QUICKTAKE: Green Flash Imperial India Pale Ale

Oh, what can you say?, maybe as it says on the bottle;

"Its all about the hops!"

This is a beer from San Diego and is in the category "San Diego style IPA"; meaning a super-hoppy, high gravity ale, and probably everything I want in a beer, at least when I have my hop-monster moments.

The beer has a very orange color with a light high head. It has a aroma with citrus and pine hints. And the taste is a strong hoppy backbone with the same pine and citrus touches as in the aroma. This is a real hop-monster (101 IBU) but still very balanced and extremelly easy to drink, only problem is that you want more of it. With 9% ABV it feels amazing that you can create such a great beer when the alcohol is not noticable as in this beer.

Great brew, and as the brewmaste says; "Its all about the hops!".

This beer is really amazing and I am already rearranging my toplist to find a suitable spot for it (not easy, but I will have it a try at least, :-)).

As a brewery I discovered this brewery during this years GABF and we tested both the pale ale, WIPA, and this IPA. For a small local brewery in San Diego and only 5 years old this is a great brewery and I will try to test more of them as soon as I get the opportunity.


Green Flash West Coast IPA at Falling Rock in Denver

Cheers!

Flying Dog is moving...

Just got the information that the Colorado brewery Flying Dog is moving all brewing operations to Frederick, Maryland.

This is one of my favorite breweries the last couple of years and this seems to be a big step for the brewery. In reality it means all operations and that they are closing down all brewing in Denver.

"Here’s the word from president and CEO Eric Warner:"

As you may have heard, Flying Dog Brewery recently announced that we are embarking on the next step in our illustrious, 17 year history of crafting remarkable beer by concentrating all of our brewing and production to the brewery in Frederick, MD, where 70% of Flying Dog Beer is already being brewed. This move will take place in January and we are working to ensure that our entire production team will be able to make this move over to Maryland. Accounting, sales, marketing and other administrative functions will remain largely unaffected by this change and our HQ will remain in Denver.

We decided to make this proactive move as it has become increasingly important to be extremely nimble in today’s business environment. Only those who can quickly adapt in the hyper-Darwinian economy will survive and in today’s craft brewing landscape. We are facing unprecedented cost pressures due in large part to the tremendous hop and malt cost increases. Concentrating our brewing operations to one facility will help us become more efficient while maintaining our exceptionally high brewing standards. This is a smart, proactive move for our growing company and will allow us to most efficiently use our resources.

The Frederick facility is a state-of-the-art brewery that has already been producing great beer for Flying Dog and we look forward to ramping up production and growing our business even more than the +20% trends we are experiencing in 2007. The bottling line in Frederick has lower oxygen uptake at filling than the one in Denver, which translates to better flavor stability and longer shelf life. It also kicks out bottles at twice the pace of the line in Denver. The brewhouse in Maryland is also capable of brewing a wider range of recipes than the one in Denver. Finally, the brewery in MD plans on substantial capital expenditures and plant upgrades (close to a million bucks in 2008 alone) to continue to brew better beer in an efficient and environmentally friendly way

It will be interesting so see what this will mean for the brewery and what will actually happen with the current brewery in Denver. At least it feels good that we actually got to visit the brewery in Denver just a couple of months before it was closed. Anyway it seems that the change is not so drastic when you see that actually 70% is already brewed in Maryland. The plan is at least to grow and that is always good I guess. The company is on pace to brew 50,000 barrels of beer this year, a 20 percent increase.

A Real Ale report

Coming back from the city last night I did some more real ale experiences with beers and breweries not sampled before. From the real ale offering over at OT sampled to of them (very tired of Christmas beer so the Otter Claus was left out).

1. Robinsons Double Hop (Cask): A ESB brewed by Robinsons from Unicorn Brewery, Stockport, Cheshire, England. Reddish colored with a light head. Malty and hoppy aroma with some citric notes. Quite bitter finish, but ending quite fast. Not excellent but a decent ale and much better than the Christmas beer that I am so tired of right now. Simply refreshing and lite that you can drink more pints of.

2. Elgoods Old Black Shuck (Cask): A dark stout brewed by Elgoods brewery from Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, England. A balanced stout with pleasant roasted flavours. Coffee and caremel notes. Quite short on the finish but at the end a very decent and drinkable beer.

QUICKTAKE: New England Brewing, Atlantic Amber

Sampled last night over at Oliver Twist and the second beer from this brewery (the first one was the IPA (Sea Hag)).

This beer is of the style normally called "A California Common" which means a beer brewed with lager yeasts at ale temperatures. The style originates in 18th century California, where the brewers without access to refrigeration produced beers using lager yeasts in combination warm temperatures and then naturally cooled the beers on the roof tops of the breweries. The biggest beer in this style is probably the Anchor Steam range.

The beer is clear amber with a white head, quite malty aroma with a floral note and medium bodied. The taste consisted a light caramel sweetness, with hops arriving towards the end. Not amazing as the Sea Hag but a good representative of the style and always fun with a canned beer.



A fun thing about this beer is that it on the can says that the beer won a price as a "altbier"? over at GABF in 1993!. You could wonder how big this category was in 93 to be able to win Gold as a altbier. But based on the definition of altbiers it might have something in common;

"Traditionally fermented warm but aged at cold temperatures."

Cheers!

A beer trip of Norway?

If you ever wanted to do a beer trip in Norway then you should check this blog entry over at Knut Albert.

The micro market is very tiny in Norway but at least it is growing and based on the regulations in Norway it is impressive to see that some people dare to make a try of brewing beers at all.

How about something new?: Laughing Dog Brewing

Sometimes you feel just to promote new breweries that you discover and hopefully something that might be coming to a pub close to you. Small breweries are something that you as a beer geek always need to promote.

So if you ever see a beer from Laughing Dog Brewing you should definitely test it out. This is a tiny brewery that we discovered during this years GABF and the brewery is located in Selkirk Mountains just outside of Sandpoint Idaho and in the city of Ponderay. They produce a full range of beer style as; pale ale, IPA, Stout and ESB. The bottles all come with the Laughing Yellow Lab that appears on all of their brews and is Ben their family dog. The full range of beers looks like this;

1. Laughing Dog Pale Ale
2. Laughing Dog India Pale Ale
3. Laughing Dog Cream Ale
4. Laughing Dog Sweet Stout
5. Laughing Dog Crotch Sniffing Bastard (ESB)

And they also do an Imperial IPA called; Laughing Dog Devil Dog Imperial IPA.

All great beers, where my personal favorite was the pale ale, which a very hoppy aroma pale ale and balanced perfectly with a great mixture of malts. As a pale ale this is a perfect beer that is not too much of everything, simply a very balanced beer, but still with the citrus hop kick you want in a beer.

So remember this, if you see the beer, let them a go. Just saw that the beers are available over at; Belmont Station in Portland.

So when can we expect this beer over at Oliver Twist or Akkurat??

Buy a Idjit to your home...

Just read that through the result that Brill & Co has taken over the distribution of all beers from Dugges, it also means that directly a range of the beers will be available over at Systembolaget. As a start this means;

1. Gustafs Finger
2. Bältesspännaren
3. Kals Stout

all available on 0,5l bottles.

But the most interesting news is that Mikael over at Dugges also informs that during spring 08 we can look forward for "½ Idjit!" at Systembolaget and finally in the fall we can enjoy; Idjit!.

If you have missed the talk about the Idjit! range of beers, then here is a short recap;

½ Idjit! is a porter brewed by Dugges Ale & Porterbryggeri on the west-coast of Sweden. ½ simply means that it never went the whole way up to a full Idjit, so it just became of potent port at 7.0 ABV. It comes with a darkish color with a very thick tan head, coffee, choco and with a hint of liqorice flavour. Simply a amazing beer when it has been available.

Then to double that and brew something totally crazy Dugges is also brewing the full Idjit that can be described as big Imperial Stout at ABV 16.5!. Still only available as limited test brews this beer will be stored at least six months and seems to be a beer that might come up to the level as Imperial stout beers as Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter or Nøgne Ø Dark Horizon First Edition.

At least it has been a beer to wait for, and getting the news that we can actually buy it locally at the Systembolaget is great news, and much better than the hype with Kaggen that is a great beer but impossible to get hold of.

How about Scandinavian micros?

As an interesting reflection it seems that the times are changing in the Scandinavian beer scene, at least the tendency looks like that. What I am talking about is the fact that for years you have seen the Scandinavian micro beer scene evolve and grow steady with new Danish, Norwegian and Swedish micro breweries popping up each year.

But strangely enough it has been impossible to actually get hold off the beer between the countries. You were enjoying great new micros in Denmark but due to some reason you could not get a decent beer back home. It seemed odd by it was easier to get a great US-micro or a Belgian beer compared to you closest neighbors.

This was definitely the case between Denmark and Sweden. You have a close neighbor with great new beers but you had to pass the borders to actually get them. Why this was the case was a bit difficult to understand. Some explained that it was caused by different types of regulations, but that could not be the whole truth because why it then works for US-beers or other countries.

Others have explained that the breweries are so small so that they had to concentrate within their own market. And that is probably a big explanation, but also causes you to ask yourselves why it would be so difficult to sell a beer just a few miles between 2 cities just because we have a country border, and a country that should be so easy to export to.

The larger breweries actually instead did other varieties to the extreme where they export main street lager beers to countries like Denmark so that we the Swedes could buy them back, just because of the price. But you could not buy a great beer from the same country; just a Carlsberg and brewed in Sweden!

But then something changes.

You can not explain exactly when it actually happens, but it is small steps that you slowly notice and then suddenly something is different. What I mean is that suddenly you have seen the market to change. Not largely but at least for the better. These small changes that I have seen and has caused the market to change are as I see it;

1. Nøgne Ø being available as Christmas beer at Systembolaget in 2005\2006.

2. Also a short run of the Nøgne Øs Pale Ale an Amber ale at Systembolaget in 2006.

3. The Swedish\Danish beer match at OT in June 2007 (my blog entry), which made more people in Sweden being aware of the Danish and Swedish micro market

4. A returning sample of breweries from the beer match at Stockholm Beer in Oct 07

5. Nøgne Ø being sold by Brill & Co through Systembolaget during fall 07

6. Galatea starts to import; BB, Norrebro & Broeckhouse

Through these small steps and probably a few others that I have not seen or noticed myself you can actually get a decent micro brew from you closest neighbors.

Through Systembolaget(the Swedish Alcohol Retail Monopoly) and the so called "beställningssortimentet" you can now actually get beers from Nøgne (like; Nøgne Ø # 100!! (nr 89403)) (Brill & Co), Bryghuset Braunstein (BB), Noerrebro Bryggeri & Brøckhouse, all through Galatea.

In the better pubs like Bishops Arms, Oliver Twist (both Ølfabrikken and GB has been available after the summer) and Akkurat in Stockholm you can get the same beers.

This is not much if you actually know what is available in the micro market for each country, but it is at least something and represents a good collection of quality breweries. And if this is a trend we have something to look forward after.

I am not 100% sure but I also think that you can see the same trend in Norway and Denmark regarding Swedish beers. At least I have noticed that a brewery as Nils Oscar is available in Denmark through Ølbutikken in København and Dugges Ale- & Porterbryggeri has been available as draught version now since May 2007 over at "Den Tatoverede Enke" in Copenhagen. Dugges has actually made a special beer just for the Danish market and DTE in the form of; Enkens Brown Porter.

This is good trend and something that I think should be normal. Meaning that my personal opinion is that it should be natural to get a good micro beer from a neighborhood country and it should be no difference just because the beer is from Norway or Denmark.

Doing a comparison is that it is closer between Malmö Sweden and Copenhagen Denmark compared to Malmö and Stockholm or that it is very close between Oslo and Gothenburg.

So why should it be more difficult to get a beer from Norway in Gothenburg compared to a beer from the US or Belgium.

So now I am looking forward for some new great Norwegian micros, yes I know there are not so many out there, but those available are at least great.

So how about a beer from Haandbryggeriet in a pub close to me?

Getting close to the end...

Christmas has passed and we are getting close to also end 2007. Over at Oliver Twist we are also getting to the end of the OT US-draught attack.

I have personally just missed a few of them but it has been a great beer experience and a "ok" substitute for not being in the US and drinking them directly. So last night it was time for the last beer, at least the named ones (according to the list we can look forward for at least one more secret beer).

And this time it was the IPA from the Smuttynose brewery over at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

This beer has been a favorite on the bottle a couple of years and was surely a big hit a day after christmas and much better than all the christmas beers that you are really a bit fed up with right now. So the 20l keg came and went quite fast during the evening so at 21.00 it was emptied and the US-draught could be finished and passed to the beer history books.

Now we are already looking forward for the next batch of US-beers at OT that is scheduled for January or February.

Not much but...

anyway for you all out there;

A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Beer Year...

Work has taken all my time the last couple of weeks so I have not found the inspiration to fill my blog with any interesting things. Right now I have to spend a few days with my family, but I will hopefully be back in a day or so.

This Weekends beers...

The beers tasted during the last weekends pub crawl around the Stockholm beer scene turned out to be quite a impressive collection, or what?.

A great real ale from Orkney island + 4! US-beers on draught, that is really something. Seems that the Stockholm beer scene is getting better and better.

1. Stone Arrogant Bastard (draught version)
2. Moylans Moylanders Double IPA
3. Lost Abbey Red Barn Ale
4. Blue Point Hoptical Illusion (draught version)
5. Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine
6. Orkney Brewery Dark Island (real ale)
7. Hazelnut Brown Nectar(draught version)
8. Fort Collins Brewery Rocky Mountain IPA (draught version)

The return of the Rocky Mountain IPA outside Fort Collins

The attentive reader of my blog maybe remembers that I talked about a very small brewery outside Fort Collins that we visited during the GABF week in October.

The name is Fort Collins Brewery and they are producing a bunch of great brews, which is a great achievement for such a tiny brewery (5000 barrels).

The fun part about this was that they were a bit surprised that the IPA had been served outside Fort Collins, and outside Colorado, and even outside the USA, and not just the bottle!

Because the beer that was a couple of months old as a product was served both on bottle and even a draught version was served over at my local pub in Stockholm, Sweden, here is the proof; The OT US-draught list.

And now this strange and fun story continues, because today the Rocky Mountain IPA was served on draught for the second time outside the US (at least to my knowledge) and at a other location over at Akkurat.

And to be even more fun it was now served with a proper and genuin pump clip. The clip was brought directly by myself from the brewery during our visit to the tap room and was later delivered to "Rille" over at Akkurat during the Friday beer run.

He had built his own pump clip, but was very satisfied that I have been keeping the clip in my wallet since the visit to the brewery.

So thank you very much to the girl (do not remember your name) over at the tap room that gave away some valuable merchandise.

Now we are waiting for the Chocolate stout, or probably just me because I also have the clip for that beer kept in the wallet, :-).

For you guys over at the brewery, it seems that we over here in Sweden are still enjoying your beers although it is a bit of a secret how it has travelled over here. But I guess Jugge over at Oliver Twist has something to do with it, :-).

Anyway a great beer, and it was surely enjoyed by the rest of Akkurat beer geeks tonight. Akkurat only has 2x20l kegs so I guess the beer will be gone during the beginning of next week.

Rocky Mountain IPA served at Akkurat, with a proper beer clip.

And the beer served as the US-beer of the evening.

Also thank you very much for recognizing my little blog over at; BLOGS: Rocky Mountain IPA.

Great Real Ales in December + Harviestoun!

Oliver Twist in Stockholm is always a great place for really quality served Real Ales (not just micros from the US), and December looks like a good month.

Just noticed that a old favorite is returning next month in the form of the Scottish brewery Harviestoun. This was a favorite brewery for some years and a couple of summer months when it was the traditional Real Ale brewery of the summer at Oliver Twist.

Unfortunately it was purchased by the Caledion brewery in the fall of 2006 and the brewmaster quit (retired) at the time of the purchase. So it is not the same thing when the beer now returns as a real ale to OT, but still this brewery produces quality brews.

It is difficult to say if the beers are different now. I guess it is more connected with a feeling and not facts, but something is different just because it was bought by a macro-brewery. Still beers like Schiehallion (She-ha-li-on) is a very good lager beer (very hoppy and dry to be a beer from GB), that has been a favorite at OT during the summer months.

The other breweries and beers that will be available in December are the following;

1. RCH Brewery

1.1 Double Header
1.2 Firebox
1.3 Old Slug Porter

2. Elgoods Brewery

2.1 Greyhound
2.2 Old Black Schuck
2.3 North Brink Porter
2.4 Cambridge

3. Harviestoun Brewery

3.1 Schiehallion
3.2 Bitter & Twisted
3.3 Ptarmigan

RCH Brewery is new for me, seems to be a very small brewery in North Somerset, England, will be fun to test. The number one beer based on ratings seems to be the Old Slug Porter.

Yeah... A other Bastard at OT

Yes,
the Arrogant Bastard from Stone is back on cask at Oliver Twist (1x60l) and part of the on-going crazy US-draught beer list at OT in Stockholm.

This is probably one of the better beers in the world, not on my personal top list but as a beer it is simply amazing. And today it seems that it was really good stuff! because at the end it was the only beer for the wednesday visit, but 3 times!.

So people, if you want the beer, please hurry because today we already had a little party of people drinking the beer (including the people behind the bar), and we (myself and the gf had 5!). Meaning I watched at least 15 glasses being served within a couple of hours.

Current list of the crazy draught list looks like below;

NEWS: The London Beer Map

There is always fun with new ways to find good beer places and in a city like London it is great to be able find the particulary good ones.

Just found a new map over at Stonchs and his blog. Seems something you can use next time you get to London and wants to find a really good place.

At least it will work as good complement to the book of "London Pub Walks" by Bob Steel that we have used the last couple of times.

Oh, and here is the actual link to the "The London Beer Map".

Dugges Ale & Porter Brewery at Denver?

Yes I know it has been a while since GABF-07, but we promised ourselves to show our nice T-shirts from Dugges over at GABF when we brought them with us to the USA.

So here it is, you could not get the great beers at GABF or anywhere else but we at least brought the T-shirts and did some advertising for our favorite Swedish brewery.

I guess you have to start somewhere, and you never know, you might come across a High Five IPA or a Idjit somewhere in the States quite soon, or at least in a distant future, :-).

What about Dugges?, well it is tiny brewery in Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden that for me is a Swedish version of breweries like Stone or Moylans. Classic beers inspired by the USA, England, Sweden and beer styles like IPA, Stout, Barleys and Imperial Porters, etc, in short beers with a attitude.

The have great beers like;

Dugges Avenyn Ale
Dugges Bollox!
Dugges Britannia
Dugges Celebration Ale
Dugges Fuggedaboudit!
Dugges Gnoffs APA
Dugges High Five!
Dugges Holy Cow!

And when we are still at it, here is picture number 2 of "Dugges in the States" advertising campaign (not sponsored by the brewery, if you thought so), :-).

QUICKTAKE: A new draft beer from Colorado and something from Moylans!

The crazy US draught list over at Oliver Twist has continued the last couple of weeks and when we finally have emptied the great but very strong Canadian Barley Wine (which took 2 weeks!) we are now finally back to the US and some great IPAs. The list has changed back and forward the last week but the selection has been great.

First is a additional new beer from Colorado in the form of the regular IPA from the Avery brewery. For me Avery is more famous and better doing strong barleys and oaked strong experiments like "Hog Heaven","Uber Schwein", "The Beast Grand Cru Ale" or "Mephistopheles Stout".

But as a regular IPA it is great anyway and a very normal beer for being from Avery.

The beers pours an orange color and with a thick hite head. Smell is the tradionally grapefruit/citrus tones, the taste is a strong an sticky hops aroma with some malt balance. At the end a bit more balanced than the rest of the big IPAs, and extremelly balanced if you compared with other beers from this brewery.

The second beer on the list, at least for me (you can not be there every day) was something that I surely was looking forward for. Moylans IPA is one of my favorite California IPA and the better breweries from the same state.

If you compare the beer with the Avery version you can summarize it simply by saying that it is not at last balanced, but in the same time that is probably not the idea.

I like it and something that you can drink loads off. It is simply a very bitter hop bomb with mild malt sweetness. Sticky grapefruit and floral hoppiness that stays around for ages.

Not the best IPA in the world, but as a hop junky this is surely a beer for me. I can agree with people saying that Moylans is often a bit to much, but in the same time it seems to be the idea of the brewery and often that is something that we hopgeeks like and something you would miss if they would turn to be a more normal brewery.

Current crazy list from OT, seems that we have more beers to look forward for.

QUICKTAKE: A master piece on a can...

What can you say, it can not be any better; A Imperial Stout from on a can from Oskar Blues Brewery, Lyons, Colorado. Bought Oct 10 over at Lyons, Colorado, which seems to be the first day this amazing beer was avaible in a can. So I bought 4 to get home (one was consumed on the bus back to Denver).

It was a great feeling to taste this beer back home and in my own living room, and just fresh from the fridge.

It can be only Oskar Blues that would come up with the crazy idea to produce a strong Imperial Stout (10% ABV) on a can. But what can you say, it can not so much better, and it surely works.

The beer pours like a very thick motor oily texture, black like the night. It has virtually no head. It has some very strong roasted coffee scent´and toffee are also present. And the great thing is that you can not feel any trace of alcohol, just some nice warmness fills you up.

We are already waiting for when this beer will be available over here in Sweden, based on the fact that we already have the current line up of OBs at severial places around the country. For example the Bishop Arms pubs has them and is practically seen as a house beer over at Oliver Twist.

Amazing to know that all these amazing beer cans are all being produced in this little barn over at Lyons (photo taken during our brewery tour in October and the same day as the stout was released as a regular beer).

A new bishop has been born: Part II

I reported a month ago that we got a new Bishop Arms over at Stockholm in the form av Bishop Arms Vasagatan.

And now just a month later I recently got the information that we will have a additional Bishops, this time over at Bishop Arms Folkungatan, in the centre of SOFO (South Of Folkungagatan). This one will open in the middle of December and as the establishment at Vasagatan it will be a so called gastro pub, plus a very large collection of Whiskey (400).

Lets see how this will affect the close by pubs of Big Ben and Bistro Humlehof, they will surely see some strong competion with the beer consumers of Södermalm and around SOFO.

UPDATED 080212
The place is now opened after some initial delays, here is the official url: http://www.bishopsarms.com/Stockholm_Presentation_DXNI-129773_.aspx. Have not been at the place but I will hopefully have a report ready after the first visit planned for this Friday (080215).

A update from Portland: Swedish Beers!

With some very quick reaction regarding my comment about Danish and Norwegian beers being for sale in Portland, I got some great new from Chris over at belmont station;

As luck would ahve it, we got several Swedish beers in this morning. Nils Oscar IPA, Barleywine, and Imperial Stout, plus Oppigards Winter Ale.

It's a start :)

Chris @ Belmont Station

So now Swedish beers can hopefully find beer consumers in the States, at least in a very small scale. And it seems to be a good start with beers from two of the better breweries from back home.

Wonder which beers you can expect next, what about; Dugges Ale och Porterbryggeri (yes they have bottleing equipment now), Nynäshamns Ångbryggeri or what about Ölands Gårdsbryggeri?

And if anyone is interested in the "complete" list of Swedish breweries, here is the latest update; Komplett lista över nuvarande Svenska Bryggerier.

Danish & Norwegian beers in Portland?

The Belmont Station beer blog reports the following new beers to be sold at the beer store in Portland.

If you do not know it already Belmont is a great beer shop in Portland that is famous for the amount of beers and a genuin beer interest these guys have.

They also demonstrate with the list below that they have a big beer knowledge, they really know their business. It is always impressive to check out the latest beers they provide and you are really jealous for the beer that you can actually get over at Portland, wish I could have the same amount of great US-beers that they provide over here in Sweden.

New Danish Beer:

Norrebro Bryghus - North Bridge Extreme: North Bridge Extreme is the brewers gift to Anders on the 1 year aniversary for the opening of Nørrebro Bryghus.

Norrebro Bryghus - Skargaards Porter: An authentic Porter at 6% ABV.

Mikkeller - Stateside IPA: Mikkellers tribute to american micro-brew.

Olfabrikken - 100 Gram IPA: This is the second in a range of Ølfabrikken special ales.

New Norwegian Beer:

Nogne-O - Saison: Saison fra Nøgne Ø er flaskemodnet, dvs. upasteurisert og ufiltrert.

Nogne-O - Batch #100 Barleywine: A celebration of Nøgne Ø achieving batch #100.

Nogne-O - IPA: 17,5 degrees P, 60 IBU, 7,5 vol% alk. : Semi-dark, malty and very bitter ale.

Nogne - O - Dark Horizon 1st Edition: Dark Horizon is a ’hybrid’ - an ale that pairs the roasted bitterness of coffee with a wine-like complexity.

Haandbryggeriet - Norse Porter:

So the big question here is; When will we see a bunch of Swedish beers over at Belmont???

Seems that both the Danes and the Norwegians have found a way, but that the Swedes have not yet understod the interests of quality beers in the US.

One personal idea is maybe that most of the breweries as above are what I could call "US-inspired breweries", i.e. American IPAs, American Pale Ales, DIPAs etc, and that the Swedes are not in to that, at least not at the same level that the Danes like Mikkeller is playing around with.

GABF Recap: Looking for our Japanese friends!

Anyone who recognize yourself at this misserable photo taken during the GABF week over at Falling Rock?

Well we met a bunch of japanese beer lovers during the week, both over at Fort Collins Brewer and Odells and then later at Falling Rocks. I think you were a couple home brewers and someone connected to the Popeye bar in Tokyo.

Anyway I remember that we succeeded in getting our photographer taking a additional picture with a real camera (not through my cell phone) that seemed to go ok. If you ever get to my simple little blog, it could be quite fun if you could share this photo with me.

Thanks, and you never know if we will turn up at Popeyes in a distant future, or the Real Ale Festival in Tokyo, :-).

Boulder County Brews Cruise: Group Shots

Got a nice little picture from Chris over at Left Hand taken at the Left Hand brewery during the brews cruise a few weeks back.


For all you that joined this great beer experience, I can say again thanks to everyone and

"bira, bira, bärs, bärs, mera öl, mera öl"

to you all that maybe remember the "Swedes" noisy "song".

QUICKTAKE: He'Brew Miraculous Jewbelation (8) (2004)

Straight from the cuvee list at Akkurat we decided to sample a beer beer from one of our favorite breweries in the US, namely Shmaltz Brewing Company (He'Brew).

So we found a HeBrew from 2004 and the 8th Jewbelation beer from this small but amazing brewery. Seems that you can store the beer but in the same time it was really time for the beer, it had started to sweeten and loosing the touch. But still you could feel that it was a genuin HeBrew.

The beer is labeled as a Amercian porter and the taste is very sweet with rich dark fruity notes and a slightly alcoholic finish. When you sipped on the beer you could get notes of everything from raisins, plum to chocolate & espresso. In the end a amazing beer that is slowly passing its best moments.

If you have missed the concept of Jewbelation it means based on the number you get the same amount of malts, hops and abvs, for example 8 malts, 8 hops and 8% ABV for this version.

Based on that you could enjoy the latest incarnation of Jewbelation this year in the form of the 11th version (amazing beer sampled at Falling Rock, Denver).

A touch of colorado in Sweden: Part II

The Colorado journey continues back home in Sweden. At the usual Saturday beer crawl in Stockholm we could ad Avery to the Colorado brewery list, together with the normal OB!

So where was that? You can probably guess if you have read my entries before, simply;

Oliver Twist

A touch of Colorado in Sweden?

Just coming back from Colorado at this years GABF it is always fun to discover that Sweden is not a bad place for good beers at the end.

We came back this night from a play at the municipal theatre (Le nozze di Figaro) and thought to test out the new pub of Bishop Arms Vasagatan. A busy place in central Stockholm were you seldom set your foot as a beer geek.

The place is ok, but nothing to really recommend as a great bar, but it was in a sense a beer paradise if you actually got through the crowd of drunk people and could check out the fridges. We got stuck with one particular fridge that the entry is really about. I would simply call it "The US Beer Fridge", simply because it was packaged with loads of amazing US-beers.

A US-fridge from heaven

Probably a bit difficult to spot out all of the goddies, but checking the fridge I could spot the following US-breweris; 7 Flying Dogs, 6 Samuel Adams, 4 Great Divide, 7 Sierra Nevada, 3 Oskar Blues, 2 Rogue, 6 Left Hand, 6 Anchor.

Could it be better?, I do not know, at least not in central Stockholm (I am not comparing OT, this time).

Really good to actually test out a Dales Pale Ale and a Flying Dog Gonzo Imperial Stout just 2 weeks after we came home from Colorado, and actually drink beer back home from places that you visited just weeks ago.

So we also fixed the nice little picture of a Dales girl and her beer, I guess my girlfriend could not imagine that she would actually drink a Dales when she put on her new Dale T-shirt this morning (gift from me when we visited Lyons, 2 weeks ago!).

At least this is a amazing beer and in someway it worked excellect after the Nögne #100 Imperial IPA from Norway, which was the beer that I simply had to test as the first beer (I know a Double IPA at 10% ABV as the first beer, but its unique and had to be tested).

As a bar the new BA is ok, but not my cup of tea. But you could not complain about the beer when you actually got the staff to pick them out; Nögne, a couple of Danes, 5-6 Swedish Micro, a US-beer fridge etc etc, simply amazing.

Right now it was not actually discovered by the Swedes visiting the place, the still were drinking Mariestad or Staro, sad by true.

In this new bar at least we had 3 different Colorado breweries to choose from (OB, GD & FD), that does not happen every day!, at least not 5 minutes from the central station.

My top 5 canned craft beers

The breweries in the US are producing more and more quality beers on a can. And people are getting to understand that a beer on a can is just not a poor macro beer like a bud or similar.

My US-canned beer experience is still not so big but it is increasing so much lately that I have decided to create a top list. So here is my contribution;

1.	Oskar Blues Ten Fidy Imperial Stout
2.	Oskar Blues Dale's Pale Ale
3.	Maui Brewing Big Swell IPA
4.	Butternuts Snapperhead IPA
5.	21st Amendment IPA

 

 

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UPDATED 090812

Removed and added 2 beers, the 21st IPA and the great IPA from Maui.

UPDATED 071225
Picture of the new IPA at Oliver Twist in the form of a IPA on a can;

UPDATED 071125
Seems the Darkness from Surly as a canned version was only in my dreams (but a good one).

So I have reordered and put in the IPA from Butternuts that I am 100% sure is a canned beer and something I have sampled a couple of times over at my local pub. They also has a pale ale in the form of "Pork Slap"!