Bottle from Martin’s. Clean gold with a thin head. Aroma of tart apple. Sour apple, tart dry fruit, cider sweet acidic finish.

Draught at Whelans craft bar. Black with a large tan head. Aroma of malt and coffee. Flavour is creamy vanilla, malt, coffee, fig rolls, lovely.

Bottle 330ml (AbM). Slightly hazy orange color, medium-sized white head. Light white pepper and yeast. Medium-bodied. Estery Belgian yeast flavour, light pepper and banana. Some alcohol. Quite simple.

Can. Milky golden body with a thin white head. Low carbonation. Faint lacing. Aroma of apricot, custard and peach. Flavour of metal and orange pith. Thin body with a watery texture. Soft fizz. Light and inoffensive.

Keg at Londkn Beer Lab - Brixton. Pours clear red-pink with a bubbly, white head. Andy-like berries in the nose, cherry, citrus, a light her a note. Light sweet flavour with assertive tartness, lemony acidity, more tangy candies, salt. Light bodied with spritzy carbonation. Quenching finish, more tart berries, very slight gingery spice, some berry medicinal notes, more lemon, asp berry seeds. Fun stuff.

Draft at Murphy’s Law, The Hague. Hazy golden orange with an off white head. Aroma of light fruits, green weeds, spicy notes and yeast. Flavour is light moderate sweet and moderate to heavy bitter. Medium bodied with soft carbonation.

Sour ale from one of these new Irish craft breweries (good to see that Ireland too has its own craft beer revolution since a number of years), dry hopped and coriandered, so a mixture of styles I guess... Bottle from Beergium. Egg-white, coarse and rather loosely structured head quickly receding to a thinnish rim and a few patches in the middle eventually all but disappearing, over a remarkably pale, initially clear yellow blonde beer with vaguely greenish hue perhaps and quite lively sparkling, looking exactly like some cheap, thin industrial pale lager but turning hazy with deposit and then becoming more Berliner Weisse-like in general looks. Aroma is altogether very different, of course: lemon candy (’Napoléon’), lemon zest, lots of soap (wheat), Key lime pie but only the limes, sourdough, freshly grated ginger, white grape peel, dried field flowers, dry hay, hard unripe plum, chalk, raw rhubarb, hint coriander seed but not over the top, starfruit. Very crisp onset, fizzy but in a ’refined’, cider-like way so not numbing at all, low in sweetness but outspoken in sourness, like an unripe, wry and hard plum or Granny Smith apple, drying, mouthwatering and explicit, though not too puckering; supple, light, slick mouthfeel. The drying, softly lemony sourness is key here and carries on till the finish, where it connects with a zesty hop touch, more aromatic than bitter; pale malt sweetishness and unmistakable, more prevalent wheat soapiness pass by below. Finish is gently dried by the sourness along with the hops, which, as said, remain very modest in their bittering abilities; soapy coriander accentuates the soapiness of the wheat and actually fits in quite well here. Chalkiness lingers afterwards, like in a typical Berliner Weisse. Lots of flavour for a beer below 4% ABV, very suitable as an apéritif I suppose, clearly based on the Berliner Weisse theme but turned into ’modern craft’ by the (limited) dry-hopping and (perhaps Gose-inspired) coriander addition. Crisp, zesty and sour without burning the taste buds, this is a very elegant, quenching ’session sour’. Lovely little beer!

Bottle from The Beerhive. Hazy golden body with a medium white head. Steady carbonation. Good lacing. Aroma of wheat, white pepper, pine and peach. Flavour of creamy orange, peanut and bitter hops. Medium body with a smooth texture. Soft fizz. Tangy and bitter. An interesting IPA.