Bistro Double IPA Festival

The yearly Double IPA festival has been held once more over at Bistro, San Fran, California.

And as normal I which I had the time to actually be there, sigh!!

Närke Kulturbryggeri Festival: Missed a hit

Well I have really nothing to report except that I missed the Närke brewery festival at Akkurat, yes the whole weekend. I had to go on a business trip so I had to leave all the great beers from Örebro to the rest of the beer community at Akkurat and instead drink "Stor Stark" for 50 SEK in Åre!. So the only thing I have is the menu!.

For those enjoying this event you could drink amazing things like;

1. Stormaktsporter from 2005!!!
2. "!", An Old Ale at 8% ABV

etc etc. Well a classic that I missed but anyway it was a hit (500l was served during a few days) and hopefully Akkurat will have the great taste to have a rerun in a close future,

please?

Never mind the Bollox!: Swedish Imperial IPA

Today it was time for a new beer in the form of a American styled Imperial or Double India Pale Ale and a new masterpiece from the brewery in Mölndal.

What I am talking about is the new Bollox! beer from Dugges Ale & Porterbryggeri. It has been served in Gothenburg for a couple of weeks now, but it is now time for Stockholm and the North branch of the Bishops Arms chain.

Dugges is most often a great brewery, simply that you get everything you want as a beer geek; new inventions, no restrictions, always a new type of beer, never boring, always something to wait for, much of everything etc etc etc.

The problem with bigger craft breweries is that they tend to start sticking with the big sellers and develop on that, and as a beer geek you instead tend to like the smaller craft breweries simply because they bring you something new every week or month or quarter.

So now it seems that Dugges has continued the success of the Bollox! branch, which is still a US-inspired IPA with bitter dry hopped aroma hops with tons of Centennial, or simply as the brewery says;

"No bullshit, this is the bollox!"

The new beer is the same beer with the same type of sweetnes with tons of hops but developed in the same category as Imperial IPAs (at least inspired) as "Russian River Pliny the Elder" or "Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA".

A very dark amber color with a steady white head, sweetnes comes first and when the beers matures in the glass & gets warmer you get a malty bitterners and warmness from the alcohol (9.2 ABV), and finally it explodes in hops touches. Simply a Swedish hop monster that will be a hit among the beer geeks, or at least the hop heads.

It is not up in hop heaven (cheers to pliny!), but as for a Swedish beer and for a brewery as Dugges (1 person) it is a big achievement and it is always great to have a hop buzz not only all the way over at the US.

You can close you eyes and you could believe that you are sitting drinking a US ADIPA at Barcade or Toronado or at a local brewery in Southern California.

So thumbs up for Dugges and it looks like 2008 will be a great new beer year, so whats next?, at least we are waiting for the "Perfect Idjit!".

The new cupboard...

The new cupboard has arrived, so now we can finally get some order again in the increasing number of beer glasses. Feels great to have a place to store all the glasses that you "need".

So the cupboard is now divided into four different categories;

1. US Beer pints
2. Large & small tasters
3. Belgian lambic glasses
4. Assorted glasses from Stockholm beers

+ assorted belgian glasses for all kind of purposes.

QUICKTAKE: Middle Ages X Double India Pale Ale

The Middle Ages X Double India Pale Ale was brewed once to celebrate the 10th anniversary and brewed in the style of an American Double IPA.

I purchased the beer in beginning at 2007 (Boston in feb during the extremen beer fest) and it has after that been stored until now. Seems that the beer was better than ever and it had matured good during the years (brewed in 2005 as the info on the site says) and with the 10% ABV it had the potential to store well.

It poured a deep copper & with a white head, smell was grapefruit aroma with a strong underlying bittering hoppy aroma, taste is also grapefruit with a bitterness to it, its rich & creamy with a slight alcohol bite. It is simply a great hoppy (Warrior?) ADIPA and it was worth wait and getting this beer all the way from Boston.

Finally the beer is a bit of a mystery for me, on the bottle design like the one at BeerAdvocate it says 1995 -- 2005, showing that the beer was done once in 05. But on my example this is removed and is not saying anything when it was actually brewed. So it seems maybe that the brewery has continued to do the beers after 2005?

VS.

Anyway a great DIPA that I will give 4+ on my beer scale. Seems that I have to check for more beers from this brewery when we get to New York in March.

QUICKTAKE: The beers from Skinners

We have recently been enjoying real ales from both Rudgate and Skinners lately in Stockholm. Escpecially Skinners is a very good example for a great new brewery from Cornwall. Well "new", at least the brewery is quite new when it started up the business in 1997.

The brewery was started by Steve and Sarah Skinner in 1997 in Truro, Cornwall and they have quite quickly established themselves as one of the major craft breweries in the South-West. The brewery is family-run and operates all brewing in Truro and where they have a great selection of cask conditioned ales that has earned them prizes including twice Supreme champion of the South West and SIBA UK National Reserve Champion of Great Britain.

One of the fun part of the brewery is the quite hilarious labels that they use for the bottle design and also the beer name. What about; "Pennycomequick", "Jingle Knockers" or "Bishop Bills Truro Brew"? and these labels;



Served beers at OT that I have sampled so far is Skinners Keel Over and Skinners Figgys Brew.

The first one is a classic styled bitter, with a clear deep golden to amber colour and big white head, a decent real ale bitter. Second one is a darker bitter, copper in color and white head, a bit of hops with notes of malt, also very decent and drinkable.

The beers are not master pieces but they do decent drinkable beers that you can drink much of. Beers do not always need to be strong and hoppy and master pieces, some times you just feel for a drinkable beers and that is where breweries like Skinners have a place for me.

A strange beer from Carlsberg

In the list of strange beers sampled this one from Carlsberg is probably on top 10. I recently found the bottle again when I was trying to get rid off all the stuff that due to some strange reasons you keep at home. I sampled this beer "19B" a few years back when Akkurat was having a beer sale and was selling beers that was coming to its end. I just remembered that the beer was drinkable but it was a bit unknown what beer it actually was, simply because it had passed its best form.

So does anyone know anything about this beer? Doing some searches on the web does not say much, at least I can not find the beer over at Ratebeer or BeerAdvocate so it must be quite rare.

Checking some more it seems that the beer is a export beer sold in Belgium and was a Dopplebock with around 7.5 ABV.

Some information I found at the Danish site says something like;

19B
Oprindelig lavet som Carlsbergs påskebryg i 1952. Den var mørk, markedet begyndte at efterspørge en lysere påskebryg. Derfor blev den erstattet. I stedet kom den til at hedde 19B og blev eksportøl.

More of the Danish beers in Stockholm (and some "bad" news)

The Danish beer tour is still strong and alive around Stockholm. I can report a great beer experience over at the Mackinlay's Inn a few weeks back.

Available beers on draught from Denmark was the beers from Ølfabrikken. We sampled the amazing Rug IPA that was served in smaller glasses, mainly due to the very high price (85 SEK). But it was worth the price and the opportunity to have such a great beer also here in Stockholm.
This beer has been my favorite one from this brewery and it was also a hit to drink it locally.

It has a dark mahogny color with a small white head. A strong hoppy taste and flavor with hints of orange, apricot touches. It is strong and hoppy, but in the same time very balanced and I really like the extremely bitter finish.

During the time I started to write this entry I saw some very disturbing news regarding the future of the brewery. It seems in short that the brewery has been bought by the Gourmetbryggeriet (GB). What this actually means is a bit uncertain but it seems that it has been taken over in a deal that has not been appreciated by all parties, at least it seems so based on the bitter comments.

The co-founder Christian Skovdal Andersen has suddenly decided to leave the company and what GB wants with the brewery is very uncertain. This does not sound so great, bad news, especially now when it seemed that everything went so well with the brewery. It was becoming a world hit, with good ratings both around Europe and also especially in the US.

I am not sure want it means, but the fact that the site http://www.olfabrikken.dk has been shut down maybe is saying something what the future will be???

More entries about this news:

1. "This is the end of ölfabrikken"
2. What happened to ölfabrikken
3. Ölfabrikken offline

More Danes in Stockholm

+ = Hygge

During next week and starting at January 29th there will be a Danish beer and food week at Bishop Arms North in Stockholm. This seems to be more of the good trend that we get more and more collaboration between our neighbohod countries regarding craft beers.

The planned beers for this events as reported by bk and c from Bishop Arms looks as follows;

On draught:

Bryghuset Braunstein: Porter, Pilsner, Amber lager & Viking IPA.

On the bottle:

Ølfabrikken: Cream Ale, Pale Ale, Rug IPA, Porter & Brown Ale.
Nørrebro: Skärgårds Porter, New York lager & Ravnsborg Red.

These beers will also be served with Danish food and especially a setup of different "Smørrebrød".

Närke Beer Festival at Akkurat

(Quote based and translated on information from bk);

"Akkurat as the first bar in the world will have a small "Närkefestival" and will have up to 12 draft beers with up to 7 different served simultaneously. This will start on Thursday Jan 24 at 17.00 & will continue as long as beers is available.

The beer from Närke Kulturbryggeri will be;

1. !
2. Anders Göranssons Bästa Rököl
3. Black Goldings
4. Närke Sim-Ko
5. Kll’n v f n d’vill
6. Riktigt Jävla Mörker (Cask)
7. Riktig Örebro Styrian Bitter (Cask)
8. Örebro Bitter
9. Närke Slättöl
10. Närke Mörker
11. Max Goldings 2007
12. Stormaktsporter 2005!!! "

This seems to be a great initiative from the world famous beer bar in Stockholm and with a brewery that is getting better and better during the years. Örebro Bitter is a classic beer now, anyway feels like it. And the latest US-inspired beers of Sim-Ko and Kll’n v f n d’vill are both really quality and fun beers.

Damn, of course it seems that I will miss this event due to work and a planned trip to Åre. Well I hope those that can get there on Thursday will have a great time.

Spring US Beer Festival 08: The result

I reported earlier (What about a beer festival in 08?) that we were planning a spring beer festival somewhere in the US. It was a bit difficult but mainly due to the exact timing and a reasonable distance from Europe during a extended weekend we finally came up with a suitable place. Yes, I know there are plenty of great beer and breweries on the west coast (like Portland that has been mentioned in some of the comments I got) and other places in the country but this year the journey will take us to;

The Spring Craft Beer Festival, Uniondale, Ny; March 29 + that we are also planning a short stop over at the 1st Manhattan Cask Ale Festival@Chelsea that I just stumbled upon a few days ago.

This will be great, a couple of beer festival and then the rest of the time heading for some beer journeys to my favorite places like;

1. Barcade, at 388 Union Avenue, Brooklyn, ******

2. Blind Tiger Ale House, at 281 Bleecker Street, *****

3. Mugs Ale House, at 125 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn, ****

4. Ginger Man, The, 11 East 36th Street, ****

5. CB Six, at 252 East 51st Street, ***

6. Spuyten Duyvil, at 359 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn ***

Sadly the earlier number 3 spot; The Collins Bar, at 735 8th Ave. @ 46th St., as I earlier reported is no more so we can not start the trail anymore over at this amazing little place close to Times square.

But I guess we can live with House Of Brews - W. 51st Street close to the hotel. And hopefully some other places can be included that we have not visited in NY before.

Some sad news I missed from NY

When I was planning today for our spring New York beer trip (yes it became NY this time) and was checking for the better bars close to the hotel I stumpled over some really sad and disturbing news.

One of my favorite NY-draft-beer-bars in central manhattan is no more.

What I am talking about is the "The Collins Bar", on 8th Avenue, just a single block west of Times Square has been closed down.

This happened in the end of July 07 simply because the whole block has been sold by the landlord and the building will be torned down. The plan seems to be building condos or similar.

This is really upsetting, it was simply a great place and a natural spot to start your NY-adventures in central manhattan.

So what should we do now?, where should we go when Collins is no more?

Anyway it has been a joy to be able to spend some great US draft beer hours at this place. And it feels fine that we at least had the chance to spend a last time when we visited NY last May.

It was also fun that the first time you just happened to stumple over the place as the first bar found just a few hours after arriving in NY and discovering that we had a amazing place just minutes from our hotel across the street.

The Gotham Imbiber reports at the blog that they had a farewell party at the end of July. Seems that they had a great time and closed with pride.

Lets see if they have the chance in a distant future to start up a similar place somewhere else in NY, at least the new spot for Blind Tiger turned out very well (talking about places being closed down and moved simply because they could not stay and instead replaced with a other Starbucks!).

So I am raising my glass a last time for this great place; rest in peace.

OB Ten FIDY in Denmark

Just saw that Oskar Blues Ten FIDY Imperial Stout is currently available over at Ølbutikken in Copenhagen. That is really good news for the Danes and for us up here in Scandinavia. So now I understand where the OB Ten FIDY maybe came from when it was spotted over at Akkurat today, at least that is my theory.

From the site it says;

Navn: Ten FIDY
Bryggeri: Oskar Blues Land: USA Øltype: Stout
Indhold: 330 ml Alkohol: 9,4 % Pris: 52 kr
Beskrivelse:
Dåseøl!!

Well 52 kr for this amazing beer, that is really a bargain. Imperial Stout pouring as motor oil in a can, great stuff!!.

For learning some Danish, it seems that "Dåseøl" means a beer on a can (burköl in Swedish).

QUICKTAKE: Southern Tier Imperial Oat

Well it seems that it did not take long for me before it was time for a US extreme beer. I actually tonight tried a pils from Germany and a english real ale. But anyway we had to try the new beer from Southern tier, at least over at our favorite place in the world (OT).

This beer is really completely pitch black with a dark tan with a very tight lacing. The aroma is of rich toffee, coffee and some sort of dried fruit and a very alco warming ending. It comes with a very hop character to bring balance to the extremelly strong roasted malty end. It finishes somewhat sweet´and that tells me about the oat compared to a "normal" thick imperial stout. Except that it is mainly a Imperial Stout compared to a "traditional" out-based stout. The difference is mainly the sweetnes, otherwise it is a US-inspired stout in the Imperial category.

This is a really big one in every way and not for the faint of heart. At the end it is really a complex beer and a other new example of a great beer from the southern tier brewery.

I promised myself to test other types of beer this year, but still the US-Imperial Stouts are very good and one of the best beer styles you can end a evening with.

Based on my scale I would give it a 5- or similar, together with Thirsty Dog Siberian Night Imperial Stout and Bells Expedition Stout that are still my favorite Imperial Stouts.

And what about this one? Mikkeller & FFF?

A new beer project for 2008 from the brewers of Mikkeller and Three Floyds.

2 brewers of extreme beers combined in a single beer, can it be any better?, well lets see after the summer of 08.

Mikkellers own glass...

is now available through the brewery. Nice huh?

According to Mikkel himself the glass is inspired by the belgian brewery; De Dolle Boruwers in Belgium (one of my favorite belgium breweries).

And checking a example from the belgian brewery it looks really like that. Seems like a very good choice for such amazing beers, both from Denmark and Belgium.

Simply a great glass to sample great beers with, I can not wait to try to get hold of my own example.

Mikkeller meets Nøgne Ø

Read over at the Nøgne beer site that is now seems that everything is settled that Mikkeller the brewery from Denmark will get over to the Norwegian brewery in the beginning of 2008.

The brewer Mikkel Borg Bjersø is going to brew 2 batches of Mikkellers own styles (Beer Geek Breakfast) and also a guest brew together with Kjetil Jikiun (head brewer) at Nøgne.

Seems that this collaboration between these great brewers can be very interesting, anyway it is reported already that a a huge order of fruit is already placed by the brewer.

This news has also been recognized over at Mikkellers own blog; Mikkel(ler)'s Blog.

Nøgne Ø hits Hollywood...

I could not stop myself, but it is always fun to see your favorite Scandinavian beers and breweries out there in the "real world".

So here is a picture that I got through Hair of the Dog Dave blog and from a beer shop in Los Angeles (Vendome Toluca Lake, 10600 Riverside Dr North Hollywood,CA, if you interested)

So Portland, Hollywood etc, what can be be next?, for this great brewery from Norway.

If you do not spot the bottle, it is the bottle with the green circle (it is the Winter Ale), third bottle from the left.

Here is the same beer from a other shop in California, next together with a Mikkeller.

The Beer Hunter: for download

All of the episodes from the Michael Jackson "The Beer Hunter" series can currently be downloaded from here;

link

All originally produced and shown during 88/89, what I remember.

Oskar Blues Ten Fidy earns "2007 Beer of the Year" Honor

Saw that one of my favorite beers all categories for 2007 has been awarded the beer of the year over at the Denver Post.

Yes, I surely agree with them saying;

Ten Fidy Imperial Stout comes roaring out of the revered Oskar Blues Brewery just in time to warm the Colorado winter. As the late Country Dick Montana of The Beat Farmers used to say, it's just the man for the job, with alcohol by volume at a bristling 10 percent. Don't be scared off by the can -- all of Oskar Blues' outstanding brews are packaged in metal.

The pour on this bad boy is rich and viscous, with a head like chocolate icing. The aroma is full of coffee and cocoa, and those hearty flavors wrap nicely around the hops and malt for a smooth, roasty fullness.

The oats used in the brewing process give Ten Fidy a satisfying roundness in the mouth. A hint of molasses balances the barleywine-like 98 International Bitterness Units. The high alcohol content is barely noticeable on the tongue (but trust me, have a driver or call a cab).

OB also report for those lucky ones that a small batch of FIDY (in cans and kegs) will reach some bars and stores in some other US-states in January.

So I guess it will be just luck if some FIDY would turn up over here in Sweden, sigh. I had the last can from my fridge during the New Year beer sampling, so now I can only try to remember how it tasted, :-).