Beers in the sun

During saturday me and Karin started with a trip to Barkarby. She went to IKEA and I went on my jacket search in the outlet stores at Barkarby. Afterwards I visited a couple of supermarkets looking for ingredients for our beer we are gonna make next weekend.

We are planning to enter the next SC in Home Made Beer and the planning has been going on for a while. The type of beer has been made before but none of us has actually tried it. So we are gonna start with a couple of smaller experimental batches and see how it goes. You probably wonder what we are making and I would tell you, but I'm not sure where we are gonna land yet. Also, I wanna make it a suprise for later ;)

Despite running through stores we also had great weather yesterday so we spent half the day in the sun drinking beer and relaxing. I started with this beer:

Arboga Vårlager 5%

I got a bit suprised when I poured this beer. I suspected the usual clear golden or yellow coloured liquid. But it poured a hazy golden liquid with a big ice cream looking foam. It smelled of burned toast, bread and malt. It had a fresh taste of malt and bread with a low bitterness. I thought this beer was gonna be crap but it was suprisingly decent. An easy to drink lager that worked very well in the sunny weather.

Total: 2,4/5

Arboga Majbock 7%

After trying their Vårlager (Spring Lager) I was eager to try their Majbock since I supposed it would probably be better. But sadly I was misstaken. As you can see from the picture it had the same boring look which I expected from the Vårlager. It also didn't have much aroma and it tasted smooth and sweet taste with a distinct warm alcoholic finish. Not really my kind of beer.

Total 1,8/5

Shipyard Summer Ale 4,8%

It poured a clear golden liquid with a small foam that left no lacing. Smelled of honey and a hint of hops. Tasted of malt, bread and a hint of hops and citrus. It also had an acidic stingy bitterness that wasn’t to pleasent.

Total: 2,2/5

After these beers I felt I deserved something I knew I would like so I popped open a bottle of Orval. Damn that is a good beer. The difference to the three above is huge, it's like comparing getting punched by a 5-year old or a heavy weight boxer. Luckily I bought a couple of bottles last time I visited Systembolaget. So Im gonna get my head smashed in several times :)