All you need in a fridge..

Yes what can it be except a couple of canned Imperial Stouts and Imperial Porter!

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).

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?

Stockholm Beer 2007: A new Swedish beer classic?

Last night at the Stockholm Beer a new beer was presented (so far as I know) over at Dugges in the form of a idiot! A limited release has been available before, but this was the first real stuff.

Idjit is Imperial Stout which will be a new beer from Dugges and a test brew was released in bottles during the festival (just for fun, according to Dugge).

At 18.00 sharp we got the opportunity to test this new beer that had only been stored for 2 months and was very young compared to the final product. But it was big news anyway and the line was long for actually getting a full Idjit!, as you can see below;

Dugge the brewer serving the new Idjit! beer

How about the beer?, well it is still not ready and the plan is to actually store it for a additional year, and in that sense you actually do not know how it it will evolve. It has a dark brown colour, the flavour is very woody with a strong alcohol buzz (ABV 16%),coffee, and you can feel some raisins and a touch of porter and sherry.

What can you say?, it feels like a hit and it will be very exiting to actually taste this beer when it is ready, with the knowledge of Dugges I am sure that last night a new beer legend was born. It can not be compared to my favorite Imperial Stout/Porter (Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter), at least not with the current appearance, but at least something similar and a good beer continuing the dark beer tradition in Sweden in form of porters and stouts.

Seems that the Idjits is slowly being built up as a series of beers. Because currently we already have the amazing 1/2 Idjit which is a very potent porter and in the future Dugges will also provide a "Perfect Idjit" which will be a oaked stored Idjit for 2-3 additional months.

It also seems that Dugges (best brewery in Stockholm according to me) also got recognized as a brewery through winning several prizes at the festival. Here is the result for Dugges;

Category: Best Swedish Draught Strong beer over 6% ABV
Bollox! - Bronze!

Category: Best Draught Ale 4,8-5,9% ABV:
Avenyn Ale - Gold!

Category: Best Swedish Draught Beer:
Avenyn Ale - Gold!

Thats a very good result for Dugges, a brewery that has only been brewing a couple of years. Thanks Dugge for creating such great brevs like "High Five", "Bollox" and "Avenyn Pale Ale (APA)".

Nøgne Ø back to Sweden...

The great Norwegian brewery of Nøgne Ø will be back at the Systembolaget starting from October 1, unfortunately you have to buy 12 bottles for each beer.

But I guess it is ok for many because this is such a good brewery that you need many bottles of and you can always find a friend to share with.

Seems that almost all available types will be sold and is the first time I see the full list in a Swedish shop. Personally I look forward for the #100 brew which is a double IPA and that can always be interesting by this US-inspired Norwegian brewery.

89397 Nøgne Ø Imperial Brown Ale
89399 Nøgne Ø India Pale Ale
89401 Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout
89403 Nøgne Ø # 100
83888 Nøgne Ø Bitter
83834 Nøgne Ø Pale Ale
83841 Nøgne Ø Porter
83825 Nøgne Ø Saison
83882 Nøgne Ø Wit

Thanks to the blog of ofiltrerat for finding this great news at the Systembolaget site.

Stockholm Beer 2007: Left Hand Tasting with Eric Wallace

This years US-beer list at Oliver Twist was amazing like always. But one of the better news was the arranged beer tasting that we stumbled upon when we passed the VIP-corner at the Oliver Twist booth. Jugge at Oliver Twist simply asked if we wanted to attend the Left Hand tasting, and that sounded interesting. It was hosted by the founder himself (Eric Wallace) that started the brewery in 1993 over at Longmont, Colorado.

It is always fund to hear how a brewery was started and how it came to be that a guy like Eric just thought that being a brewery could be fun. If you reflect on the fact that 4-5 of the big selling beers were all invented so early as 1994 (first beers that come out from the brewery), it is an amazing story and success. As a new brewery it take a while to find you style but here we have a brewery that already at start made amazing beers, and have sticked to them.

One fun story that Eric told us was the fact that Sweden had something to-do with him being a brewer. In short the story is that Eric traveled together with his wife on one of the big ferries across the Baltic Sea (between Sweden and Finland) back in 1991. On the boat he tasted a new beer as he normally does, this was a goal for him, simply to taste as much of new beers he could where ever he traveled. He found a strange new bottle of beer that he could not recognize, and thought that this was great, a nice ale that was so much better than the lagers on draught that was available. So he checked the bottle to see what kind of beer it was and was surprised to find that the beer was from the US. What he had tasted was the first ever beer for him from Samuel Adams! He thought it must be an English beer and was so surprised and exited that it was a beer from his own country that he decided that if these guys can create good craft beers in the USA he must also do it!

Jugge over at Oliver Twist is a large sponsor of beers from Left Hand and the beers are almost ever available at OT. And now this will be even bigger when the Milk Stout will be available at 200 stores through our own Systembolaget (state owned shops where all strong beer are sold). So it will be interesting to see if the Milk Stout could challenge the big hit beers of North Coast Red Seal and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale at Systembolaget.

How about the tasting, well it looked like below;

1. Left Hand Sawtooth Ale (nutty, caramel flavors followed by herbal earthiness of hops)
2. Left Hand Jackmans Pale Ale (hopped pale ale with a solid malt foundation)
3. Left Hand Milk Stout (Classic cream stout with addition of sugar mellows)
4. Left Hand Black Jack Porter (Dark chocolate & espresso and smooth clean finish)
5. Left Hand Oak Aged Imperial Stout (Unfiltered Russian Imperial Stout, smooth with raisins, coffee & dark chocolate)
6. Left Hand Oak Aged Imperial Stout (draught version) (Even more smoother, a classic)

All amazing beers and my personal favorite is still the Imperial Stout. But as a classic pale ale a newcomer for me was the Sawtooth Ale, a very drinkable beer and its not difficult to understand that this is the number one selling beer from Left Hand.


Jugge from Oliver Twist and Eric during the tasting.

It will be interesting to visit the brewery during the GABF-week in Denver. We are all looking forward for that and hopefully meet Eric again, at least he told us that we were welcome to visit them.

UPDATED 2007-09-25
I made a mistake so I was caught on picture during the tasting, here is the proof; Over at Ofiltrerat. That was really not expected, :).