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.

The new cupboard...

The new cupboard has arrived, so now we can finally get some order again in the increasing number of beer glasses. Feels great to have a place to store all the glasses that you "need".

So the cupboard is now divided into four different categories;

1. US Beer pints
2. Large & small tasters
3. Belgian lambic glasses
4. Assorted glasses from Stockholm beers

+ assorted belgian glasses for all kind of purposes.

Spring US Beer Festival 08: The result

I reported earlier (What about a beer festival in 08?) that we were planning a spring beer festival somewhere in the US. It was a bit difficult but mainly due to the exact timing and a reasonable distance from Europe during a extended weekend we finally came up with a suitable place. Yes, I know there are plenty of great beer and breweries on the west coast (like Portland that has been mentioned in some of the comments I got) and other places in the country but this year the journey will take us to;

The Spring Craft Beer Festival, Uniondale, Ny; March 29 + that we are also planning a short stop over at the 1st Manhattan Cask Ale Festival@Chelsea that I just stumbled upon a few days ago.

This will be great, a couple of beer festival and then the rest of the time heading for some beer journeys to my favorite places like;

1. Barcade, at 388 Union Avenue, Brooklyn, ******

2. Blind Tiger Ale House, at 281 Bleecker Street, *****

3. Mugs Ale House, at 125 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, ****

4. Ginger Man, The, 11 East 36th Street, ****

5. CB Six, at 252 East 51st Street, ***

6. Spuyten Duyvil, at 359 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn ***

Sadly the earlier number 3 spot; The Collins Bar, at 735 8th Ave. @ 46th St., as I earlier reported is no more so we can not start the trail anymore over at this amazing little place close to Times square.

But I guess we can live with House Of Brews - W. 51st Street close to the hotel. And hopefully some other places can be included that we have not visited in NY before.

QUICKTAKE: Southern Tier Imperial Oat

Well it seems that it did not take long for me before it was time for a US extreme beer. I actually tonight tried a pils from Germany and a english real ale. But anyway we had to try the new beer from Southern tier, at least over at our favorite place in the world (OT).

This beer is really completely pitch black with a dark tan with a very tight lacing. The aroma is of rich toffee, coffee and some sort of dried fruit and a very alco warming ending. It comes with a very hop character to bring balance to the extremelly strong roasted malty end. It finishes somewhat sweet´and that tells me about the oat compared to a "normal" thick imperial stout. Except that it is mainly a Imperial Stout compared to a "traditional" out-based stout. The difference is mainly the sweetnes, otherwise it is a US-inspired stout in the Imperial category.

This is a really big one in every way and not for the faint of heart. At the end it is really a complex beer and a other new example of a great beer from the southern tier brewery.

I promised myself to test other types of beer this year, but still the US-Imperial Stouts are very good and one of the best beer styles you can end a evening with.

Based on my scale I would give it a 5- or similar, together with Thirsty Dog Siberian Night Imperial Stout and Bells Expedition Stout that are still my favorite Imperial Stouts.

And what about this one? Mikkeller & FFF?

A new beer project for 2008 from the brewers of Mikkeller and Three Floyds.

2 brewers of extreme beers combined in a single beer, can it be any better?, well lets see after the summer of 08.

Mikkellers own glass...

is now available through the brewery. Nice huh?

According to Mikkel himself the glass is inspired by the belgian brewery; De Dolle Boruwers in Belgium (one of my favorite belgium breweries).

And checking a example from the belgian brewery it looks really like that. Seems like a very good choice for such amazing beers, both from Denmark and Belgium.

Simply a great glass to sample great beers with, I can not wait to try to get hold of my own example.

Mikkeller meets Nøgne Ø

Read over at the Nøgne beer site that is now seems that everything is settled that Mikkeller the brewery from Denmark will get over to the Norwegian brewery in the beginning of 2008.

The brewer Mikkel Borg Bjersø is going to brew 2 batches of Mikkellers own styles (Beer Geek Breakfast) and also a guest brew together with Kjetil Jikiun (head brewer) at Nøgne.

Seems that this collaboration between these great brewers can be very interesting, anyway it is reported already that a a huge order of fruit is already placed by the brewer.

This news has also been recognized over at Mikkellers own blog; Mikkel(ler)'s Blog.

Oskar Blues Ten Fidy earns "2007 Beer of the Year" Honor

Saw that one of my favorite beers all categories for 2007 has been awarded the beer of the year over at the Denver Post.

Yes, I surely agree with them saying;

Ten Fidy Imperial Stout comes roaring out of the revered Oskar Blues Brewery just in time to warm the Colorado winter. As the late Country Dick Montana of The Beat Farmers used to say, it's just the man for the job, with alcohol by volume at a bristling 10 percent. Don't be scared off by the can -- all of Oskar Blues' outstanding brews are packaged in metal.

The pour on this bad boy is rich and viscous, with a head like chocolate icing. The aroma is full of coffee and cocoa, and those hearty flavors wrap nicely around the hops and malt for a smooth, roasty fullness.

The oats used in the brewing process give Ten Fidy a satisfying roundness in the mouth. A hint of molasses balances the barleywine-like 98 International Bitterness Units. The high alcohol content is barely noticeable on the tongue (but trust me, have a driver or call a cab).

OB also report for those lucky ones that a small batch of FIDY (in cans and kegs) will reach some bars and stores in some other US-states in January.

So I guess it will be just luck if some FIDY would turn up over here in Sweden, sigh. I had the last can from my fridge during the New Year beer sampling, so now I can only try to remember how it tasted, :-).

What about a beer festival in 08?

UPDATED 08013

We have no fixed plans for a beer festival in the US next year. This year we visited the extreme beer fest in Boston and the GABF over at Denver. But next year is still blank.

So I have tried to find a bunch of festivals that sound OK and fits suitable days (spring or the fall). So far I have also created a shortlist.

But what do you think out there?
Am I missing something?
Do you recommend a certain festival?
Or is something definitely no idea to attend?

What we are looking for is a good local festival with a large amount of US-craft beers (does not mean huge like GABF) in a calm and civilized arrangement. Last year the extreme beer festival was definitely something we enjoyed and the type of festival we are looking for. So something that is different from for example the extreme big festivals as for example GABF represents. It is also a plus if it is located in a area where you can have some additional days to explore; meaning with breweries, pubs and other beer related activities.

So what do you think? What should it be?

Top 4:

1. The Spring Craft Beer Festival, Uniondale, Ny; March 29 (*****) + a short stop over at the 1st Manhattan Cask Ale Festival@Chelsea Brew Co.

2. Beer Summit April 2008, Boston; April 18 & 19 (***)

3. Philly Craft BeerFestival, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; march 1 (*)

5. NY Brewfest, New York; September (**)

(*) Means what the current status looks like.


Outside the list:

5. American Beer Fest, Boston; June 15, 16 (*)

6. TAP newyork08 New Yorks Craft Brew Festival, Hunter, NY; April 26,27

7. 25th Annual San Francisco International Beer Festival, Fort Mason, San Francisco ; April 26

8. Great International Spring Beer Festival, Providence, RI; May 5

9. Brooklyn Pigfest; May 12
.

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!

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!

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?

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)

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".

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).

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, :-).