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.

GBTD-07 (GABF): The Great Divide Luncheon

Before the festival had actually started we where invited through the good friends at OT to a special get together early party over at the Great Divide brewery.

At 12.00 sharp on the Thursday av bunch of happy beer drinkers got together and could enjoy the great bears of GD within the brewery itself.

It is always fun for a beer geek to actually get the opportunity to have your favorite beers at the actual source and also meet the creators of these wonderful products.

[Original picture removed on request] [140513]

We had a great lunch and got the possibility to help yourself through out the brewery. It interesting to see that such a great brewery and a brewery that you see as quite big is housed in such a small complex in central Denver (quite central anyway).

Simply you can say that you do not need much space to create great products. As it was free we sampled a lot of the different brews available both at the party inside the brewery and also at the nearby tap room (DPA, Titan, Hibernation 07 (heard they also had H06 but did not see it available), barley wine, belgian IPA, samuray, the lot).

Best beer?, the oaked imperial stout and the new fresh hop beer (had earlier already bought a bottle to get home an enjoy for myself!, seems that the concept of "fresh hops" is quite in right now.)).

The Tap room at GD

We also met some interesting people during this event, among them our good friends of OT and Akkurat, a guy also from Sweden with the name of Marc who is working for Galatea (a big beer distributor in Sweden), Jim from last days brew cruise and also Ray McCoy (Beer drinker of the year 2003) and his wife Cornelia (also a beer drinker of the year winner!).

So as a summary this was a excellent way to enjoy beers early in the day and a very good start for the rest of the festival and something I am glad I could join.

Cheers

A beer vulcano at GD?