Bistro Double IPA Festival

The yearly Double IPA festival has been held once more over at Bistro, San Fran, California.

And as normal I which I had the time to actually be there, sigh!!

Never mind the Bollox!: Swedish Imperial IPA

Today it was time for a new beer in the form of a American styled Imperial or Double India Pale Ale and a new masterpiece from the brewery in Mölndal.

What I am talking about is the new Bollox! beer from Dugges Ale & Porterbryggeri. It has been served in Gothenburg for a couple of weeks now, but it is now time for Stockholm and the North branch of the Bishops Arms chain.

Dugges is most often a great brewery, simply that you get everything you want as a beer geek; new inventions, no restrictions, always a new type of beer, never boring, always something to wait for, much of everything etc etc etc.

The problem with bigger craft breweries is that they tend to start sticking with the big sellers and develop on that, and as a beer geek you instead tend to like the smaller craft breweries simply because they bring you something new every week or month or quarter.

So now it seems that Dugges has continued the success of the Bollox! branch, which is still a US-inspired IPA with bitter dry hopped aroma hops with tons of Centennial, or simply as the brewery says;

"No bullshit, this is the bollox!"

The new beer is the same beer with the same type of sweetnes with tons of hops but developed in the same category as Imperial IPAs (at least inspired) as "Russian River Pliny the Elder" or "Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA".

A very dark amber color with a steady white head, sweetnes comes first and when the beers matures in the glass & gets warmer you get a malty bitterners and warmness from the alcohol (9.2 ABV), and finally it explodes in hops touches. Simply a Swedish hop monster that will be a hit among the beer geeks, or at least the hop heads.

It is not up in hop heaven (cheers to pliny!), but as for a Swedish beer and for a brewery as Dugges (1 person) it is a big achievement and it is always great to have a hop buzz not only all the way over at the US.

You can close you eyes and you could believe that you are sitting drinking a US ADIPA at Barcade or Toronado or at a local brewery in Southern California.

So thumbs up for Dugges and it looks like 2008 will be a great new beer year, so whats next?, at least we are waiting for the "Perfect Idjit!".

QUICKTAKE: Middle Ages X Double India Pale Ale

The Middle Ages X Double India Pale Ale was brewed once to celebrate the 10th anniversary and brewed in the style of an American Double IPA.

I purchased the beer in beginning at 2007 (Boston in feb during the extremen beer fest) and it has after that been stored until now. Seems that the beer was better than ever and it had matured good during the years (brewed in 2005 as the info on the site says) and with the 10% ABV it had the potential to store well.

It poured a deep copper & with a white head, smell was grapefruit aroma with a strong underlying bittering hoppy aroma, taste is also grapefruit with a bitterness to it, its rich & creamy with a slight alcohol bite. It is simply a great hoppy (Warrior?) ADIPA and it was worth wait and getting this beer all the way from Boston.

Finally the beer is a bit of a mystery for me, on the bottle design like the one at BeerAdvocate it says 1995 -- 2005, showing that the beer was done once in 05. But on my example this is removed and is not saying anything when it was actually brewed. So it seems maybe that the brewery has continued to do the beers after 2005?

VS.

Anyway a great DIPA that I will give 4+ on my beer scale. Seems that I have to check for more beers from this brewery when we get to New York in March.

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.

Stockhom Beer 2007: Missed a beer!

Just saw that we missed one of the better DIPAs at the Stockholm Beer Festival this year, and it was even a cask version.

Well you can not have them all and you could not be there every day, seems the Brooklyn Blast Pale Ale was served over at Carlsberg during the last Saturday of the festival and when Garett Oliver, brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery had a presentation, and also the toast for late Michael Jackson. If you are wondering about Carlsberg togehter with brooklyn simply it is because all brooklyn beers are distributed nowdays by Carlsberg in Sweden and Denmark.

At least I got to taste the beer last New York beer trip in May when we visited the Brooklyn brewery (served in a plastic glass).

But it feels a bit strange that we missed a hop monster when it was available on cask, :-), as a DIPA lover it feels hard that we did not even think about heading for the Carlsberg booth during the festival, probably because of all the rest of the boring beers sold over at Carlsberg.

QUICK TAKE: Blue Point No Apologies Imperial IPA

Tasted at the Stockholm Beer 2007 in a cask version. What can you say?, simply this is my cup of tea. Sampled this amazing DIPA already in May over at Spuyten Duyvil in Brooklyn, New York during our short New York beer trip.

Based on the fact that we already thought that this was the best beer during that trip it was really exciting to actually drink the beer again on cask in your own backyard.

I know this is a extreme beer, but the name says it all!, here is a beer that is a hop monster extreme and with no apologies to be anything else. Simply this is something that I can enjoy and will continue to drink.

The beer has a very cloudy orange body topped by a thick, off-white head that lasts a long time. Flavor is really one-dimensional with a extreme piney hop bitterness, but you can actually feel the maltiness so in that sense it is at least a bit balanced and together with the orange touch it makes a great mixture. Probably not drinkable for most people, but for me it is a hit and a very drinkable beer, yes I know I am bit destroyed on these kind of beers.

For being a no apologies DIPA it is a sure winner, not the most balanced one but I guess that it is not the idea here, and with 10% ABV it is best served in small gobles and is a great last beer of the night.

It will make a appereance on my personal top list because now I have tasted the beers at least 3 times, :-D, and it is time for some changes after the festival.

The beer served at this years Stockholm Beer

Regarding Blue Point this is a local brewery in Patchogue (long island), New York state. Started by 2 beer geeks (Pete & Mark) on Long Island. They also produce the great IPA in the form of; Hoptical Illusion.

Finally a very large thank you to Jugge, for actually getting this beer all the way over to Stockholm. It is always fun to sample the beer you bring home, how would the Stockholm beer scene look without your help?