The beers tasted during the last weekends pub crawl around the Stockholm beer scene turned out to be quite a impressive collection, or what?.
A great real ale from Orkney island + 4! US-beers on draught, that is really something. Seems that the Stockholm beer scene is getting better and better.
1. Stone Arrogant Bastard (draught version)
2. Moylans Moylanders Double IPA
3. Lost Abbey Red Barn Ale
4. Blue Point Hoptical Illusion (draught version)
5. Stone Old Guardian Barley Wine
6. Orkney Brewery Dark Island (real ale)
7. Hazelnut Brown Nectar(draught version)
8. Fort Collins Brewery Rocky Mountain IPA (draught version)
4 comments:
If you liked the Dark Island, you should look for the Dark Island Reserve, aged in whisky casks. Lovely stuff.
Yes it was a great beer. It was surely a popular beer over at OT tonight.
The beer is extremelly black, similar to a stout, and has a aroma that comes with chocolate & coffee.
Maybe just a bit to much to drink as a pint.
Wow you got some Lost Abbey over there... I'm sure you know all about what Port Brewing/Lost Abbey is doing here in So. Cal making the great beer they are. I really like the Red Barn.. I haven't had a whole lot of Saisons so I'm not too sure how it stands up to some of the more traditional stuff (ie Dupont). Have you tried it and if so what do you think?
Yes sure I have heard about Lost Abbey and what Tomme Arthur is doing with traditional Belgian brews.
T is a great brewer and really a big part of the US micro beer industry, I regularly ready his own blog and has listened to him a couple of times, both at the latest GABF and this year Extreme Beer Fest over at Boston.
But as genuine Belgian beers it is very difficult to say because for me they are all great beers but in the same time very similar to a regular Belgian beer.
Yes you notice that it is a typical Belgian, but in the same time that is common between a couple of hundred breweries in Belgian.
So frankly I have to say that the Red Barn is said to be a saison that simply mean "season" in French, and what that means is a bit opened and difficult to distinguish.
They categorize an ale that is brewed in the autumn or winter for consumption during the late summer harvest as traditional farm ale.
As the saison style originated before the advent of refrigeration, Belgian brewers had to brew in the autumn, just to prevent the beer from getting bad during the brewing process.
So it is a bit difficult to say what a typical saison is, and if you compare to a Belgian blond ale.
This beer from Lost Abbey is good but for me it is nothing more than a good Belgian beer, drinkable but calling it a typical saison is a bit difficult to say.
When we sampled it we simply said that well it is Belgian but nothing more.
Anyway I think it is fun what Tom is doing, but it will take a bit longer to actually get to something more and classic.
I have sampled probably 5-6 of his beers and I have still not found anything that is better than a regular Belgian beer in the form of Duvel or similar.
I also have to say that a Belgian saison is not my number one type of beer, so I am not saying that beers like dupont or similar is any better. I am more into lambics and trappist types of beer myself.
And if you talk about typical saison beers I would not say dupont, my answer would instead be the beers from Fantôme and for example the Fantôme Saison.
Sorry, but still they are great beers. Just a bit difficult to compete with if you have a choice, but in the same time extremelly fun that the new things if you talk about belgian beer styles are coming from the US and not from belgium itself. They are kind of stuck with the old tradition.
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