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!".

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), :-).

The Session #7 (Brew Zoo)

My contribution is a Swedish IPA from the small brewery of Dugges Ale- & Porterbryggeri on the west coast of the country. The beer is called Holy Cow!, and I do not know so many more beers that has a cow on it, but you out there might know about any other?

Dugges produces different series of beer and this one is part of the so called "The express yourself series", which represents special beers with an attitude. Dugge himself (yes that is name of the brewer himself) says the following about his beer;

"A "India Pale Ale" with load of malt and hops. The quite high alcohol level is hidden behind a fruity and quite sweet caramel malty body. The sweetnes is balanced by 5 different hops (US-ones) that has created a large but in the same soft bitternes with a long taste."

For myself it is a American IPA with a amber colour and a firm beige head. Aroma is a bit peppar and caramel, with a very hoppy flavour. And at last a very long dry aftertaste. Alcohol is not felt, it just adds the extra flavor. Simply a great IPA that I drink at my favorite pubs in Stockholm like Oliver Twist and Glenfiddich Warehouse.

Just for fun and one more type of animal (well not type, simply a bit younger), the beer was also inspired to brew a test variant, that simply could have been a Holy Cow, but only became a calf. Called in Swedish; Dugges Provbrygd 1-2007 (Kalven)


Dugges is quite new as a brewery, and the beers have been available for a year or so. Very inspired by US-breweries, so you can expect a lot of IPAs and different types of hops like cascade, amarillo and chinook.

They also produces great types of stouts and ports (part of the brewery name) and is very keen on testing out different types of beer with the test brews sold to the pubs for sampling and is then decided to be produced or not by the people who drink them.

The have four different series;
The Gothenburg series - Old Swedish beer tradition combined with English stubbornness and American new thinking.

Express Yourself! - More of everything (where Holy Cow is located)

The country series - Different countries - Different Characters? (like Britannia & California)

Seasons - Christmas etc (here we have an additional animal in the form of Rudolph the reindeer!)


Thats it, my first test for the "Session", I am quite new with this, so bare we me, and see this as a little contribution from a beer geek in Sweden.

UPDATED 2007-09-07 13:50
And here is the collection of all the animals that have been collected so far over at Lykes;

The Session #7 so far