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?
2007-09-30
QUICK TAKE: Blue Point No Apologies Imperial IPA
Stockholm Beer 2007: And the winner is?
The festival has ended and some of the breweries returned home with a bunch of prizes. Some of the most interesting beer that won according to me, looks lkte below; (here is the full list link)
Category: Best Bottled Ale 4.8-5.9 ABV
Harpoon IPA (Harpoon Brewing Co)
Category: Stong Beer 6% ABV & above
Shakespeare Stout (Rogue Ales)
Categroy: Stong Beer 8% ABV & above
90 Minute IPA (Dogfish Head Craft Brewery)
Category: Swedish Bottle Beer
Oppigårds Slåtteröl (Oppigårds Brygger AB)
Category: Draught Ale 4.8-5.9 ABV
Avenyn Ale (Dugges Ale & Porterbryggeri)
Category: Draught Beer 6% ABV & above
Imperial Stout (Nils Oscar Company AB)
Category: Draught Beer 8% ABV & above
Slottskällans Imperial Stout (Gamla Slottskällans Bryggeri AB)
Category: Swedish Draught Beer
Avenyn Ale (Dugges Ale & Porterbryggeri)
I guess it is good choices, but for my own taste the list is a "bit" different. My personal favorite during the weekens would look like below;
Best beer all categories:
1. Blue Point No Apologies Imperial IPA (cask)
2. Left Hand Imperial Stout (cask)
3. Dieu du Ciel Brasserie Solstice d'Hiver (cask)
Best Swedish Beer:
1. Dugges 1/2 Idjit!
Best newcomer that can be something:
1. Dugges Idjit!
Best unexpected beer:
1. Spinnakers Iceberg Pale Ale
Stockholm Beer 2007: Beer tasting list day II
Last night was the second day for us at the Stockholm Beer Festival and it turned out to be a great evening and festival as always. I had expectations to broaden my perspective a bit and try more of the other beers available at the festival. And as I reported a few entries ago I had a list of potential beers to taste. And I tried, I promise you I really tried this time, but the result was not actually as planned and we got stuck over at Oliver Twist most of the time, again :-).
From the potential list of 13-14 beers I only succeeded in sampling 4!. 1. Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barley Wine (cask), 6. Dugges Idjit! 1st Limited Edition (Imperial Stout) 16,5 vol%, 9. Bluepoint No Apologies Double IPA 10%, 12. Oppigårds Smithy Ale, 4,6% - new receipe. And it was through help of some friends, so it was not all my own samples. What can you do?, currently I am into these type of beers and it is not everyday you can sample them, so what the heck.
Below is the full list of beers that I sampled myself and paid for, no additional tasting as last week so this time it was all up to my own planning and taste.
SECOND DAY RESULTS:
1. Nils Oscar Kalasöl (new receipe)
A classic Vienna styled beer brewed by Nils Oscar. This year it had a updated receipe, so that was why it was on the list. Sorry, I did not notice any differences, a good beer, but a bit boring for my taste.
2. Dieu du Ciel Aphrodisiaque
Second draught beer from the Brasserie Dieu Du Ciel brewpub in Montréal, Quebec, Canada. A American styled Stout with Dark chocolate & Cocoa! It was like drinking a chocolate crème brulée and with 80% cacao or similar. Interesting but it was simply to much for me. Instead I still recommend last weeks draught beer from this brewery; Solstice D'hiver. Other geeks I spoke with had other thoughts about this beer and were very exited about it. So it seems that at least the brewery is doing a very good job with the beers.
3. Spinnakers Iceberg Pale Ale
An India Pale Ale (IPA) brewed by Spinnakers Brewpub Victoria, Canada. One of my favorite "normal" beers for the evening. A very clean and balanced American style IPA, drinkable and something that you can drink a lot of. A very nice bitter finish and something to recommend. One of the best "normal" Canadian beers during the festival, will be on my top 3 from my Canadian beer experience so far.
4. Stone IPA (Cask)
What can you say, a classic American IPA from one of the best breweries in the world. On my top list and it will still be there. Avaiable on draught over at the Oliver Twist booth and it was in the same league as the Dogfish head 60 min IPA last weekend. A clean balanced IPA, a classic.
5. Närke Örebro Bitter
If you talk about classic beers and from my top list this is the Swedish counterpart. One of the best beers from Sweden and from one of the best breweries in the world. Not always available at the Stockholm pubs so it has been a while since I sampled it, and now when the Bishop Arms branch had their own booth at the festival I thought to sample it. This was one of the first beers from a Swedish micro that I really liked and made it a classic for me as soon as it came out. Örebro Bitter is an English style ale, hopped with East Kent Golding and Cascade and as I said a classic and something to really recommend.
6. Dugges Idjit!
A Swedish Imperial Stout first presented at the festival, see my earlier entry about this new beer, that might be a new classic Swedish stout. Stockholm Beer 2007: A new Swedish beer classic? .
7. Dugges 1/2 Idjit!
Porter from Dugges and part of the Idjit range of beers. 1/2 Idjit is simply half a Idjit!, so it is a very potent porter and one of my favorites. It has a dark ruby color. Hint of coffee beans and a very roasted taste. Long roasted aftertaste with some alcohol buzz. As Dugges says this is half a Idjit but it is really making its own place and among the best porters available.
8. Steamworks Conductor Imperial India Pale Ale
An American style IPA from Steamworks brewery over in Colorado. This is a very potent beer and on the list because it was a imperial IPA which I always have to taste if available. Amber in color with a little white head. A very strong smell of hops, I believe it includes Simcoe. Simply a very drinkable DIPA, not on the top list but as a hop head this was quite a good beer. A new brewery at the festival and Sweden and it seems that they can do beer here also. Brewery is from Durango, Colorado.
9. Blue Point No Apologies Imperial IPA
Oh what can you say? Well the name says it all. This is a amazing DIPA and something I have to write more about in a separate entry. QUICK TAKE: Blue Point No Apologies Imperial IPA.
10. Hantverksbryggeriet Blåbärs Lambic Special (blueberry lambic)
Strange brew from the Hantverksbryggeriet over at Västerås. Sampled it last year at the festival and it is still no success. Like a alco-pop with some sourness, calling it a lambic is simply a shame. Something to jump over.
11. Samuel Adams Hallertau Imperial Pilsner
A very good hop bomb pilsner!, this was surely a winner and something that was on my top list for the night. See my earlier entry about this pilsner from Samuel Adams; QUICK TAKE: Samuel Adams Hallertau Imperial Pilsner. Will be available at Systembolaget in the beginning of December. 
Beer of the evening:
Blue Point No Apologies Imperial IPA
2007-09-29
QUICK TAKE: Samuel Adams Hallertau Imperial Pilsner
Sampled at Stockholm Beer 2007 last night.
A new beer for me from Samuel Adams that will also be sold at Systembolaget starting from December. I read about the beer due to soon being sold in Sweden and something that I was planning to buy in December, but now it was available at the festival.
This is a so called Imperial Pilsner in the tradition of American brewers playing with old beer style and not follow any rules regarding creating balanced beers. So "Imperial" simply means, when we talk about American beers; more of everything, often double or tripple of everything.
The beer has a very golden color and a white steady head. When it comes to aroma it is very similar to a strong IPA, meaning extra malt and massive amounts of hops. The flavor is hoppy and bitter and actually very balanced with the malt sweetness.
It has a great after-taste and it made its place together with the rest of IPAs that was sampled during the evening.
It is a lager beer but in the same moment due to the similarities to a American IPA the beer is a bit difficult to classify. At least it was interesting to taste my first Imperial Pilsner and it is always fun to see new kind of experiments, especially when it actually was at least a bit balanced if you recon that the beer has 110 in the IBU scale.
So based on my very limited experience in American Imperial Lagers, this is my favorite and something that I can recommend.
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)".
A new bishop has been born...
Just got the information that a new pub in the Bishops Arms chain has recently (27/9) opened up its doors in central Stockholm, (Vasagatan 7).
Feels that this can be a good addition to the pub environment in central Stockholm that is mainly lager places if you do no count in the different belgian places that are available. But a good traditional pub has not been available so this is good news for people having a quality beer in the neighborhods.
Bishop Arms is a pub chain in Sweden (24 pubs across the country) and is often connected to the Elite Hotel branches. With a traditional English interior it is often the only place you can get a decent beer outside central Stockholm and Gothenburg, so it is great to have such chain that can save your night if you have to spend a night in places like Norrköping, Västerås or Linköping.
Recently Bishop Armas has also started to provide good Swedish micros across the country and is getting better and better in connection with good beers and breweries.
Have not been to the new place yet but hope to visit it in the future and check out what you can expect regarding Swedish and English draft beers. The pub is located where "Tre Remmare" was located before and is just minutes from the central station.
Stockholm Beer 2007: Pictures from the second day
Our beer experience in photo mode during the second day of the festival.
The festival is over, but its getting close to the GABF event over at Colorado so we are already looking forward for that event. Seems this year has been a big festival year for us; meaning Copenhagen, Stockholm, London (GBBF) and finally Denver (GABF) during the same year.
Denver here we come...
Not yet, but it is really getting close now for the Denver beer experience. I and the rest of the beer crew are getting close for our beer trip of the year at GABF.
Hope to see you all over in Denver.
Cheers.
2007-09-26
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.
2007-09-25
A unique American beer in Sweden (Hint, its a Dogfish)
If you would have a competition for unique beers this would be my personal choice. Also a unique experiment between a Swedish pub and a American brewer working together with a unique ingredient in beer.
So what is it all about that I like to share with you?
It is the only remaining keg served in the world in the form of Dogfish Head Arctic Cloudberry Imperial Wheat from Dogfish Head Brewery, Delaware, USA made with cloudberries provided by Oliver Twist, Stockholm, Sweden.
The story about this beer is very interesting and unique in the same sense as the beer that Dogfish created. It started out with a other pub very close to the location of Oliver Twist in the form of Akkurat (a belgian beer mecha) when Jugge at OT brought some of Akkurats own Cantillon Soleil de Minuit (a other unique story) to the US and let some brewers taste it as a example of a cloudberry fruit beer.
The Dogfish brewery then simply decided they wanted to make something similar. And with the help of OT, 250 lbs of Swedish cloudberries were brought over to the awaiting brewer.
This was back in 2005 when the limited release beer was brewed at the Rehoboth Beach brewpub and later served at some festivals during the spring and summer of 2005 in the US. As a thank you back to Sweden the last ever keg was kept and then a very proud pub owner could serve the beer later during the traditional "Sour & Bitter"-festival held in Stockholm. When the beer was served at OT this was really a unique and limited beer when the last drops were served.
The slogan on the pictures says in english; "250 lbs of cloudberries from Sweden!, Dogfish made the rest, 8.5% ABV".
So the list of unique beers made by foreign brewers and connected to Sweden is slowly increasing, the short list I can remember so far includes;
1. This beer
2. Cantillon Soleil de Minuit
(A cantillon with Swedish cloudberries)
3. Harviestoun Black to Front
(Brewed for Akkurat and Oliver Twist, Stockholm, Sweden and occasionally for beer festivals)
4. Harviestoun Over & Out S.P.A.
(A Swedish Pale Ale!, especially brewed to celebrate 1500 beers at Akkurat and Oliver Twist. And the last beer from the brewmaster.)
Something more about Canadian beers?
As a newcomer with Canadian beers since the big sampling at Stockholm Beer I have tried to get some more information about the sampled beers and the breweries. During that search a stumpled on a great Canadian beer blog that I thought I could share with others. So if you ever get to Canada or want to learn whats hot in Canada, here is the url.
Great Canadian Pubs and Beer
One of the beers we sampled was the Propeller IPA, and I found a short article about that brewpub that was interesting to read, see below.
Propeller Micro Brewery
Seems that we have to add a short trip to Canada during our New England Mega beer trip that we are planning as the next big beer adventure.
2007-09-24
New beers from Samuel Adams
Both in November and December a couple of new beers will be sold through Systembolaget from the Samuel Adams Brewery in Boston. The beers will be provided by the reseller of Galatea. One of the beers has been available before but in very limited editions, the other two is at least new for me.
1. Samuel Adams Utopias 2007
For the bargain price of 1217 SEK, :). This beer is not brewed so often and it is seen as the most expensive and exclusive beer in the world. I have tasted the beer once at the Stockholm Beer a couple of years ago, and I would not say that it is worth its price, but it is a exiting brew, but nothing that is a favorite or on any of my top lists, frankly a bit to much. But my geek genes say that I will probably try to get a bottle anyway just because it is rare.
2. Samuel Adams Imperial Pilsner
A new american experience for me in the tradition of doing double and imperial beers of traditional European styled beers. So here we have a Imperial Pilsner, meaning double of everything compared to a normal pilsner. Loaded with tons of Hallertau Mittelfrüh-hops that raises it to amazing 110 IBUs. Comes with the moderate price of 34 SEK.
3. Samuel Adams Holiday Porter
A american porter dedicated to the christmas tables and hopefully will be found by the Swedish christmast beer community (a big thing in Sweden to buy the Christmas beers when they are all realesed on Nov 16). 16 SEK for a 355 ml bottle.
All 3 will be available at Systembolaget, but to remember the Utopia is limited to only 36 bottles (of total 12000 produced).
2007-09-23
Stockholm Beer 2007: Beers to look for next week..
Had a blast with so much exiting beers at Stockholm Beer last night, but I am now already looking forward for the next weekend, hopefully I will be able to leave the US-beers for a while. So what can it be, well here is a interesting list, that might work;
1. Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barley Wine (cask)
2. Sierra Nevada Celebration 2007 (cask)
3. Gonzo imperial porter
4. Braunstein Viking IPA
5. Braunstein Heritage 2005 – Barly Wine
6. Dugges Idjit! 1st Limited Edition (Imperial Stout) 16,5 vol%
7. Dugges High Five! (India Pale Ale) 7,5 vol
8. Hantverksbryggeriet Prototyp X (Imperial Stout)8,6%
9. Bluepoint No Apologies Double IPA 10%
10. Ocean Brewery OCEAN RED ALE, Cask-edition 4,3 % ABV
11. Ocean Brewery OCEAN PORTER, Cask-edition 5,6 % ABV
12. Oppigårds Smithy Ale, 4,6% - new receipe
13. Oppigårds Porter 5,5% - stored in 6 month
14. Oppigårds Stout, 4,8% - oaked
Well some US-beers made to the list, what can you do?
Stockholm Beer 2007: A new brewery from Gothenburg!
It is not so often we get new breweries in Sweden, especially from Gothenburg. So it was very fun to see that we now have two breweries in the second city of Sweden. Dugges has given us many new exiting brews the last couple of years and is for many the best micro brewery in Sweden (I am one of them). So it is great to see a new brewery from the same city in the form of Oceanbryggeriet.
The brewery has a short but interesting history;
The "Oceanbryggeriet" was started during the winter of 2006. They are located at the old brewery of Lyckholm in Gothenburg and has recently started the production. The brewmaster is Thomas Bingebo and has a passed from the DWAN Brewery (Ireland), Messrs Maguire Brewpub (Ireland) and the Swedish brewery Jämtlands. The malt comes from Thomas Fawcett & Sons in Castleford, West Yorkshire, England. The hops also from England, but also American and german hops are used. The brewery has plans to produce both draught, bottled and cask-conditioned ale.
The location has been a brewery through the Lyckholms Brewery between 1880 and 1975 when the owner Pripps closed them down. Lyckholms was a pioneer in many areas, for example they had the first cooler facility in Sweden already in 1881, a automatic bottle machine in 1887 and was first with filtering beers in 1889.
The brewery was purchased by Pripps and became the Pripp & Lyckholm brewery. Production was stopped during the 60s and finally closed completely in 1975. All of the brewery equipment come from the Jämtlands Brewery and formelly the closed brewery of Gamlestaden in Gothenburg. So the equipment was bought back to Gothenburg when Jämtlands upgraded too new equipments. As a brewer Thomas B has the knowledge for creating great beers after doing over 700 brews for the Jämtlands brewery.
As the first couple of beers that were provided at the festival comes;
1. Ocean Red Ale (4.8 ABV, hops; Northern Brewer, Challenger, Bramling X & Cascade, A English Porter)
2. Ocean Porter (5.6% ABV, hops; Northern Brewer & Challenger, An Irish Ale)
We tasted them both and it looks very promising, especially the Porter was a direct winner, a tobacco & coffee combination that makes a real English style porter.
We within the beer community says; Great with a new brewery in the old beer capitol of Sweden and good luck in the future.
One more thing; the next 2 beers will the Ocean India Pale Ale & Ocean Pilsner.
Stockholm Beer 2007: Beer tasting list day I
Apart from the 11 beers we tasted during the Left Hand and Canadian beer tastings, my list of beer so far during the Stockholm Beer looks like below; (as normal very focused on the American beers at Oliver Twist, cant help myself for drinking beer from the best beer country in the world, but hopefully it will have a other and wider focus next week, :)).
1. North Coast Red Seal, (that we normally start with)
2. Dogfish 60 Minutes IPA (cask)
3. Flying Dog Snaked Dog IPA
4. Sierra Neva Anniversary Ale (cask)
5. Left Hand Imperial Stout (cask)
6. Dieu du Ciel Brasserie Solstice d'Hiver (cask)
7. 21st Amendment 21A-IPA (can)
8. Dugges 1/2 Idjit (cask)
9. Avery 12
10. Odell India Pale Ale
Any winners?, well that is very difficult because they were almost all very potent beers. But a short list probably looks like below;
1. 60 Minutes IPA (this is the best IPA overall from Dogfish, 90 & 120 are great but this one is the most balanced and drinkable beer from the brewery)
2. Dugges 1/2 Idjit & Left Hand Imperial Stout (we are really looking for the whole Idjit next week!, and 3 samples of the imperial stout show that this is one of my favorite Imperial stout both on bottle and cask)
3. 21st Amendment 21A-IPA (for being such a good example of a IPA on a can!)
Plus a special credit for the 21st Amendment Watermelon Wheat, not a great beer, but it gets extra points to actually tasting like watermelon, and that is really a achievement. 
The full US-beer line of beers at the Oliver Twist booth.
Stockholm Beer 2007: Canadian tasting with the beer writer Stephen Beaumont
Second tasting was hold by the famous beer writer Stephen Beaumont and focused on the new Canadian beers that Oliver Twist is providing for us this year at the Stockholm beer.
It is always fun to see new beer countries in Sweden and when the tasting is hold by a very famous beer writer of Canadian Beers it is even more exciting. Stephen is a beer writer, both as a author of beer books and also a popular writer at many of the big US and Canadian beer magazines.
At this years festival Oliver Twist is providing around 20 beers from 10 different breweries from Canada and with a focus on the east coast of the country. And you can see that the breweries are inspired by the Belgian counterparts, so we tasted a list of very good belgian inspired beer. But for us it was more interesting to taste some of the more normal beers of the style ESB, Stout and IPAs.
Did not get the full list of beers that we tasted but here is the beers that I had time to write down.
1. Black Oak, Summer Saison
2. King Brewery, Pilsner
3. ALLEY KAT BREWING Co, Herbstweizen
4. MILL STREET BREWING Co, Coffee Porter
5. Unibroue La Terrible
Very nice beers and something to start with when you want to test what beers in Canada is all about.
But my personal favorite of all the Canadian beers was one of the available beers on draught. That meant the Solstice d` Hiver from the brewery DIEU du CIEL BRASSERIE in Montreal, Canada. Dieu du Ciel Solstice dHiver (Winter Solstice) as a beer style is barley wine (to me a American styled barley wine compared to a traditional English one) with a amber color, thin off-white head, raisin touches in the malt base, alcohol with some brandy flavours, chocolate and vanilla notes. A very potent winter ale that was a very interesting sip of beer and one of the winners during the first day at the festival.
DIEU du CIEL BRASSERIE is a brewery and pub in Montréal, Quebec. The brewpub is one of Montreal's leading brew pubs. The place is owned by three former microbiology students and self-proclaimed beer aficionados. All the beers at Dieu du Ciel are brewed right on the premises; patrons can observe fermenting and brewing paraphernalia that make up part of the bar's decor. Dieu du Ciel's has a number of porters, stouts or ales boasting with intriguing names like 'The Pagan', 'Sunday Morning Mass', 'The Resurrection' and 'The Goddess of the Night'.
If you want to learn more about this brewery and why the guys started the brewery, check out their site and history over at; URL.
Reporter from Ale Street News (left) and people from the Canadian brewery DIEU du CIEL BRASSERIE (right).
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, :).
Stockholm Beer 2007: Pictures from the first day
 |
| Stockholm Beer 2007 Part I |
So the first day at the festival has passed, and as a summary it was probably the best festival ever. I will come back with a series of reports from this important beer festival.
We really had a blast last night, at least it feels like that today, :).
.
2007-09-21
Beers from Nils Oscar at Stockholm Beer 2007
The Nils Oscar brewery will have some exciting new and updated stuff at the Stockholm Beer this year. Always fun because Nils Oscar is not directly famous for producing many new products, they are more into producing a fixed number of beers produced in the best possible way.
They often get criticized among the beer geek community in Sweden that they are seen as a bit boring, simply because they stick to their normal beers. For my personal opinion it is simply two different strategies, produce a lot of new beers with the result of both amazing beers but also a lot of failures, or you try to concentrate on doing the best possible beers and stick to that. And I think both strategies works and should be accepted by the beer communities.
Anyway the following list of beers will be provided by Nils Oscar;
1. Nils Oscar Farm Ale 30L**Updated, with more hops!**
2. Nils Oscar Julöl 2007 30L **(Christmas beer), A new recipe**
3. Nils Oscar Rökporter 30L**(Smoked porter), A new beer!**
4. Nils Oscar Trippel 30L**A new beer!**
5. Nils Oscar Kalasjulöl 30L**(Christmas beer), Updated, with more dark beer malt**
The trippel is a very strange beer, had the opportunity to test it at Akkurat a few weeks ago and it was an amazing beer, but very difficult to define.
