With what Põhjala and other Estonian craft brewers did with the old Baltic porter, one could almost forget that its natural range stretched beyond the actual Baltics, into Russia and Scandinavia but also Poland, where the versions of Okocim and Zywiec were the last remaining ones kept alive before the advent of craft beer. After the craft beer movement had arrived, Stu Mostów made a voluminous contribution to the style, enriching it with the same kind of adornments often applied to imperial stout - in this case flavouring it with roasted coconut and toasted Palo Santo wood. Can from Être Gourmet. Dense, quite thick and firm, deep greyish beige, creamy, regular head, sparsely lacing over a black robe with deep ruby red glow only visible under bright light and at the outer edges. Intense aroma of the Palo Santo, almost sandalwood- and tonka-like, slivovitz or calvados, melting black chocolate, clear coconut piercing through, nougat, coffee cream, hint liquorice, paraffin, bayleaf, wood glue. Sweet onset but not sugary, rounded candied date-, candied plum- and dried apple peel-like aspects, finely tingling carb, very light umami touch (black olive) before moving into a full, layered dark maltiness, dark-chocolatey in its core, vaguely caramelly and coffeeish, marmite- and toast-like but more sweet than bitter, with the sweet effect accentuated by the aroma of the coconut - although the fact that it has been roasted, adds to the bitter side without becoming deeply roasty as a whole. Leafy hops enter before the Palo Santo wood does its thing, shrouding everything in this exotic, sandalwood- and marzipan-like fragrance which last forever retronasally. Alcohol, however, gets the last word again, becoming slivovitz-like as they make them in Poland and beyond: crude, wry and hot. It thins and dilutes the delicate malt effects and leaves an unpleasant bitterness on the root of the tongue which clearly does not come from hops or roastiness. For this alone, a notch below true greatness for me - which is the case with everything I had from this brewery so far: always close, but never a cigar.

One does not encounter an orange beer very often - I do remember a couple of beers using blood orange (as an extra in a more complex concept), some yuzu-flavoured beers and even an experimental mandarin lambic, but never one using the common orange. I am therefore inclined to approach this Two Chefs interpretation with caution... Can from an Albert Heijn supermarket (I think). Thin and open, off-white, hardly lacing, feeble head eventually dissolving completely (the oil in the oranges has a 'head-negative' effect I fear); near clear, warm yellow-golden robe with sparse sparkling. Aroma of indeed - and I do not believe I ever had it this clear in any other beer - orange juice and not even in an overly artificial way but quite 'real', orange zest too, soggy white bread, cheese spread somewhere, margarine, oatmeal porridge (unsugared), sweat, wild berries, chalk. Tart onset but softly so - as typifies a Philly sour, which is basically what this is - with apple- and nectarine-ish side flavours drowned out of course by the orange, with all its sour-sweetishness and citric 'fraîcheur', but perhaps just a tad less strong than I was expecting based on the nose. Light yoghurty and sour cream-like sourness, highlighted by the natural citrusy sourness of the orange, accompanies a slender wheaty and 'oaty', grainy, slick middle, towards a finish where the lactic 'Philly' effect and the orange citrusiness combine in a more powerful, concise, indeed 'sunny' way. Light chalkiness and a very mild grassy hop bitter touch, as brief as it could have been, flare up in the finish, but ever so subtly. Philly sour ale with orange flavour: a first for me, and I honestly did not expect this from Two Chefs, always one of the more 'commercial' new generation craft brewers in the Netherlands but never the most inventive or innovative one. Summer sour 'par excellence'.

After missing out on the 2024 edition of this long-standing series of green hop ales by De Ranke, I was not going to skip the 2025 one, bottled in October last year so now ten months old. Thick and frothy, foamy, eggshell-white, coarse, fluffy and rocky head, lacing in 'Brugse kant' and slowly thinning over an initially near clear, warm golden robe with pale orangey glow and some thin strings of visible sparkling, turning misty and more deeply peachy further on to even a murky beige in the very end. Noble hops meet the nose from half a yard away, dominating impressions of dried chamomille, tulips, white bread dough, raw turnip, lots of young wormwood leaf, grapefruit zest, parsley, unripe peach, wet nutmeg, hard pear, tonic water, touch 'herbes de Provençe', straw. Spritzy onset, strongly stinging carb detracting a bit from the fruitiness, which, though not sweet, is certainly there - as in hard, unripe fruit (peach, pear, apple); minerally carbonation pierces through a very bready core, pale malt of course but also yeast, with clove- and nutmeg-like phenols here and there. The overall dryness is amplified by the hops at an early stage, coming in with robust bitterness in a herbal and 'meadowy' way (think bitter weeds like mugwort, yellow rocket or tansy), eventually becoming peppery, grapefruit peel- and tonic water-like, stretching out into the finish very extensively - making said finish go on forever. Yeasty breadiness lingers as well, but the hops are, as it ought to be in this series of course, the star of it all, in an earthy, very 'European', noble and tonic-y way. I love a good old-fashioned bitter blond the Belgian way - De Ranke's own XX Bitter not being far away here - and I have enjoyed this series many times, in varying ages and conditions, but every iteration is always something new. This 2025 edition, in that sense, has its own character, seemingly even a bit more bold than many of the ones that preceded it - if only I could obtain the 2024 edition I missed, for the sake of comparison... Who knows, I may still stumble upon it, but the power of the hops will probably have waned a bit by then - which cannot be said of this ten month old 2025. Love it, and love De Ranke.

In the earlier days of craft brewing, when everything was still under exploration, I have sometimes wondered why "mixed fermentation" always seemed to involve top fermentation combined with (spontaneous or not) bacterial fermentation and why such an 'intermediate stage' did not exist between bottom fermentation and bacterial fermentation - at least not deliberately or in the shape or form of any tradition. The 'souring' of a bottom-fermented beer is of course perfectly possible according to the same procedures as souring a top-fermented beer, but the combination is still very rare and I think this beer from a local brewery in Richmond, Virginia may well be only the second one I encounter. Anyway, sobre yet elegant label on a 500 ml bottle stating that it was aged in red wine barrels too. Huge thanks and big cheers to Lauren and Morgan for this one! Firm and frothy, snow white, irregularly edged, cobweb-lacing, slowly breaking but generally very well-retaining head (until it eventually does dissolve) on a near clear, peach blonde robe with warm 'old golden' glow and some minute-bubbled, very sparse sparkling; turns cloudy peach with sediment. Aroma quite lambic-y at first glance, more so even than I was expecting - almost like sniffing a glass of geuze; impressions of sour apple and crushed green gooseberry, unripe grape, wet oak wood, sour cream, kefir, wood sorrel, petrichor, red wine as such remaining in the background but a tad more noticeable warming up and providing a subtle layer of complexity, unripe nectarine, barnyard, vague notes of dry green tea, limestone, sweaty feet, buttermilk and sulfur. Tart onset, again very lambic- or geuze-like, softish in carbonation (but a beer like this does not need more effervescence), fruity with notes of Granny Smith apple, gooseberry, unripe nectarine and unripe grape, but seemingly just a notch less estery than a 'normal' sour ale would be - probably because of the lager basis; smooth and vinous body, lovely yoghurty and green-fruity sourness remaining stable till the end, providing fraîcheur and some complexity. Retronasally, both a buttermilk-like scent and sweaty funkiness appear, very 'bacterial', 'animalistic' as it were - but entertaining enough, and working well with the sourness and the woody touch from the wine barrels. Flavour-wise too, the red wine remains in the background, not opening up as such but providing more vinosity and tart fruitiness than would probably have been the case had it not been there. Slight herbal hop bitterishness (hay, green tea) very subtly lingers in the tail, intertwining with the tannins from the wood and the sourness from the bacteria. Generally feels like a basic blonde sour ale, reminiscent of e.g. Alvinne's early dabblings in that genre (think Omega, Phi and Sigma back in, what was it, 2008?); that said, the level of esteriness is perhaps a bit lower because this one departs from a lager - resulting in an odd straddle in which the sour ale principle is a bit 'cleaned up'. Sour lager is the right word here, interesting enough as such, with the wine barrel treatment being a useful addition to the basis, as it adds elegance, warmth and fruitiness, even a very vague touch of sweetness. Quite subtle, in all, especially for an American sour - every bit as elegant and vinous as I was hoping.