Three more visits to Northern Europe from King River Brewing, one of them a brand new release in collaboration with their mates at Good Land Brewing, and two their 2024 vintages of a pair of higher ABV seasonals.
Kicking off with the collab, the idea behind Heukeller Helles was to create an Oktoberfest style lager with newer European hop varieties derived from the classics usually found in such beers. And I have to say it brings to mind the old "Nature vs nurture" discussion around kids, where parenthood has taught me nature is by far the stronger force, essentially leaving nurturing as doing your best to ensure your kids don't grow up to be dickheads.
What that means here is that the sort of characteristics you associate with traditional and noble German lager hops remain to the fore ahead of the fruitier ones breeders have been attempting to elicit in recent years. What's more, while it might seem odd to tell someone raised on juicy pales and hazy IPAs that this is highly-hopped, it sure is; it's just that the aromas could be described as “classically lager”: hay / straw piled in a stack atop a pleasantly rounded body and leaving the grainy malts little room to make themselves known. You could argue the hoppiness – still earthy and hay like, with a little ripe melon in the mix to taste, and long in the tooth – puts it more in pils than helles territory. Either way, this is very much of the Northern Hemisphere rather than anything New World.
My Ambrosia is King River's take on the maibock style, paler and hoppier than most bocks while still pretty high in alcohol content. Here, the caramelised malts come across as light treacle with a hint of sponge cake – there's even a hint of banana bread in there too. Deep copper in colour and laced with stewed fruits – apricots and currants – mingling with fruitcake spices that share common ground with the maibock's beery neighbours to the west, it's gently warming and crying out for a pork knuckle as accompaniment.
As for the 2024 Biere De Garde, this amber farmhouse ale is all about subtle bread / toffee malts and gentle fruity spices (I'm going with ripe apricot for the former, allspice for the latter), all wrapped up with a dry, lightly phenolic finish.
James Smith
NB You can watch or listen to King River founder Nathan Munt's story in Episode 011 of The Crafty Pint Podcast.
Published October 4, 2024 2024-10-04 00:00:00
