Beer switch

Yesterday I meet up with Jocke from Good Morning Beer Lovers and exchanged some homemade beer. He got two bottles of Death By Hops 2 and I got one bottle of Angusa Grumpy Lion Belgian Ale and a bottle of an unnamed Swedish Pale Ale. Here is a picture of the bottles:

I got to say that sticker looks pretty damn good.

By the way I still have some Death By Hops 2 if anybody is interested in a switch. Would be fun to get more people tasting it so we can make improvements for the next time we brew it.

While waiting (waiting might be the wrong word, I went straight for the taps) for Jocke I tried one of Monks newer brews:

Monks Café Angie Brown (Tap) 5%
The beertap sticker said it was a brown ale and I was quite suprised when I got a beer that looked more like a pale ale. I was expecting something allot darker, but I might have missunderstood the type.

Anyway, it poured a hazy dark golden-orange liquid with a medium sized foam that had allot of craters in it. Looked pretty nice, like an american pale ale.

It had a fresh smell of citrus, oranges, peaches, passion fruit and hops. Very fruity and when I check the sticker I see they have Simcoe in it so that explains several of the flavours.

It had a light body which made it feel a bit watery. The mouthfeel was smooth with just a little bit of carbonation. The taste wasn't as strong as the smell but there where fruity hops.

A pretty decent beer but I'm still suprised by the looks and the smell. Was expecting something different. Something darker and maybe with tastes that drew more towards caramell and chocolate.
Total: 3,3/5

Haandbryggeriet Ardennes Blond

Last saturday I tried one of the beers that was part of the November news release.

Haandbryggeriet Ardennes Blond (bottle) 7,5%
It poured a hazy golden liquid with a small white foam that left a nice lacing.

It had a smell of yeast and fruits. The most dominant fruits where lemon and oranges.

The mouthfeel was a bit stingy but not to bad, it got smoother after a while. It had a taste of citrus, oranges, coriander and yeast. Nice beer, easy to drink and very enjoyable. Think it's the best from Haandbryggeriet I have had so far.
Total: 3,8/5

Back to Svejk

We finished off our beers at Bishops Arms and it was soon 17:00 so we walked over to Soldaten Svejk to have a meal. We got their just as they where about to open and a fairly long line had already formed. But we where lucky enough to get the last table. This was my second visit in just a few weeks and I'm starting to see why it's such a popular place. The service is great, food arrive shortly after you order it and as when you got about 3 mouthfulls of beer left in your glass the waiter shows up and asks if you want another one. The food is nothing special, standard greasy pub food, but the servings are big and for a fairly cheap price. I did however realise I'm not a big fan of sauerkraut. The beer selection is far from exciting but it does the trick. Here are the ones we tried:
Bernard Světlý ležák 12° (tap) 4,7%
This one is labeled as Bernard Ljus (light) at Soldaten Svejk.

It poured a clear golden liquid with a medium sized creamy white foam. Weak smell of malt and bread. Taste of sweet malt, metall, hint of hops and a low bitterness. Fairly smooth mouthfeel. Nice lager but the metall taste and lack of hops lowers the points a bit.
Total: 2,6/5
Bernard Speciální černé pivo 13° (tap) 5,1%
This one is labeled as Bernard Mörk (dark) at Soldaten Svejk.

It poured an almost pitch black liquid with a medium sized light brown foam. Sweet smell of caramell and malt. Smooth mouthfeel. Taste of caramell, something burned and malt. Pretty nice and best beer I've had at Svejk, but the caremell took over a bit.
Total: 2,8/5

Primátor Polotmavý ležák 13° (tap) 5,5%
It is labeled as Primator halvmörk (semi-dark) at Soldaten Svejk.

It poured a clear dark golden liquid with a medium sized light brown foam that left a nice lacing. Weak smell of caramell and amalt. Smooth mouthfeel. Taste of malt, burned toast and lots of caramell. I didn't enjoy this beer very much, way to much caramell and it had another taste that didn't fit me.
Total: 2/5

Beer list for ÖBWF 2009

Next weekend I'm going to Örebro to visit the Beer and Whisky Festival. I'll be there on saturday together with Per, my father and some other people that usually show up on this blog. Ölkultur med David och Fredrik recently published the beer list and here it is again. Looks like allot of promising brewers and importers are coming. Chrille is officially releasing his Pannknektarnas Kaffeporter, even though it had a sneak premier at Bishops a while back. I also hope to meet some fellow beer bloggers.

Brill hasn't released what beers they are bringing but if it's anything like what they had at SBWF 2009 I will be very happy. I tried some fantastic beers at their booth and hope to try some more this time.

Närke has a fairly big selection of beers and I hope to try their Närke Kaggen 2008 Pure Swedish Oak. I have already tried their 2007 and 2008 versions twice and they where both great but 2008 was slightly better. I like their InternationAle so I also hope to try the New InternationAle.

Galatea is bringing a couple of belgian beers I haven't tried before so might be able to fill in some holes. I've tried most of the beers from Hantverksbryggeriet and Nynäshamn, but I have a couple that I haven't rated yet.

Great Brands is bringing a bunch of beers that I want to try, will probably stand at their booth for a while. The first four breweries on their list is very interesting and Harviestoun brews one of the best lagers I have ever tried, so hopefully I can try some more beers from that brewery.

There are also allot of other breweries and importers that I haven't mentioned but something that seems worth mentioning are the producers displayed under "ÖVRIGA". There are some cheese and chocolate companies and also Torslundskagge who makes wooden barrels, one beer that use them is Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter.

Consumer chasing customers

I just got an email from a brewer that was dissatisfied with one of my ratings at www.ratebeer.com I'm not going to tell you what brewery or beer this is regarding but I want to raise a general question or just discuss the subject a bit.

This is the rating I gave the beer:
Aroma 5/10 Appearance 1/5 Flavor 4/10 Palate 2/5 Overall 8/20
Poured a piss yellow liquid with a small white foam. Weak smell and taste with some bread. Watery and light body. No bad tastes. Boring beer.
Total: 2/5

The brewer was upset that I was unserious and that I didn't rate it according to the type of beer it was. He was particulary upset about calling it "piss yellow". He also thought the rating 2/5 was to low considering it didn't have any bad tastes (average score was about 3/5). He had been in contact with ratebeer to have them change my text. Which they didn't do. He also argued that I should give it a higher score since it's a beer that sells well at some of the best pubs in Stockholm.

Now to start of I agree that my rating was to rough. I changed the part about piss and changed "boring beer" to: "not a beer for me". But my grading stays, I didn't really enjoy the beer much and the lack of taste and the horrible looks draws down the points for me.

Regarding my view on rating I rate my beers primarily of what I think of the beer. I don't like to lock myself to a set mold that the beer should fit in. Partly because I don't know how every mold should look like and partly because I feel restricted. What if a beer goes outside the mold but is an improvement? However I don't go jack crazy and think a lager should taste like a stout and a DIPA should taste like a kriek. I do have some expectations when the label says Stout and others when it says lager. But in the end it's how I like the beer that makes the points.

What Im most curious about is what people think about a producer attacking a customer (or rater) in this way? Also, how much responsibility does the rater have? I can see this argument going both ways. Of course I should make a serious rating, but at what point does it become unserious? Is it the producer that decides? Also who decides what the correct score for a beer is?

Helsinge Beers

Eva and Bertil visited us this weekend. So we took a trip into town and of course ended up at a pub. We started out with Glennfiddich Warehouse where we tried some beer from Helsinge Ångbryggeri (Helsinge Steambrewery). It is a very new brewery which produced their first beer for sales in 2004. They didn't have allot of information but you can buy vort from the brewery and then ferment it at home. A very interesting idea, I wonder if more breweries do this.

At Glennfiddich they had two Helsinge beers and we tried them both:

Helsinge Veteöl (tap) 5%
This is their wheat beer. It poured a hazy golden liquid with a huge white foam that left lots of lacing.

It had a fairly weak smell of citrus, oranges in particular and yeast.

It had a taste of yeast and foam banana, but not as strong as I would have prefered. The mouthfeel was very smooth with a light body. Very easy to drink and I think it would work good with a meal, but on it's own it got a bit to watery. A heavier taste and a thicker body would definitely benefit it.
Total: 3,2/5
Helsinge Dunkel (tap) 5%
It poured a hazy dark brown liquid with a big light brown foam.

It had a fairly weak smell of malt, caramell and wood.

It had a similar taste of malt, fudge and caramell. It had a medium smooth mouthfeel with just a bit of stingyness. The body was light and a bit watery. Lacks some taste which draws down the points but still not a bad beer.
Total: 3,1/5

We finished off our beers and walked further south, Akkurat was full so we continued to Bishops Arms. There I found a bottle of Achel Blonde which I will write about later and also another Helsinge beer:
Helsinge Rököl (tap) 5%
It poured a hazy brown liquid with a medium sized light brown foam, that left lots of lacing.

It had a sweet smell of malt, smoke, wood and some sourness.

It tasted similar of malt, smoke and wood, no sourness though. The mouthfeel had some sting to it and it had a medium body. Decent beer but worst of the three.
Total: 3/5

Saxo Bio

I tried another one of the news beers last friday. This one an ecological belgian blonde.

Bio Saxo (Bottle) 7,5%
It poured a very hazy golden liquid with a big foam with lots of big bubbles.

It had a strong smell of citrus, mostly lemon. Also some yeast and soap. It was sweet and a bit stingy.

The mouthfeel was stingy with lots of carbonation. The biggest part of the taste was lemonade with allot of citrus, there where also some soap and salt. At first I didn't like this beer much, but after a while the taste of soap dissapeared and the mouthfeel got allot smoother.

All in all a decent beer, but the bad mouthfeel and the taste of soap draws down the points.
Total: 3/5