Buy a Idjit to your home...

Just read that through the result that Brill & Co has taken over the distribution of all beers from Dugges, it also means that directly a range of the beers will be available over at Systembolaget. As a start this means;

1. Gustafs Finger
2. Bältesspännaren
3. Kals Stout

all available on 0,5l bottles.

But the most interesting news is that Mikael over at Dugges also informs that during spring 08 we can look forward for "½ Idjit!" at Systembolaget and finally in the fall we can enjoy; Idjit!.

If you have missed the talk about the Idjit! range of beers, then here is a short recap;

½ Idjit! is a porter brewed by Dugges Ale & Porterbryggeri on the west-coast of Sweden. ½ simply means that it never went the whole way up to a full Idjit, so it just became of potent port at 7.0 ABV. It comes with a darkish color with a very thick tan head, coffee, choco and with a hint of liqorice flavour. Simply a amazing beer when it has been available.

Then to double that and brew something totally crazy Dugges is also brewing the full Idjit that can be described as big Imperial Stout at ABV 16.5!. Still only available as limited test brews this beer will be stored at least six months and seems to be a beer that might come up to the level as Imperial stout beers as Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter or Nøgne Ø Dark Horizon First Edition.

At least it has been a beer to wait for, and getting the news that we can actually buy it locally at the Systembolaget is great news, and much better than the hype with Kaggen that is a great beer but impossible to get hold of.

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)".

QUICKTAKE: The Saturday beer result

We had a nice little beer crawl this weekend at the normal places we visit in Stockholm. So we just wanted some great beers in a slow phase and then get home quite early. As you probably know yourselves it is always better to drink beer early during the day, at least what I like, its calmer, you can sit down, talk with the bartenders and do not have to struggle with the euro lager crowd that fills up all our pubs during the evenings.

Started out at the favorite place of Oliver Twist and tested some of the available US-draught beers that they currently have on tap (the list if getting to the end, US draught list, so now we are only waiting for a "bastard");

1. Lost Coast Indica India Pale Ale (draught)
I tasted this on draught last year in Eureka when we had our west-coast brew crawl. And I simply have to say that it as great example of an american india pale ale, to me one of the best. And regarding the brewery I think this is the best they can do, world class, and much better than the rest of the offer they have. I do not think that it is such a great brewery, but at least they have one great beer. A very balanced brew with a great hoppy flavor. I believer it is Columbus, Willamette and Centennial hops they use.

2. Anchor Liberty Ale (draught)
Old favorite which is much better than the bottled version. Quite a normal beer in Stockholm so you sort of skip it because of other new brews you always have to taste. But it is simply a "classic" american ale, and so much fun to see that it is even better as a draught version. Can not pin point the difference, but it seems so much "rounder". One of the best APAs (means monkey in Swedish!) you can have on draught, at least if you only have the "normal" beers to choose from.

Left the american shelf and continued with some great example of Swedish micros.

3. Dugges High Five
Used to be a favorite when it was first released earlier this year as a experiment.

It is still a very potent american IPA, but something is lost. Earlier it was a favorite, because in short words it was a very high alpha hop monster that throw you away, and reminded me of the hop monster I like from the US. Nothing to do with a balanced brews, just a bunch of alpha hops (Amarillo, Centennial, Chinook, Simcoe and Tomahawk). Now when it was made a regular beer and Dugges switched the tomahawk to something else, it sort of misses the extra touch that I liked so much. But that is one of the problem when you are a small brewery, you get something that works and then have to do it once more and in larger quanties, at that is not so easy.

Hopefully it will come back and hopefully Dugges can get hold of a bunch of tomahawk again. Anyway it is drinkable and still quite a good IPA, but not world class anymore, which is a bit of a pitty. Hopefully it will turn better, otherwise we can alwasy drink a "Bollox" or a "Holy Cow", they are still great beers.

Left Oliver Twist and a few blocks away over to Akkurat (the number 1 pub in Sweden!) where we finished of with a new "classic" micro.

4. Ölands Amarillo Golden Ale
Here is a beer for my taste. A single hop beer with a great hop taste, but also in the same time very balanced. It is fun to see that such a new brewery (no more than 6 months) is learning and getting better for each beer they produce.

It started out a bit bad and with some awful samplings at the beginning, at least for me, so it seemed to be based on the daily quality and what batch you could get hold of.

It seems that Ölands is getting to be one of the best US-inspired breweries in Sweden, together with Dugges.

If you like US IPAs and APAs it is always fun to see these little breweries being inspired and many times are creating new existing brews that beats the "originals".

So here we have a beer with Amarillo hops with a toffee malt and very hoppy and dry finish, this is the best so far for them, and might be a future Swedish micro classic.