Valborg after work beer

I finished work early today due to it being Valborg in Sweden. So me and my work mate Per went to Akkurat for a couple of beers.


Elände - Närke 4%

Draught at Akkurat (Stockholm). It had a nice big dark ice cream looking foam which left allot of lacing. Smelled of smoke and tasted first of smoke and then ham. Had a dry, oily, lean and smooth taste but it was a bit bland and watery at the end. A pretty good porter.

Total: 3,7/4

InternationAle - Närke

Draught. It hada clar dark golden liquid with a really nice mountain of foam on the top which left allot of lacing. It smelled of bread and malt. The taste had some bread in it at first but then the grassy hops with hints of grapefruit took over. At the end there was a bitterness that had a bite to it. A very good beer, both me and Per agreed that this was the best we had today.

Total: 4,2/5


Slaap Mutske Bruin 6%

Draught. It poured a dark hazy amber liquid with a creamy foam like ice cream. Smelled sweet of wine and spices. The taste was also sweet and fruity with a hint of spices which I couldn't distinguish. It laked some depth to get a better score. A good beer though.

Total: 3,7/5

Oppigårds Single Hop Ale 4,8%

Draught. It poured a clear golden liquid with a medium foam. Smelled of grasy hops and some burned grass. The taste also had allot of grassy hops but not to much bitterness. A very fresh beer but a bit to one dimensional to reach a higher score.

Total: 3,5/5


XX Bitter - De Ranke 6,2%

Draught at Akkurat (Stockholm). It poured a semi-hazy golden liquid with a nice ice cream foam, which left an excellent lacing. It smelled very weak with a hint of hops. The taste was dry, fresh and bitter. After rating it on ratebeer I was suprised to find this at the 94th percentile. It was definitely the worst of the five we tried. However not a bad beer but not that great either.

Total: 3,2/5

What all the beers had in common was the excellent foam. Might have something to do with how serious they take beer at Akkurat though. Always have to wait a couple of minutes for each beer to be poured in the right way.

After the beers I went home to have some BBQ with the missus while Per went on a cruise (same as I went on last weekend). I bet he had a good time ;)

Beer cruisin'

I went on a cruise to Åland last weekend. These cruises aren't really famous for their great beer but I did manage to get my hands on some decent beer.

For thoose that haven't attended one of these cruises they are basically about partying, getting drunk and getting laid (well not for all of course). One guy took the last thing seriously and he didn't just get it on with the girl, he also did it with me, my brother and Bjunge who where trying to rest in the next room. It was like trying to sleep through a screaming earthquake.

Now back to the beer. Before boarding I met up with a couple of friends at Bishops Arms close to the harbor. I asked if they had anything uncommon in the fridge and the bartender suggested this beer:

Old Buccaneer (aka Bornem Triple) 9%
The bottle looked like something you would try to pawn of on tourists. But I dont let the bottle put me off and eagerly poured the beer. It poured a clear golden liquid with a huge foam and a nice lacing. The smell had a hint of orange and a fruit, sweet taste with a hint of corn. All in all an average tripel.

Total: 3/5

Tommy ordered a Titan IPA which I completely missed while scanning the fridge.

Great Divide - Titan IPA 6,8%
Poured a hazy golden liquid with a small foam and nice lacing. Had a nice strong smell of grasy hops and lots of it. Same with the taste, also some grapefruit and citrus. Very nice brew, I really liked this one.

Total: 3,9/5

We where running out of time so I quickly ordered a Örebro Bitter before leaving to walk to the boat.

Närke - Örebro Bitter 5,8%

Poured a dark hazy amber liquid with a small foam and some lacing. Had a smell of grasy hops and a hint of citrus. The taste was fresh with grasy hops and some grape fruit.

Total: 3,6/5

Once we got aboard I quickly made my way to the english style pub. I didn't test these beers seriously since I was more focused on being social with my friends. But I didn't find anything extraordinary.

I had a great trip with my friends even though I missed thoose who couldn't make it. One bad thing was that they didn't sell any alcohol in the tax free. Which upset my friends but I didn't mind since I planned all along to only drink beer from the pub.

Why Beer? Part 4

We are getting close to present time now and I guess the next major change was that conversation I had with my soon to be married friend at Glenfiddich warehouse NO 68. He interrupted me in a long series of drivels about beer and said: “Hey you should start a blog and write about beer.” Now I had been thinking I should do something about my passion for a long time. Just haven’t figured out what yet. A blog felt like a great way to do something about it. A couple of weeks later I got fired and got allot of spare time so I figure it was time to get this ball rolling. While I was at it I also started up my Ratebeer account which I hadn’t touched for ages.

Me, my father and brother at SBWF 2008. The lady that poured these beers for us was really friendly and knowledgable and we had a great time trying their beer. At one point we had 9 glasses up at the same time trying cask and bottle versions against each other.

Ever since we went to our first home brewer’s festival, me and my dad have been talking about making our own beer and participating in the competition. As you know we made our first brew from a “ready-to-go-kit” Good Friday (Långfredag) and then expand from that. We have also started planning for next year’s Swedish championship in Home Made Beer. We are currently working on the recipe and will make our two first experimental batches on the 30th of May.

Well now we are pretty much in present time and if you want the rest of this story, just keep following this blog.

I'll see you all at the next festival. Cheers!

Saturdays beer

I’ve been a bit busy so haven’t had time to post about the beers from Saturday. But here they are:

Monks Café Svea IPA (5,8%)
It poured a hazy golden liquid with a small foam that left a nice lacing. It had a strong smell of grassy hops, citrus and grapefruit. The taste is very fresh with medium to high bitterness and had lots of grapefruit and grassy hops. I really enjoyed this beer and would love to have it on a sunny day.
Total: 3,8/5

Struisse Rosse (6%)
It poured a hazy golden liquid with a medium foam, had some yeast at the bottom. It looked very appealing. It had a smell of orange and other citrus fruit, a bit "stingy" on the nose. The taste surprised me at first; it was sour, sweet and fruity with hints of druid orange. Very interesting beer and I enjoyed it.
Total: 4/5

Stone Ruination IPA (7,7%)
It poured a hazy golden liquid with a small foam. Smelled of grassy hops and grapefruit. The first taste turned my mouth into a wrinkly little circle. This beer is so bitter that it made my ass-hairs curl up in a fetus position. Since I love really bitter beers I’ve always wondered how far you can push it before it goes over the edge. Well I think Stone has crossed that edge, this was a bit too much for me. But I was in a bit of a rush and think I need to try it again to give it a second chance.
Total: 2,9/5

A day on the town

I just got back from a day of shopping, eating and of course drinking beer. Started out by trying out some shirts for work. The biggest problem is not finding a nice shirt, it's finding something that fits. Tried a couple of XXL shirts at Jack and Jones, but they where so small that I looked like Philip Seymour Hoffman in Boggie Nights.

After some searching I finally found some shirts I could button and quickly made my escape to Monks. Tried out their Svea IPA and Struise Rosse. Both very nice and I will put some reviews up shortly.

I met this friendly guy at Monks, he is a home brewer and I think I've met him before at some festival. He participated at the SC in Home made Beer.

Then me and Karin went to Koh Pang Ngang. No, not the island but the restaurant. It's a freaky looking place with lots of florescent colours, plants and bambu all over the place. For us it was a trip down memory lane, it reminded us of Hat Rin (a town on Koh Pang Ngang).

Me at the restaurant.

I had the green curry which wasn't to good. Reminded me of Phuket which is bad. But the starter and the dish Karin ordered, some bbq meat, was amazing. I can really recomend the place. I even had two bottles of Chang, the beer isn't that good but it reminds me of the good times we had in Thailand.

A bottle of Chang. The beer was very pale and water but worked with the food.

On the way home we stopped at Oliwer Twist for a beer. I had Stone Ruination IPA which I will write about in the next post. Man, my ass hairs are still curled up!

Testing La Trappe

I finally got a full set of La Trappe ales this Easter. So yesterday I decided to try them out together.

La Trappe is the only trappist beer brewed outside of Belgium. The Dutch king donated the land to a group of monks migrating from northern France and the monestary Koningshoeven (the Kings Garden) was founded. The brewery was founded in 1884 and they named it Schaapskoi (fårfålla, not sure about English translation). After the Second World War the brewery was bought by Stella Artois who wanted to get a foot hold in Holland. But the their beer “Trappist Pils” was a fiasco and the monks bought it back. They now brew the trappist classics Dubbel, Tripel and Quadrupel, using varieties of münchener malt and hops from Hallertauer and British Goldings.

La Trappe – Dubbel (7%)
It poured a hazy dark red liquid with a big foam, but didn’t leave any lacing on the glass. It had a nice fizzy smell of bread, dried fruit (orange) and peppery spices. The first taste hugged my tongue and it was allot smoother than I expected. The taste was very similar to the smell with the peppery spices and dried fruit. Very round and well balanced which made it easy to drink. Out of the three this was my favorite.
Total: 4/5
La Trappe – Tripel (8%)
It poured a hazy golden liquid with a big bubbly foam which left some nice lacing. Smelled of warm alcohol and dried fruit. My first reaction when I tasted it was that it tickled my tongue, it also left an oily sensation. It was a bit sweet with hints of bread and dried fruit.
Total: 3,5/5
La Trappe - Quadrupel (10%)
It poured a hazy amber liquid with a huge foam (had to be fast to pour after opening). It had a strong smell with hints of dried fruit, bread, red wine, spices and alcohol. As with the tripel this one also tickled but this time on the top of my mouth. I wonder what the cause is of that sensation; it’s almost like eating kiwi. The taste was similar to the smell with lots of spices, dried fruit, bread and allot of alcohol. I found it to be a bit to fizzy for my taste though, even after letting it rest for a while, but still a good beer with a very round and complex taste.
Total: 3,7/5

They where all good beers, but not the best trappists I've had. They also had some similarities, a common character, but I can't say exactly what it is. Probably the use of similar ingredients and yeast.

Random Beers during Easter

We tried a couple of beers during Easter that didn’t fit with the other posts. It has been a great Easter and I can't believe we tried all these great beers. Already looking forward to the next round of tests.

Left Hand – Haystack Wheat (5,0%)
Hazy golden colour with lots of foam. It looked very promising but was a disappointment. It doesn’t have a bad taste it just didn’t really taste or smell anything at all. The worst Left Hand I’ve had so far.
Total: 2,2/5

Dugge and Nogne O – Sahti (11%)
Pours a hazy amber colour with a small foam. It had lots of yeast and spices left in the bottle. Smells of honey and lots of it, also some heather. It had a unique taste, sweet and dry with tastes of honey and herbs. Had a bite to it but was a very pleasant experience. More experiments like this please! :)
Total: 3,4/5

Nogne O - Klin Kokos (6%)
Pours a dark colour with a small dark foam. Had a sweet smell of cocos and chocolate. The taste was also sweet with some nutty cocos. Nice, but the the taste was very short and dissapeared fast after reaching the tongue.
Total: 3,5/5
Brooklyn – Black Chocolate Stout (10%)
Black colour with a small dark foam. Had a smell of chocolate and smoke. Had a dry taste of chocolate and a long aftertaste. Very nice!
Total: 3,9/5
Liefmans – Kriek (6%)
Poured a watery red colour, slightly hazy, almost like aged red wine. The smell was fruity, sweet and sour with cherries all over. The taste was sweet and sour and packed with cherries and some nutty almonds. I really enjoyed this and I think my mother really liked it as well.
Total: 4/5

American Good Friday

As I mentioned in a previous post we had an American beer testing on Good Friday (Lång Fredag). Well we had to drink something while brewing ;)

Flying Dog – Wild Dog Schwarz (7,8 %)
A dark black liquid with a dark foam and a smoky smell. It had a smoked taste with hints of chocolate and tobacco.
Total: 3,5/5

Fullers – Golden Pride (8,5 %)
The only non-american beer that we tried. Had a very weak smell but a nice round taste of sweet caramel and a bit sticky in the mouth. An alright beer.
Total: 2,7/5

XS Rogue – Imperial Youngers Special Bitter (7,4 %, 52 IBU)
Smelled of flowery hops. The taste is quite bitter with a bite to it. After warming the beer a bit the taste improved allot. Had a very round and nice taste.
Total: 3,6/5

XS Rogue – Imperial IPA (9,5%, 74 IBU)
It poured a hazy golden liquid with a small foam, looked very appealing and smelled fresh with lots of hops. The taste was really strong with flowery hops, I even wrote down “Hop Juice” in my notepad. I really enjoy these kinds of beer and this was a really good one. My favorite of the evening.
Total: 4,1/5

XS Rogue – Old Crustacean Barley Wine (11,5%, 110 IBU)
It had a weak caramellic taste. The taste was dry with a very high bitterness. I’m not sure why but I didn’t enjoy this one as much as the other Rogue ales of the evening.
Total: 2,8/5

Left Hand – Rye Bock (7,7 %)
Smells of malt and caramell. The taste is very malty and easy to drink. A good lager but not a great beer.
Total: 2,7/5

Left Hand – Twin Sisters Double IPA (9,7 %)
The smell is dominated by citrusy hops. The taste is similar with lots of hops and bitterness but still smooth and easy to drink, doesn’t have that bitter bite to it that sometimes ruin these kinds of beers. Very nice!
Total: 3,9/5

Left Hand – Smoke Jumper (9,9 %)
Smelled of smoke, bitter chocolate and ham. The taste has a very strong hint of smoked ham (in Sweden called Lönnberga Skinka). Also some hints of tobacco and dark chocolate.
Total: 3,6/5

Sierra Nevada – Harvest Wet Hop Ale (6,7 %)
Smelled and tasted of flowery hops. Had a medium to high bitterness and was very easy to drink.
Total: 3,5/5

Goose Island – Bourbon County Stout (11 %)
Smelled of fudge and chocolate. Tasted of banana, chocolate, fudge, sweet and salty. Very nice! Most of the people at the testing really enjoyed this one.
Total: 4,1/5

Chrilles Mystery Beer

My father got an untagged bottle of beer from his brewing friend Chrille. We didn’t know anything about the beer so it was pretty exciting opening and seeing the hazy amber liquid pour out.






It smelled a bit fruity and sweet with some hints of banana. So my first thought was dunkel weissbier. The taste was a bit weak with hints of smoked ham. Was pretty nice and I hope I was right about the beer type. Maybe Chrille can confirm?
Total: 3/5

Confusing Old Ox

I had a blind testing during Good Friday (Lång Fredag). It turned out to be Mariestad 6,9% and Mariestad Old Ox (also 6,9%). The confusing part is that Mariestad 6,9% is sold as Old Ox at some Systembolag and others sell Old Ox. They also have the same article number. So are they the same beer? My result is that they do differ on appearance, smell and taste. The only thing they have in common is the watered down taste.

Mariestad 6,9%
The liquid was clear yellow with a very small foam. It had a sweet taste with some hops, but was very watery and boring.
Total: 1,4/5

Mariestad Old Ox 6,9%
The liquid was golden with a medium foam. It had a metallic watery taste. My first reaction was that this was some American beer like Miller or Bud. Very watery and boring.
Total: 1,1/5

Anybody have any information on this?

Testing Easter Beer

During Easter Saturday (Påskafton) we had a family dinner with my parents, brother, grandparents and my stepbrother Alfie the Pop-up-man. During the dinner we tested a bunch of Easter beer. Since there are quite allot of them I’m not going into great detail on each beer.

Nils Oscar – Kalas Påsköl (5,6 %)
It tasted of bread, caramel and a hint of burned toast and metal. Was pretty boring with low taste and smell, but was ok in combination with the food.
Total: 2,3/5

Slottskällans – Blåkulla (4,8 %)
Smelled of bread and caramell. Had a medium bitter taste with hints of bread, caramel, metal and some sweetness. Easier to drink compared to the other Swedish Easter beers and it was a favorite by the rest of the Eriksson family.
Total: 2,3/5

Grebbestad – Påsköl (5,2 %)
Compared to most of the other beers this one had a red colour and small but thick foam. It smelled sweet of caramel and fudge. The taste was similar to the smell but had some bread as well. It was smooth and easy to drink.
Total: 2,6/5

Oppigårds - Easter Ale (5,3 %)
Had a metallic taste and smell with some hops and spices. It wasn’t very exciting but it worked very well with the salty food.
Total: 2,6/5

Sigtuna Brygghus – Easter Booster (7,0 %)
Comment: The sticker says it has been inspired by Belgian beer; however my first thought was that it was influenced by American beer. With allot of flowery hops and medium-high bitterness. It is also spiced with coriander and has some sweet tastes to it. Maybe they used American hops and that is what is throwing me off. Either way this was one of the Easter Beers that I enjoyed most.
Total: 3,5/5

Sigtuna Brygghus – Påsk Alt (7,5 %)
It had a dark hazy reddish colour and small foam. The smell was spicy but a bit weak. It had a very round and nice spicy taste. A very nice beer and appreciated by the other members of the Eriksson family. One of my personal favorites as well.
Total: 3,5/5

Nynäshamns Ångbryggeri – Pumpvikens Påsköl (5,8 %)
It had a weak smell of bread. Tastes of bread and caramel and didn’t go very well with the food. The stingy bitterness was a bad combo with the salty Easter food, specially the salmon. To bad, I usually enjoy Nynäshamns beer.
Total: 2,1/5

To summarize: Most of the Easter beers where fairly boring spiced dark lagers. But some of them did work well with the food. If I had to choose though I would stick with Easter Booster or Påsk Alt as they were both pretty nice. I liked the fresh hops in the Easter Booster and the more complex spicy taste of the Påsk Alt. If I had to choose a beer to bring to a bigger Easter feast I would probably go with Slottskällans. I would stay clear of Pumpviken though as it just didn't work with the food.

The Eriksson family having dessert after a great Easter feast. You can spot my grandparents (mothers side) in the center of the picture.

A picture of my brother Peter and Jonas at Toffes place.

After the family dinner me and some friends went to Toffe's place to drink some beer. He has a really nice place with a pool table, sauna and an LP player. Was allot of fun playing old tracks. Day-O was a smash hit amongst us, we ended up singing it as we marched towards the taxi that took us to Örebro.

Our first brew!

We made our first brew yesterday. We bought two ready kits with malt extract, hops, spices and yeast. We started with a wheat beer and then made a triple. Or actually my father did most of the brewing and I did most of the drinking ;) We had a american beer testing that was really nice but I will write about that in a later post.

We bought the kits from Humlegården. They are from Brewferm and named Palido (wheat beer) and Furioso (triple).

My father and a friend made this cooling device. Worked really well.

Pouring the malt extract.

The malt reminded of porridge before the temperature went up and it dissolved in the water.

The hops was dried and in bags which made them easy to handle for a couple of beer brewing noobs as ourselfs.

We mixed in some spices. Not sure what sort it was though.

After cooling the brew tto 2025 degrees we poured into the "bucket" for fermenting.

As the evening progressed guests kept tumbling in and joined in on the beer testing. To my joy they really appreciated the more tasty beer we had to offer. On the picture you can see, from the left, Martin, Jimmy, My Mother (Lena), Alfie the Pop-up-man and Toffe.

Some more guests, from the left, Manuel, Myself, Adam, Bjunge and Peter. Adam sure was a talker, he even outperformed the Pop-up-man and that guy is made of 90% mouth and 10% beer. Very impressive and I think most enjoyed Adams stories, specially my mother ;)

Happy Easter!

I wanna wish you all a happy Easter. I'm going "home" to Frövi in a few hours and got allot of fun things planned. First of all we are gonna brew our first beer today. We also plan to test allot of beer and I got a feeling we will end up in the out door jacuzzi tonight. Tomorrow we are gonna celebrate my birthday ahead of time and then have Easter dinner. What happens beyond that is up to the beer Gods to decide ;)

The weather is also really nice in Sweden so I hope I can take a picture of me sitting in the sun drinking a beer soon. The only downside at the moment is that I got a soar throat and I really hope it won't affect my sense of smell and taste.

Cheers!

Report from the SC in Home Made Beer

I’m starting to become human again after yesterdays festival. It was a really good one with great beers and friendly people. This year I didn’t attempt to try everything, instead I focused on the top fermented and special beer and skipped the rest. I managed to try all of them except for 3 which I missed. But I have to admit that it was a bit stressful to get my vote in for "peoples choice" and it seemed like I wasn't the only one stressing to get it in.

My personal favorite was Bluff Prestige made by Jakob Carlström, Niklas Stenlås and Kjell Eriksson. But there was allot of good beers, and some of the brewers brought snacks to go with the beer. Some had brought bread baked from “drav”, I’m not sure about the English translation but it’s basically the left over malt from the brewing. It was all very tasty.

They have posted the results now, you find them here.

Me and Nicklas discussing what beer to try next. Pop-up-man is doing what he does best. Yeah he looks kinda creepy ;)

I met this friendly american who was one of the creaters of this rasberry lager, which was really tasty.

My father joined a brew club a while back and we met some of the members at the festival. The guy on the left is named Kristoffer and I know he and my dad has some interesting brews planned. I've badgered my father to write a guest article about it, we'll see what happens.

My brother joined up later on. We also met Nille (the big guy with a beard) and his friend, who we also met at SMÖF last year.

We talked to Berith and Hå-Ge from Närke Kulturbryggeri. Which, in my oppinion, is one of the best breweries in the world.

Lots of beer and lots of people happy to test them.

Björn Petersson served chocolate with his stout and cheese with his Biere de Garde. My personal favorite was the stout, which was very yummy.

After the festival we went for a pizza and had some italian beer. The pizza was nice but I could have skipped the beer. Felt like a big step down from all the fantastic brews we had during the day.