How about something new?: Laughing Dog Brewing

Sometimes you feel just to promote new breweries that you discover and hopefully something that might be coming to a pub close to you. Small breweries are something that you as a beer geek always need to promote.

So if you ever see a beer from Laughing Dog Brewing you should definitely test it out. This is a tiny brewery that we discovered during this years GABF and the brewery is located in Selkirk Mountains just outside of Sandpoint Idaho and in the city of Ponderay. They produce a full range of beer style as; pale ale, IPA, Stout and ESB. The bottles all come with the Laughing Yellow Lab that appears on all of their brews and is Ben their family dog. The full range of beers looks like this;

1. Laughing Dog Pale Ale
2. Laughing Dog India Pale Ale
3. Laughing Dog Cream Ale
4. Laughing Dog Sweet Stout
5. Laughing Dog Crotch Sniffing Bastard (ESB)

And they also do an Imperial IPA called; Laughing Dog Devil Dog Imperial IPA.

All great beers, where my personal favorite was the pale ale, which a very hoppy aroma pale ale and balanced perfectly with a great mixture of malts. As a pale ale this is a perfect beer that is not too much of everything, simply a very balanced beer, but still with the citrus hop kick you want in a beer.

So remember this, if you see the beer, let them a go. Just saw that the beers are available over at; Belmont Station in Portland.

So when can we expect this beer over at Oliver Twist or Akkurat??

Getting close to the end...

Christmas has passed and we are getting close to also end 2007. Over at Oliver Twist we are also getting to the end of the OT US-draught attack.

I have personally just missed a few of them but it has been a great beer experience and a "ok" substitute for not being in the US and drinking them directly. So last night it was time for the last beer, at least the named ones (according to the list we can look forward for at least one more secret beer).

And this time it was the IPA from the Smuttynose brewery over at Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

This beer has been a favorite on the bottle a couple of years and was surely a big hit a day after christmas and much better than all the christmas beers that you are really a bit fed up with right now. So the 20l keg came and went quite fast during the evening so at 21.00 it was emptied and the US-draught could be finished and passed to the beer history books.

Now we are already looking forward for the next batch of US-beers at OT that is scheduled for January or February.

QUICKTAKE: A new draft beer from Colorado and something from Moylans!

The crazy US draught list over at Oliver Twist has continued the last couple of weeks and when we finally have emptied the great but very strong Canadian Barley Wine (which took 2 weeks!) we are now finally back to the US and some great IPAs. The list has changed back and forward the last week but the selection has been great.

First is a additional new beer from Colorado in the form of the regular IPA from the Avery brewery. For me Avery is more famous and better doing strong barleys and oaked strong experiments like "Hog Heaven","Uber Schwein", "The Beast Grand Cru Ale" or "Mephistopheles Stout".

But as a regular IPA it is great anyway and a very normal beer for being from Avery.

The beers pours an orange color and with a thick hite head. Smell is the tradionally grapefruit/citrus tones, the taste is a strong an sticky hops aroma with some malt balance. At the end a bit more balanced than the rest of the big IPAs, and extremelly balanced if you compared with other beers from this brewery.

The second beer on the list, at least for me (you can not be there every day) was something that I surely was looking forward for. Moylans IPA is one of my favorite California IPA and the better breweries from the same state.

If you compare the beer with the Avery version you can summarize it simply by saying that it is not at last balanced, but in the same time that is probably not the idea.

I like it and something that you can drink loads off. It is simply a very bitter hop bomb with mild malt sweetness. Sticky grapefruit and floral hoppiness that stays around for ages.

Not the best IPA in the world, but as a hop junky this is surely a beer for me. I can agree with people saying that Moylans is often a bit to much, but in the same time it seems to be the idea of the brewery and often that is something that we hopgeeks like and something you would miss if they would turn to be a more normal brewery.

Current crazy list from OT, seems that we have more beers to look forward for.

GBTD-07 Special Report: Rocky Montain IPA!

This is a special announcement to the great people at Fort Collins Brewery over at Fort Collins, Colorado. We had a great time over at the brewery today and enjoyed all of the great beers you do. During that time we had a discussion about Rocky Montaint beers in Sweden, especially the IPA. Yes, it is true we actually got the beer over at Oliver Twist, Stockholm, Sweden at the end of summer, both on bottle and then later at a draught version during the US-beer draught weeks. Here is the proof (the IPA is the 2nd beer served);

And here is the same beer served at the brewery today, in a growler. Thanks for creating so great and exciting brews, and good luck in the future.

Always fun to hear that we got a beer over at Stockholm from a brewery that is so new and small that they got very surprised that the beer had travelled all over the world to a bunch of beer lovers in Sweden.

QUICK TAKE: Blue Point No Apologies Imperial IPA

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?

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.

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.

A arrogant bastard at Oliver Twist!

So the time that we all beer geeks have been waiting for in Stockholm has finally come. Oliver Twist in Stockholm came to the end of the US-micro draught list and ended up with a bastard!

We all thought that the rest of the beer crews had spend all of the beers during the week and the rest during Friday, has been on tap since the beginning of the week, but we were lucky and could get hold of a Arrogant Bastard from Stone Brewery in San Diego during our traditional Saturday pub cruise.

I have tasted the beer before both on bottle and tap (Sunset Grill & Tap in Boston and couple of other places) so it was not new for me, but today it came to its best days. I do not think this is the best beer in the world and Stone as a brewery is a bit exaggerated mostly because that they are very good at creating a need for buying their beers, frankly Stone is the micro brewery in the states that is best in selling the beers and making money of it and creating a hype (maybe over hyped?), but is not the best when it comes to the actual beers.

Anyhow today the beer was excellent and just told me one thing; "Drink me, I am the best beer in world".

I really enjoyed it this time, and you can understand why it get so high rating at sites like RateBeer or BeerAdvocate, and as a hop head this is really my cup of tea.

It comes with a strong malty smell with loads of hoppy bitterness and a warm touch of alcohol. Do not remember in details compared to the bottled version, but to my likings this is one of the few beers from the US that is a bit better as a draught version (in Boston we had three of these bastards; normal on tap, cask and the oak ed version of tap!).

I really love this stuff and Stone is still one of my favorite breweries in the states, does not care about how commercial they are, as long as they produce great beers. It is not so often, but this time I had to buy the same beer once again during the same evening, that say something about how great it was.

With the result that we have now tasted at least 8-10 US beers on tap during a couple of week and that we can buy at least 25 or 30 other types of US-beers on the bottle at Oliver Twist I would like to challenge you all (if I am not the only one reading this blog entry, :)).

Can we find a better pub in Europe or the rest of the world except the US that has the amount, range and knowledge of US-beers than Oliver Twist in Stockholm?

Just asking because I do not know of a better place and is wondering if any other place in Europe can compete with this kind of quality beers from the USA.

Please help me and add any comments about a similar place outside the US that compete with the following; (what has been provided to us the last couple of weeks at Oliver Twist)

Great divide: Denver pale ale., Ridgeline amber ale., St Bridges porter., Titan IPA., Old ruffian barley wine.
Oskar blues: Dales pale ale., Old chub., Gordon double IPA.
Left hand: Sawtooth., Deep cover brown ale., Black jack porter.,Imperial stout.,Milk stout.,Haystack wheat.,Jackmans pale ale.,Warrior IPA.
Rouge: American amber.,Dead guy ale.,Dry hop red.,Brutal bitter.,Chipotle.,Chocolate stout.,Shakespeare stout.,Hazelnut brown.,Half-a-weizen.,XS imperial IPA.,XS Russian imperial stout.,Anniversary.
North coast: Acme IPA.
Andersson Valley: Hop ottin IPA.
Avery: IPA.
Dogfish head: 60 minutes.,90 minutes.,Festina peach.
Fort Collins: Chocolate stout.,Rocky mountain IPA.,Rocky mountain IPA.
Lost coast: Indica IPA.
Butternuts: Porkslap ale.,Snapperhead IPA.
Pyramid: IPA.
Smuttynose: IPA.,Big A.
Southern Tier: IPA.,Java stout.
Speak easy: Double daddy.
Stone: Arrogant bastard.,Ruination.,Vertical epic.
Thirsty dog: Hoppus maximus.
Victory: Hop devil.

And of these the following were served on tap (plus the Indica India Pale Ale not on the list);

And remember that Oliver Twist gets a load of these beers at least every third month or so, and we also were drinking the Vertical from Stone at the outdoor teracce just a couple of weeks ago,

I am simply asking myself, can this be the US-beer heaven in the world?, at least in Europe and outside the US.

The Session #7 (Brew Zoo)

My contribution is a Swedish IPA from the small brewery of Dugges Ale- & Porterbryggeri on the west coast of the country. The beer is called Holy Cow!, and I do not know so many more beers that has a cow on it, but you out there might know about any other?

Dugges produces different series of beer and this one is part of the so called "The express yourself series", which represents special beers with an attitude. Dugge himself (yes that is name of the brewer himself) says the following about his beer;

"A "India Pale Ale" with load of malt and hops. The quite high alcohol level is hidden behind a fruity and quite sweet caramel malty body. The sweetnes is balanced by 5 different hops (US-ones) that has created a large but in the same soft bitternes with a long taste."

For myself it is a American IPA with a amber colour and a firm beige head. Aroma is a bit peppar and caramel, with a very hoppy flavour. And at last a very long dry aftertaste. Alcohol is not felt, it just adds the extra flavor. Simply a great IPA that I drink at my favorite pubs in Stockholm like Oliver Twist and Glenfiddich Warehouse.

Just for fun and one more type of animal (well not type, simply a bit younger), the beer was also inspired to brew a test variant, that simply could have been a Holy Cow, but only became a calf. Called in Swedish; Dugges Provbrygd 1-2007 (Kalven)


Dugges is quite new as a brewery, and the beers have been available for a year or so. Very inspired by US-breweries, so you can expect a lot of IPAs and different types of hops like cascade, amarillo and chinook.

They also produces great types of stouts and ports (part of the brewery name) and is very keen on testing out different types of beer with the test brews sold to the pubs for sampling and is then decided to be produced or not by the people who drink them.

The have four different series;
The Gothenburg series - Old Swedish beer tradition combined with English stubbornness and American new thinking.

Express Yourself! - More of everything (where Holy Cow is located)

The country series - Different countries - Different Characters? (like Britannia & California)

Seasons - Christmas etc (here we have an additional animal in the form of Rudolph the reindeer!)


Thats it, my first test for the "Session", I am quite new with this, so bare we me, and see this as a little contribution from a beer geek in Sweden.

UPDATED 2007-09-07 13:50
And here is the collection of all the animals that have been collected so far over at Lykes;

The Session #7 so far

How about an IPA and a Leatherlips?

If I have to choose a particular style of beer, it must be an IPA, and almost always from the US. Do not remember all of them, but my current list of great favorite IPAs looks like below;

1. Pliny The Elder
2. Blind Pig IPA
3. Leatherlips IPA (The Tap)
4. Two Hearted Ale
5. Bell's HopSlam
6. Stone IPA (India Pale Ale)

There are certainly other options, but I have to choose those available for me, and types that I sampled several off.

To mention a very special beer for me and my beer experience and one on the list it must be the Leatherlips IPA from The Tap / Haverhill Brewery.

You could wonder by the choice, the rest of the list is high on sites like beeradvocate and ratebeer, where did then the Leatherlips come from? Well simply because of the experience. Here we found ourselves (me and my girl friend) in a very cold Boston in feb-07 (visiting the extreme beer fest held by beeradvocate), when we find this very tiny pub called Bukowski's Tavern and found a new beer to love.

The great thing with this beer is actually not the taste in first place, a great example of a IPA that you can drink a lot of. No the most important thing about this beer is the alcohol, simply coming with only 5.00% ABV!.

The rest of the great IPAs I have ever tasted and liked has been something like 6.5 and above, for example Stone is 6.90%, blind pig comes with 6 and pliny is even up to 8%. So thats why it is so great, here we have a great example of a US-IPA, with a very big fresh, dry hop aroma and very balanced regarding bitterness.

But drinking it you can not imagine that it is only 5%, it be much more!, its sort of fills your mouth with a very dry finish of hop forever, and it just simply tell you to; drink me, take an other one!

It was surely the winner for us during the weekend, not even the extreme beer fest could out win our experience at Bukowski's, when we returned to have a Leatherlips.

A fun thing is that when we first sampled the beer, we thought Leatherlips IPA from Tap, simply meant that it was on draught, we later understod that the name had to do with the brewery.

Hopefully we will have our new england beer tour next year (or at least in a couple of years) and then The Tap in Haverhill, Massachusetts will be on the short list.

An other fun thing was after we returned from the night of the barrels at the extreme fest we were so filled up with oak flavours and vanilla that we could not distinguish between the leatherlips and a Hercules Double IPA for a couple of minutes (the color help us after a while), that also says a lot about how great the beer is, Hercules IPA comes with 9.1%, but here we could not actually feel the difference at first, just that something was wrong.

So thanks to the brewmaster Mike Labbe at The Tap providing such a great IPA, with the very nice feature, that you can drink a lot of it. Hopefully we will drink "on the tap", next year.

"UPDATED 080806:"

And yes we did! On July 15th 2008 we arrived to Haverhill and could enjoy the place and of course the Leatherlips IPA + a six pack that we brought home almost intact.