New Spring beer from Sam Adams at OT

Not that I like american style weiss\wit beer much but at least I need to give Oliver Twist some credit when they serve new beer from the US on draught, and even on the standard list of beers.

This beer showed up a couple of weeks ago at my favorite pub i Stockholm. It is called a "White Ale" and is a seasonal spring beer from Samuel Adams. So to categories it in style I would say simply a "Sam Adams"-style beer inspired by belgian witbier, meaning more Sam Adams instead of a normal witbier.

So if you like the taste of Sam Adams beers (as I do) and want to try something different this is your beer.

I like Sam Adams in the sense that it is a great starting point for people that usually drink international lagers. It is a beer that you can give a ago and often people like it and through that can learn and understand that a beer can actually taste something without being too much.

Often you hear that I want a beer, but it should not be dark, as to say that all dark beer would taste to much and different compared what they normally drink. Is that not strange?, why would just a dark beer taste more, at least you can not generalize like that. It is like say that a red wine would always taste more than a white wine, just because red is more color than white!.

According to Sam Adams this beer "has clear malt & wheat notes, and dominated by 9 spices and dried fruits". Personally I would say a beer with light orange color with a white head for a short while. For a wit-bier it has the lemon and orange you like in a beer like hoegaarden, quite refreshing as a summer beer and at the end very drinkable.

Not great and nothing I will drink much of but at least I will recommend it to people who wants something different and like to sample a US-beer.

In average I would give it a 4/10.

Tribute to my favorite pub; all categories

What should a great pub\bar be?

Many beers? From many countries? Quality beers? Friendly Staff? Good food? Great location? Large? Small? Modern? Old?

Well that is a tricky question. But at very few occurences you just feel that this is it, this is something I like in pub, and this is a place that I like to return to.

This little tribute is such a place.

Barcade located in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York city started out as a car workshop that was bought by a couple of micro beers & arcade enthusiasts in 2005. The place opened up in September 2005 and has quite quickly developed as a beer heaven for US-micro beers on draught, also recently on cask that is being more and more popular in the state.

So what about the hype, lets start with the actual building.

When you first arrive to the place it is really not easy to understand that this is a pub and a place where you should actually get close to. It looks like something that should actually been teard down ages ago, but that is part of the charm.

It is a rought place that just with its little sign saying "Barcade" shows directly what the place is about.

A place where you primarly drink beer (no food is served except beer nuts and chips) and can enjoy it with others also liking the beers to be based on quality and love to the craft brewing industry.

When you enter the place you will notice the exposed brick walls and the 25-foot ceilings, on the

left side a row of arcade games from the 80s, on the right hand side a long bar that strechtes out from start to end of the place.

And this is also one of the key things with a great bar, meaning the bar, you should be able to sit at the bar and not just get the beers from it. For me beers should be consumed at the actual bar, through that you can really get the atmosphere of the place.

So to summarize so for, it needs to be rough, meaning a place with a built in athmosphere and soul that shows that the place is primarly for beers and not just a place that has been heavily designed to be cool and classy. Secondly we need a long bar, either on the side or placed at the end of the place.

Barcades primarily serves micro beers through out the country and almost always on draught. The beers are handled with care and served with a understanding of glassware and suitable amount of beers (bad example of that is an other great place but that has no understanding of amount and glassware, at Mugs Ale Hourse also in Williamsburg I was served a Weyerbacher Double Simcoe India Pale Ale in a English pint!, great bargain but without understanding that you can not drink a English pint of a beer with arround 10% without loosing your touch and the touch of the beer), so you get a double ipa or a imperial stout in snifter or tulip, a american pale ale in a american pint glass as it should be.

One of the strange things that I have noticed the last couple of years in NY is the trend to replace the glass from american pint to english pint, why?, you should keep the glass that it should be not try to copy the english tradition.

Becuase if so, you are missing one thing, english beers are often light beers with ABV between 3 and 4%, american micros are often stronger in taste and ABV, so it is not a good idea to serve a 6-7% ABV Pale Ale or IPA in a larger glass, you just get drunk people not enjoying your beers.

Other things you notice is the staff, who has the knowledge and love of beers. They know what they are serving and they can talk about what the beer is about. If you do not know what you want they can help you out, and they have that special ability just by asking a couple of question can get the beer you really like, or just by knowing your last beer can spot out the next you should have, just before you realize it yourself.

Amount and number of changing beers is on my list of a good place, but is not the most important thing you look for. But anyway here you have a large number of taps and that is constantly changing in line and a great collection of beers from both the east, west coast and the rocky areas.

For example in this particular moment I could have enjoyed the following beers (unfortunately you can not be in NY every weekend, :-);

Allagash Four, Avery Karma, Blue Point Oatmeal Stout (cask), Middle Ages Kilt Lifter, Rogue Shakespeare Stout (Nitro), Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Ale, Sly Fox Saison Vos, Southampton IPA, Victory Prima Pils etc etc.

So this place is on my number one spot, it can not be any better, only pity is that NY is so far away. So I have to enjoy most of my beers locally. But at least everytime I am in NY Barcade is the number of spot.

Thanks to the folks at Barcade, thanks for giving me the ultimate beer experience.

Beers from Argentina enjoyed in Sweden

Monks Café on Wallingatan 38 Stockholm/Norrmalm speciality is large number of beers, estimated to 1200 different bottles and arround 16 on the tap. I am not there so often (you can not visit every good place in Stockholm) but at some occurences we get up to the place and to try out some new brews from around the world.

This time I like to get the opportunity to give some credit to beers from Argentina. Maybe not a country that is famous for the beers, but why not, if Sweden can produce great micro beers why not Argentina.

So we sampled some of the beers available (Monks had a little Argentina beer festival, but I am sorry to say that I do not know the rest of the available beers) and discovered the beer from Antares. This is a small Brew Pub/Brewery located in the city of Mar del Plata (located on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in the Buenos Aires Province) brewed at the New Patagonia Brewery.

Antares beer is one of the fastest-growing premium beer in Argentina and has recently started to be available outside the country, exported to countries like Canada, Germany, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, and Japan.

Even in May month it has been announced that the beers (at least the lager) will be available in the US through the distribution of Aladdin Beverage (Brooklyn , NY). The lager seems to be the largest beer when talking about sales but we instead concentrated on the more interesting styles of port and stout.

First one was the porter that at start due to the cold storage did not taste much, but when the beer was warmed it turned out to be a very well made porter. This is a classic porter with aroma of toffe, coffee and and the end some roasted malts. It has has a quite thick beige head and quite oily in the mouth. Not a favorite in porters for me but at least very drinkable.

Second one was the stout (Antared Imperial Stout) that also comes with a deep dark brown color with a similar brown\beige head as the porter. This is of course something else compared to the porter, simply because of the storage and ABV. It has a very strong roasted malty character with quite smoky tastes. Not a favorite in imperial stouts (like Bells Expedition Stout and Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter) but it has the standard characters of a imperial stout and can be recommended to at least try out.

Always interesting to learn new beer countries and it will be interesting what the planned beers from Brazil that Monks is going to provide for us.

For the interested, here is a complete list of beers from Monks that are or at least have been available;

1. Antares Barley Wine
2. Antares Imperial Stout
3. Antares Kölsch
4. Antares Porter
5. Antares Scotch Ale
6. Aracuana Bock
7. Aracuana Doppio Malto
8. Aracuana Pale Ale
9. Aracuana Weizen
10. Otro Mundo Golden Ale
11. Otro Mundo Nut Brown Ale
12. Otro Mundo Strong Red Ale

The Beer Summer in Stockholm has arrived

Last Saturday the summer finally arrived in Stockholm and took us all with storm. Seems that everyone was out enjoying the short opportunity to get some sun. Stockholm looked like a enormous beach area and you could not understand that we had snow just a couple of weeks back.

So it was a good time to get together and drink some great beers. The normal beer meeting with the The Swedish Beer Consumers Association had this time been transformed to picnic in the park.

We all met at tantolunden on Södermalm and had a great time with some sampling of beers and chocolate.

It felt a quite interesting experience to sit together and drink great quality micro beers from all over the world, when people at the same time arround were enjoying the maybe more "normal" fizzy yellow macro lagers in large scale. It was like a little island thrown out on a big field of international lagers and cheap wines.

Most of the beers came fram Anders H and Lasse and from one of their many beer trips to Copenhagen, so the quality was great and we were lucky enough to get some great beers from escpecially the USA.

How about the beer list that I personally enjoyed, can it be any better, micro beer and summer in Stockholm,

1. Oskar Blues Dales Pale Ale

2. Oskar Blues Old Chub

3. Green Flash Double India Pale Ale

4. Närke ?

5. Runöl

6. Guiness export 7.5% (from a stach of beers that Carlsberg wanted to throw away due to the date, 2004!, very sweet beer and not really what you think a Guiness should taste)

7. Oppigårds Påsköl

It was a good day and I think we should do this more often, it is not always you get such great beers at a park in Sweden. Thanks to who ever came up with this brilliant idea, instead of just sitting inside in a dark pub sampling beers that we usually do when we have such gatherings.

Beer mayhem at Oliver Twist

After some problem with the distribution (due to the cheap dollar everyone wants to buy, so it was difficult to get a free container) the beers for the US-beer Mayhem at Oliver Twist has finally arrived.

At least the menu is ready and we are all waiting to get the opportunity to get hold of some draught US-beer again.

It was a while now and I have not got the opportunity to drink some great US-micros since the NY-trip at the end of March. Looking at the list it seems that we can return to the "normal" line of US-micros from all over the country.

Also seems that Jugge has also got some beers again from the Fort Collins Brewery (hope they know about that this time, :-)), hope it will be as good as when we visited the brewery last year.



Hope ya all turn in, at least you that has the opportunity!