists.  Not that they would tell anybody about anyway.

Suppler: La Buena Cerveza

Price: €3.29

june's rocky start

Oh there was a surprise waiting for me at La Buena Cerveza!  A Czech beer I haven't tried before!  I've been told the Czech beers don't travel well, especially the craft ones, due to their naturalness and lack of preservatives.  So, what we get are more industrial types, which aren't even the same as the are in Czechia.  I would guess Novopacké Granát isn't the same here as it is in its homeland either.  I was kind of excited to pick up a red ale now that summer is closing in, but it is actually a dark lager.  Maybe the name is for the rocky strength of the beer.

I was expecting a ruddier brew in spite of knowing it was a lager, but it's a healthy dark brown color, rather like a watered down porter.  Head just off-white, doesn't hang around too long.  It has a slightly tangy scent, but with a helping of central European lager smell.  Not a lot of taste at first, just a little bit of roundish bittersweet, but the sweetness grows in the aftertaste.  It also develops a tang after actually leaving the mouth.  There are the odd high notes, almost citrusy, but for the most part it's a standard sweetish lager beer.  It has a pretty light feel, so in spite of the heaviness implied by the hue, it really isn't bad for a summer evening.

Supplier: La Buena Cerveza
Price: €2.40

sweet baby jesus is right

Ahhhhh, an unintentional hiatus due to technological difficulties.  But, now we can get back to it and, oh dear, it’s the end of my Czech beers that I dragged back with me!  Guess I’ll have to revisit in the near future.  I saved the best for last, at least according to my tastes, Sibeeria’s Sweet Baby Jesus.  A milk stout, appropriately.  Sibeeria was one of the more prolific breweries that I encountered, being represented in all the little craft bars.  At Beer Geek they had a good five or six on tap.  They weren’t the only ones, but I think Maly Velky is the only place I didn’t see any Sibeeria, and I could very well be misremembering.  Anyway, on to the grand finale.

Not pure black, but a nice dark chocolate brown and a very slight sweetish aroma.  The flavor is also very lightly sweet, no smoke at all in this stout.  It has kind of a caramel to it, but lighter than actual candy would be, and a touch of salt balances things out.  As it starts out sweet, I'm apprehensive that it will get sticky, but that remains under control to the end.  Although it does thicken up a little bit I wouldn't go so far as to say syrupy.  Also, an undercurrent of something not quite bitter develops and rumbles through on the way to the bottom of the bottle.  Still, the flavor and texture are even and calm with no big changes in the bitter/sweet balance from start to finish, which isn't really a miracle, but it's a damn fine job.

Dear Baby Jesus, send me more stouts for X-mas?

one more saturday night

I have yet another bottle spirited onto my check-in in my fridge.  This one's a lager, so a nice laid-back kind of beer for a rainy evening I expect.  There's a stout waiting, but with any luck it will be chilly next week.  Probably not, though.  This Ostroff is a half-dark lager, made by Falkenštejn in collaboration with Hotel Ostrov in "Bohemian Switzerland".  It's a fairly standard sounding beer, not quite 5%, so a nice thing to have after an afternoon of hiking around mountains and woods.

Very slightly sweet aroma, a little bit sour in there too.  Mostly, it's lager smell.  Fluffy head, dies back pretty quickly, but keeps a little fuzzy cap over the top.  Although the beer is unfiltered the color is clear, with no cloudiness at all, and a warm coppery dark gold.  The taste hits with sour first, but a toasty graininess comes up from the depths.  It seems like there's some bittersweet in the background also, but they're fighting it out to see who gets to be noticed.  The bitter starts to gain ground after about half the glass.  Towards the end, though, the beer gains some weight and dials up the sweet.  It becomes more like a typical central European lager in flavor, with a touch of that grassiness, although the sour never goes away completely.  Not an especially demanding beer, could be very nice for an evening drink, all-day hike or not.

memories

Ugh!  Somehow my first Saturday back and I wasn't prepared for my special beer!  Other organzing left me with no camera, and I don't think it's the same posting with no pictures.  You wanna see that label, right?  Anyway!

I brought a little of my August with me, braving the airplane ride swaddled in laundry.  It tends to work alright.  I tend to end trips with a lot of laundry.  From the good Beer Geek I purchased several, this one being a nice, light NEIPA with a kind of heavy name: 5$ Milkshake IPA.  (That currency sign placement...sigh)  Although the name Chroust Brewing looks familiar, I don't think I ended up sampling any of their products.  It must be high time to do so, then.

Guess it's the skates that make it five bucks

There's a refreshing, fruity scent right away upon opening it up, not quite as citrusy as most craft IPAs, but along the lines of what NEIPA is shaping up to be.  The head starts out white and abundant but settles right down into a thin foam just covering the top of the beer.  The beer itself is cloudy, a kind of rosy orange color, I say more grapefruit than milkshake there.  There's a quick blast of grapefruit flavor in fact, but it melts away into a more generalized bitter, but a soft edged sort of taste.  It does feel a little insulated, like some ice cream had been melted into it (beer floats, where have you gone??), keeping the sharpness of the ale wrapped in a very palatable blanket.  Let it stand for a while and a sweet taste does develop over the top, perhaps with a touch of vanilla to it.  It has the juiciness of a good NEIPA for sure, a solidly fruity flavor overall.  Still, it's not lacking in beer bitter, providing a good balance of tastes, and is no featherweight.  It feels substantial in the mouth without being sticky or overbearing.  Quite a good candidate for any time of year, interesting enough on its own, but not so complex as to be distracting.  Ah, it's good to be home...

winding down

Time just flies, that bastard.  Maybe it's fitting that the last place I had time to stop in is called Zlý Časy.  It doesn't look like there's much to it from the street, but it's much bigger than it appears.  It's not like a Tardis or anything, it just has room after room of tables, and several small bars on different levels.  Each area is cozy enough, and there's a nice patio - except today the neighbors seem to be doing some loud work.  Still looks nice.

Šnezova dark lager looked pretty good for an afternoon, although in the glass it's not particularly dark looking.  It's not especially strong in aroma, and the flavor is also very mild.  It's just a touch of bitter which disappears rapidly, none of the Central European grain- or grassiness.  For the most part it's a quiet and unassuming beer, a little bitter buildup at the back of the throat.  While it looks bubbly, and was very foamy from the tap, it has a very smooth texture.  A weirdly fruity taste starts to develop after a while, sort of banana-like.  I am pretty sure this is not a witbier, or has anything to do with that style.  It's not a distraction, really, although it is an odd thing to notice.  Still nice and relaxing overall.

flashback

So, there's another Bad Flash bar, not in an inconvenient location.  I thought I should visit them too, since I'm here and all.  The selection was similar, as was the decoration, although not quite the same.  Not as many mirrors, for one thing.

The stout from last time was there, but a black IPA can be about as good for me.  Bad Flash Black List could fool you into thinking it's a stout if all you go on is sight.  It has a real IPA aroma, though, tingly, hoppy, bright and citrusy.  There's kind of a burnt orange flavor, mostly smoky with a hint of sweet orange underneath.  A little heavy for an IPA, probably because of the toastiness, but generally smooth.  Well, the beginning of the sip is smooth anyway, the biting IPA presence comes roaring out pretty quickly.  Still, it's a good balance of sharp-sour IPA and smoky black beer, a bit more weight on the ale.  By the end of the glass it has distilled into a rather mild IPA, relinquishing a lot of the smoke from the beginning.  The flavor stays dark, quite pleasant even for a warm evening.

Next I had something on the lighter side, BF/Thornbridge Hoppy Lager.  It's a good beery color, like honey, with a light and somewhat thin foam on top.  Not terribly aromatic, a little bit of a hoppy funk and an underlying graininess.  Smells like a lager, really.  There's a surprisingly dark and even spicy bitterness in the flavor, not the bland grassy sweet the scent had led me to expect.  I find it peppery, with a fairly dry hoppy background.  It doesn't take long to settle down into a more typical lagery presentation, with a bitter front end blending into a sweeter, grainier tail.  Even as the taste falls into a general beeriness the smell remains a little prickly, even devilish, with a hint of sulfur.

While I was there they tapped a stout, so that couldn't go untasted.  Bad Flash Torpid Mind Die-Hard Imperial Stout is beautiful in the glass, with a fine dark color and a light beige head of good consistency.  The aroma is a little sour and wild, slightly fruity.  Like a chocolate raisin bar, maybe.  There is a definite bit of chocolate in the taste, but fruitiness follows right along, kind of a dried fruit I'd say.  It's not soft and subtle enough to be plummy, there's certainly a higher note to it.  Maybe grapey?  It keeps the sour chocolate flavor with a little bit of typical stout earthy bitter resting on top.  It's a snappy and attention grabbing stout, on the arrogant side even, but within reason.

There are some waiters who do their jobs very well, maybe even too well.  I was ready to leave, but got talked into one for the road, Zichovec Jane's Paradise APA.  I feel like it's nice to leave on a lighter note anyway.  The aroma is very aley, hoppy, a little pick-me-up.  The taste is citrusy, of course, but quite light.  It's fairly typical for a pale ale, although I get a bit of clove in there too.  Very nice to finish a night on.  Or begin, I guess.  It looks like I forgot to get a picture of it; enjoy the decoration of the bar instead!

Of course, when you're done drinking you have to walk home.  Or to the bus stop.

no acid

 My saga of good beer bars continues with an afternoon in Bad Flash.  There are actually two bars by the name (same place, different locations) and this one was a little more convenient to get to after class.  The other might be better for the weekend.  There's a respectable selection of beers on tap, mostly varieties of ale, but but there was also a stout!  Yippee!

No cool punny name for it, just BF/Kamenice stout.  It's a rich dark brown, with a vanilla-looking head.  The aroma is mildly sour, somewhat milky, but not spoiled.  The most noticeable part of the taste is the bitter, but it isn't terribly strong.  It's just little hints of coffee and a small poof of dark chocolate in the aftertaste.  It feels powdery somehow, although it still goes down smoothly enough.  The bitter starts to flatten out after about half the glass, leaving more of a milk chocolate sensation, nothing too sweet, fortunately.  It's also not a sticky or syrupy stout, just a basic black beer.  The feel is constant to the end, slightly dusty but otherwise clean and not clingy on the way down.  A real fine specimen.

Since I was there, it seemed like a waste to have just one.  Maybe something lighter to end on.  But not too much lighter...amber ale?  There's BF Zley Blesk American Amber Ale, so yeah.  This beer is a lovely rusty toast color, head about the same as on the stout.  The scent is sharper, sweeter, more citrusy.  It's not spicy like an IPA, but snappy and summery.  The taste has a good balance of bitter and sweet, making a refreshing drink.  Smooth oranginess washes over first with a seasonal flare, but a firm base of bitter is there to keep things under control.  It's also a clean flavored beer, not much lingering or stickiness.  The citrusy sweet stays at the heart of the taste, surrounded by a thin skin of pithy bitterness.  There's also a tad of sour, also leaning toward a citrus source.

Outdoor seating

Comfortable chairs

Lots of mirrors

Dog friendly, if that's a thing you need

familiar

While lots of beer stores in Madrid have taps, not all of them have separate stores and bars.  Well, none of them really.  That is, they don't share names.  Beer Geek, however, has its bar on one street and the beer store just a couple blocks away, and the store has taps too.  It's the familiar set-up, with all the shelves rattling full of bottles of many lands, including Edge Brewing, the lone representative of Spain that I saw.  I'm not quite in a position to be hauling bottles around at the moment, so I have to settle for a drink in situ.

Both taps were Czech beers, number one being Matuška pale lager.  It has a classic color and good white head, with a slightly grainy smell.  There is a strong grain taste, a bit sweet at first, then bitter oozes up from the bottom.  It's a also a tad sting-y, and sticks around at the back of the mouth and the top of the throat.  It's a robust kind of lager, deeper bitter than the standard varieties, and despite developing some tolerance for the bitterness, I find it never goes away entirely.  The graininess descends into a mild sour after a few minutes, although the level of sourness remains pleasant to the end.

Skol!

With time on my hands I went ahead and had a little of the other beer on tap too.  The Norwegian dude sitting at the counter seemed to think it should be taken off the menu to be enjoyed privately.  This was a Sibeeria creation, so a good brewery, and a session IPA, so not too much on top of the lager.  Léto (so appropriate) is a cloudy, lemony color, very thick headed, foam slow to dissipate.  It has a zippy light citrus scent, not overly orangey.  There is a stab of orange at first sip, but it quickly scatters into a rolling and very mild bitter.  It's an unassuming and fleeting flavor, clean drinking, very nice for a steaming summer day.  Probably on the light side for less oppressive weather, though.  Léto looks more like a NEIPA to me than Join, or Die did. It develops just a hint of identifiably lemony aroma, but actually gets less flavorful as time goes on.  Now, it could be due to some overloading of the taste buds, but this particular beer goes more watery than most I'm used to.  It was a damn good start, though.

little mysteries

The bartender at BeerGeek kindly gave me some recommendations for more places to explore for craft beer, one of them being Malý/Velký.  It's actually fairly convenient, being towards the other end of the nearby streetcar 22.  No transportation transfers!

It was a little strange to walk into.  The placard is in the street (which is in the midst of roadwork) and the sign is on the door, but it looks like you're just walking into an office building or something.  Then I saw a tiny mark on the far wall - M/V -> - which sent me past the door to the kitchen of the restaurant next door, and down a flight of stairs.  The bar is actually down there, quite cozy.  No flights here, so I just had to choose a couple.

First was Falkon Metropolitan session IPA.  It has a good color, slightly rusty, low head.  There's a clearly orange tendency in the aroma, but it's really not overwhelming.  There's not much spice to speak, in comparison with, say, All Day.  It's mostly a mild citrus sweetness.  The flavor is also a solid orange citrus, with barely any bitter at all.  That mostly comes out in the aftertaste.  It has rather a thick texture in the mouth, kind of rolls slowly through and down the throat.  It's a subdued sort of beer, while enjoyable.  It has good flavor but without complexity, easy to drink without feeling like you need to keep an eye on how many ingredients you can count.

I was in the "garden" at first, although I went inside after finishing the Metropolitan.  Just too hot outside, even in a patio.  There was a decrepit wooden floor out there, with one hole already in it, and shortly before I left a guy came and sat down in a chair on that wood and punched another hole in it.  Nobody seemed to be surprised or upset though, even him.

The previously existing hole

I was intrigued by Herr Axolotl, the raspberry Berliner Weisse.  That's not what I got though.  I'm not sure what it was, but it was not the pinkish beer that I think it should have been.  It was instead lemony and cloudy in color, not very aromatic.  There was an identifiable banana taste, but no raspberry whatsoever, very smooth and almost creamy.  It was something of a fruit cocktail sort of beer, although I guess it could have been a take on a Belgian witbier (none of the listed breweries for the taps were actually Belgian).  There was a little kick at the back of the throat, which wasn't quite citrusy in feel, but with some sharpness.  It wasn't a bad beer, especially on a sweltering summer night, but I'll be damned if I can tell you quite what it was.

Mystery!

geeking out

One of the most promising names on the list of potential beer places was Beer Geek.  How could you not love that?  It's a little bit of a journey, but simple enough to get there, and it's right across the street from the metro exit.  30 taps!  A good number of them are national craft beers too.  Ah, familiar ground!  I went for a flight, thinking that would be the best way to get a range of flavors without loading up too much on the alcohol before a long trip back.  I mostly managed to get different breweries too.

The H11 was still calming down.  Each beer got a photo on Beer In One Word

First up was Antoš Chocholáč pineapple gose.  It's pale, with a slight head, not much pineapple noticeable in the aroma.  The gose sour is there, but a second sniff reveals a little more fruit.  It does not, however, have a great deal of pineapple flavor.  It's dry, with a champagne-like feel, tart with an underlying bitter.  I can't quite pick out the pineapple at first, but it's a nice snappy day drink.  After a few minutes warming up though, there's pineapple to spare.

Next, Hendrych H11 pale lager.  Still starting off light.  It's a more typical beer color, and very foamy out of the tap but the head dies back pretty quickly.  Normal lager aroma, a bit sweet and grainy, with sort of an oaty background to it.  The taste hits with a strong bitter on top but gentle grassiness underneath, very much a Central European beer in that regard.  I find it a bit strong flavored for casual sipping, odd for a lager, but H11 is a strong contender to accompany an evening of brooding.

I was looking forward to seeing the take on NEIPA with Sibeeria's Join, or Die.  Similar in color to the lager, but with a much brighter aroma, citrusy and spicy.  The taste isn't as juicy as previous NEIPA's I've had, but a strong citrus flavor is present, very smooth and sort of creamy.  There's also a touch of bitterness, but it seems to be hiding in the background.  While not as singular as, say, La Quince's Green Mind, it's quite alright, except for the little flowery poof it develops when it warms up.  That's more like Valverde, no NEIPA at all.

Moving on, there was Cobolis Bavorská Pšenice dunkels weissbier.  Now we're getting a little more color.  It's ruddy and a little cloudy, something like a red ale, but the aroma is different altogether.  It strikes me as bacon/hammy.  The first sip is sweet, but then the smoked meat starts to bleed through, and it seems to be a bit oily in the mouth.  There's also a sour flavor that floats up from the sweet and makes a kind of bridge between the "vegetable" and "meat" flavors.  It's not what I expected, and I don't think I'll be in any hurry to try it again.

The last of the flight was another Sibeeria, Polární Noc Imperial Stout.  It'll be good to get that dunkels out of my mouth.  The beer is a good dark color, opaque black, dark beige head, not too strong of an aroma, perhaps a little touch of licorice.  With one sip there's an explosion of smoke and dirt (in the good way!) in the mouth, giving up a rounded sort of bitterness.  Again, there's something kind of hiding behind the main stage flavor, maybe peeking out from behind the scenery.  This time it's that sweetish licorice.  The stout earthiness does its best to upstage it though, and for the most past succeeds, which is perfectly satisfactory to my taste buds.

I couldn't resist one more stout before I left, and All-Stars Pizza Port Night Surfer was something new for me.  It's an oatmeal milk stout, so not too heavy just before hopping into the metro.  This beer is also nice and opaque, with just a little bit of light at the bottom of the glass.  The head is off-white, but not too resistant.  It has a very smoky taste for a milk stout, perhaps a bit of coffee mixed in, but I find it a bit clingy to in the throat.  Doesn't go down quite as cleanly as that Polární Noc.  Still, it's a flavorful and tasty stout, balanced in its bitterness, and goes to the bottom of the glass with no surprises.  What else do you want, really?