Mikkeller Hair In The Mailbox Can from Marks & Spencer, Manchester Victoria Station. Golden with a head. Mildly fruity in its both its aroma and taste, the beer’s strength is notable in its aftertaste. Hoppy, especially in its nose.

This is now a standard supermarket beer. Shows how far we've come. It's ok, but nothing special.

Decent hoppy pale ale

Another Mikkeller IPA apparently intended for a larger audience, longneck bottle from an Albert Heijn supermarket. Very thick, rocky, irregular but dense and stable, thickly and intricately cobweb-lacing, eggshell-white head over a lightly hazy, warm and pure yellowish 'old gold' coloured beer with a few lonely, tiny bubbles here and there; shifts to a full, deeper apricot-hued haze with sediment added. Aroma of pine resin and cedar essential oil, yellow grapefruit, dried or lightly toasted onion flakes, soggy white bread, crushed pink peppercorns, some guava, unripe pear, old garlic, baking soda, brown soap, vague note of stale sweat and even very faint manure somewhere. Sweetish onset but subduedly so, hinting at green banana, unripe pear, unripe melon and freshly cut apple, quite vivid carbonation with subtle minerally 'stings' everywhere but not obnoxiously so, slick and lean mouthfeel; white-bready wheat flake slickness and soapiness merges with a cereally barley character, superseded by a piney and pepper-corny hoppiness, perfumey cedar and subtle oniony notes retronasally, depositing a long, drying, resinous, grapefruity bitterness on the tongue, lasting for quite a long time. Not entirely sure what the intention was here, but it seems like trusted Mikkeller is looking back at the early days of American style IPA, with a resinous, grapefruit peel- and pine resin-like character you don't see very often anymore these days - in other words, a clear nod to the American West Coast origins of the flagship of international craft beer styles. Suitable introduction to 'old school' IPA, I reckon, quite enjoyable and quenching without being overly flamboyant. On a side note, as I was thinking in the supermarket in question when I stumbled on this: it says enough about the Dutch craft beer movement's rapid and enthusiastic development in the past dozen years that their supermarkets make room for a number of perfectly acceptable modern IPAs like this one in their shelves. Mikkeller can only thrive in such a climate, I suppose.

From M&S Waverley Station consumed from the can on a severely overcrowded train to Birmingham New Street. Melon, peach & grape aroma. Appearance - unknown. Medium bodied, tickly on the palate with a greasy cloying back. Lemon, pith grape, grass & mango tastes. Deece

Can from Marks and Sparks .Nose is grapefruit, lime, floral, hint of pine. Taste is crisp, grapefruit, lime, lychee, over ripe mango, greek honey and spruce in the finish. Full mouthfeel. A really well balanced IPA.

An light orange beer, a head is medium, blond and slightly clouding. Aroma has citrus, some herbs and fruit candy. Taste has fruitness, tropical mango, citrus, medium bitterness. Good.

33cl can from M&S, Bracknell. A pale amber pour with a billowing cream head; tropical fruit aroma with the merest hint of paint stripper; creamy body with a fruity taste; then a resinous bitterness with a touch of spice; before a dry fruity finish. Rather good.