The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed over the past couple of weeks that I have gone on a bit of a tour of Europe – first Sweden, then Poland and now I’m going further east with a couple of beers from the unlikely location of Hungary.
Sadly though, sourcing these beers did not itself involve a sweep across the continent, but broadening beer horizons has always been my thing and the aptly named Horizont brewery opened up a new front for me in Hungary.
As much as it is a country I wouldn’t have associated with craft beer, it has always been one not shy of innovation – the Magnificent Magyars who taught England a footballing lesson in the 1950s are testament to that fact.
Where beer is concerned, Horizont first opened in 2016, back when it seemed most of the world was turning inwards. However, these guys were breaking new ground and a year later one of their brews even picked up the prestigious Alltech Craft Beer Cup in Dublin.
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So I got my hands on a couple of their cans and first up was Morning Joe, a 6 per cent coffee stout.
This is a firmly established style now, which tends to go by the alternative label of ‘breakfast stout’, given the presence of coffee and oatmeal. Not that it would be overly advisable to chug down a 6 per cent beer at that time of the day, but each to their own.
Morning Joe pours a jet black colour in the glass with a light tan head. There are some gentle coffee aromas, but nothing particularly overpowering.
The coffee flavours are ‘as advertised’ but the oatmeal lends a smooth, slightly creamy mouthfeel and there’s a few little sweet hints of chocolate poking.
It’s a decent stab at the style and it’s not particularly heavy, given the relative strength.
Drinking it for breakfast might not be for the delicate of stomach and the name of the next beer might not be for the delicate of sensitivities.
Gentle Bastard is an American-style IPA, which ironically comes from the eastern end of Europe.
It pours a dark amber colour with a fluffy white head and fires off some lovely tropical aromas.
There’s some sweet biscuity malt on the palate before flavours of peach and mango flood through with an underlying citrus vibe throughout.
It’s not overly bitter, definitely leaning more towards the east than west in US terms, which is probably apt for a Hungarian beer.
