Guards and animals

Me and Karin went to Stockholm today to do some touristing. First we strolled through old town. Then we watched the changing of the royal guard, something I haven't seen since I was a young boy. We then strolled through town to Nybrokajen where we hopped on a boat. Hooped of at Skansen and walked around there for a while before hopping on another boat to Slussen to go home. Was a good day and I'm pretty tired at the moment.

The only interesting beer I had was this:

Nils Oscar God Lager 5,3%
It poured a clear golden liquid with a small foam that left no lacing. The foam quickly dissapeared and left something that looked very boring.


It had a very malty smell with some bread, but also something sweet and an alcoholic finish.


It tasted maly fresh and smooth. Quite refreshing but Im missing some hops and a nicer bitterness to make it a better beer. Now it has a kind of chemical bitterness which is very common in lagers. On the plus side it didn't have any of the usual bad tastes that most lagers struggle with. A decent lager but not one of the best.


Total: 2/5

Karin in the old town.

Me in front of the castle

The changing of the royal guard.

On a boat towards Djurgården (Skansen).

I found a barrel of hops in an old shop at Skansen.

Tasting the experimental brew.

Grandmas Chocolate Cherry Stout (draft)
It poured a dark black liquid with a small foam that left some lacing.

It smelled sour and sweet with chocolate.

It tasted very sour with an aftertaste of chocolate and something burned, like burned toast. It was way to sour for a stout and not very nice if you see it that way. However if you consider it a sour beer then it tasted allot better. So the below score is for a sour beer.
Total: 2,1/5

Grandmas Chocolate Cherry Porter (draft)
It poured a dark brown liquid with a small brown foam (bigger than the stout).

It smelled sweet with some milk chocolate.

It didn’t taste as sour as the stout and had more chocolate taste, that leaned more towards milk chocolate then the stout. But it also had a chemical bitterness to it that wasn’t that pleasant.
Total: 2,3/5

Conclusions:
All in all the beers where way to sour for a stout or porter. But not in a bad way, they hadn’t gone bad or anything. It was just too much cherries in the beer. But it didn’t taste like cherries, the sourness was too high to distinguish much else. So what we need to do is use a smaller quantity of cherries in the next brew. I also heard that we could add some laktos to balance the sourness up a bit and let the cherry flavor break free.

The question on how to add the cherries is a bit harder. I think both methods work. We’ll have to mull it over a bit more.

Regarding the chocolate I think the stout was closer to the aim then the porter. But I think we need to be somewhere in between to reach the level we are aiming for.

Experimental brewed revealed!

A while back me, Chrille and my father started experimenting on a brew that we plan to participate with at the Swedish Championship in Homemade beer. Last Thursday it was finally time to taste it and evaluate.

Now to be able to write a review of the beer I will have to tell you what we have been attempting to make. I’ve been keeping it a secret up until now, just for the fun of it. I will start by telling about how the idea for the brew came to be.

A couple of years ago I went to Akkurat with two Danish friends. We got a tip to try their chocolate truffles with some kriek (cherry beer). Now I have always loved both chocolate and kriek so I thought it sounded great and ordered it in. Both the kriek and the chocolate were nice on their own, but once you mixed the two it just enhanced the flavor of both of them. The kriek complimented the truffles and the truffles complimented the kriek. After this I kept ordering truffles and kriek every time I visited a pub that had it.

Even before we started making our own beer I and my father had been discussing what beer would be fun to participate in the different festivals. Fairly soon I thought it would be fun to try to mix cherries and chocolate in a brew. So the idea for the chocolate cherry stout (or porter) was born.

At first we thought it was a fresh idea but after some research we realized that some Americans had already tried it and I bet a bunch of homebrewers have already made it. However we couldn’t really find any details on how to actually make the beer. Since we are both rookies when it comes to brewing beer we brought Chrille on board, partly because he is a great guy and also because he knows the basics around brewing allot better than me and my father. He has created the recipes we have used while brewing, I’ve been responsible for a large part of the idea work and my father has done allot of the technical work, gathering the equipment and making it work. All in all it’s been a great team effort and I hope something good comes out of it. If nothing else at least we got some male bonding ;)

I’ve always found it hard to describe what the aim of the beer is. But basically I want it to be a complex stout or porter where the cherries and chocolate are seasoning and not the base of the beer. In other words we are not aiming for a fruit beer like a kriek or a chocolate drink that kids drink for breakfast.

The first problem we encountered was how we were going to get the cherry flavor into the beer and at what quantity. We got the cherries from my grandmother that has a cherry tree on their yard. For the stout we added the cherries during the cooking. For the porter we added allot more chocolate and then added the cherries during the fermentation. We also added different quantities of chilli and honey.

In my next article I’m going to review the beer and try to find what we can do to make it better.

Latvian Beer, Part 2

The next day we continued on our Latvian beer trip. No-one really looked forward to it, and I've never seen so many be concerned with getting to much beer in the glass. It's usually the other way around on our beer testings.

Tervetes Alus 5,3%
It poured a clear golden liquid with a small foam that left no lacing. It had a weak smell of malt and white bread. It tasted of malt but was very watery and boring.
Total: 1/5
Piebalgas Tumsais 5,8%
It poured a clear dark golden liquid with a small foam that left some lacing. It had a malty smell. It had a buttery taste of caramel and malt. Best so far!
Total: 1,8/5
Piebalgas Alus 5,6%
It poured a clear golden liquid with a small foam that left some lacing. It didn’t have any odor at all. Tasted like a cheap kind of sparkled water.
Total: 0,5/5
Bruveris Kviesu Weissbeer 3,9%
It poured a cloudy golden liquid with a small foam that left no lacing. It had a smell of honey, butter and outdoor toilette. You know they kind you have at cabins in the woods. It had a very watery and boring taste.
Total: 0,6/5
Aldaris Stiprais 6,5%
It poured a clear golden liquid with a small foam that left some lacing. It didn’t have any odor at all and tasted very watery and bland.
Total: 0,5/5

Aldaris Porteris 6,8%
It poured a dark liquid with a small brown foam that left some lacing. It had a smell of honey but it tasted a bit bland and watery. The body was a bit to thin.
Total: 1,4/5

Latvian Beer, Part 1

My father brought a couple of bottles of Latvian beer home from his trip to Riga. I have to admit I feel a bit sorry for the Latvians because this was a set of beers that will go to history as the worst I have ever tried. But hopefully we where just unlucky with what we got and the nicer beer where hidden from the pesky tourists ;)

We started with two beers from Livu:

Livu Originalais 5% (Might be linked to the wrong beer)
It poured a clear golden liquid with a small foam that left no lacing. It was odorless and had a very weak taste of malt and white bread. However it didn’t have any of the bad tastes that so many lagers have trouble with, namely metal and an acidic bitterness that reminds me of puke. It was actually half decent and the best Latvian beer we tried this evening.
Total: 1,3/5

Livu Stiprais 7%
It poured a clear dark golden liquid with a small foam that left no lacing. It had a malty smell with some bread mixed in. It tasted similar to the Originalais but more alcoholic and sweetness. Originalais was better.
Total: 0,9/5
Walter Gaisais Alus 4,2%
It poured a pale yellow liquid with no foam or lacing. It smelled like pee and it wasn’t just me who sensed it. It tasted like water mixed with some pale bread. A horrible beer.

Total: 0,5/5

Walter Stiprais Alus 8%
It poured a clear golden liquid with a small foam that left no lacing. It smelled like raw meat and tasted disgusting. Hard to put it into words but even my lager loving friends couldn’t drink this.
Total: 0,5/5

Note: I wonder if Walter might be the worst brewery in the world? Lowest possible score on two out of two beers. Unfortunately they don't seem to be registered at ratebeer.

Inguer Alus Gaisais 4,7%
It poured a clear golden liquid with a small foam that left no lacing. It had a weak smell of hops, honey and a hint of green apples. It tasted sweet with honey and some alcohol, but besides that very watery.
Total: 0,7/5

Inguer Alus Sarkanais 5,4%
It poured a dark golden liquid with a small foam that left no lacing. It smelled like sweet caramel with some malt. It tasted sweet and alcoholic.
Total: 1,1/5

Note: I couldn't find Inguer on ratebeer.

Testing Sierra Nevada Stout

I and the missus went to Uppsala today to run some errands. She also wanted to visit some shops downtown and I used that opportunity to jog over to O’Connors for a beer. The friendly bartender (same as last time I wrote about this pub) recommended a beer:

Sierra Nevada Stout (draft) 5,8%
It poured a dark liquid with a medium white foam. The foam later on changed color to brown as I drank it. Might have been the beer that started shining through the liquid though.

It had a very weak smell, but I could sense a hint of chocolate and coffee.

The first thing I notice when I drink it is some dark bitter chocolate with some bitterness at the end. It was smooth and very easy to drink, not very alcoholic. The coffee flavor was the next one I noticed and after a couple of sips a smoky whisky flavor. I got the feeling this has been stored on an old whisky cask (I checked afterwards and that doesn’t seem to be the case). A fairly nice beer but it loose a couple of points on the lacking aroma.
Total: 3,3/5

Re-evaluating Busbelgo

Busbelgo (draft) 10%
I tried this beer a couple of weeks ago. So I felt it was time to re-evaluate it after being stored for a while.

It poured a hazy dark amber liquid with a huge foam that left allot of lacing. Compared to before the foam is allot bigger and it looked more appealing than last time.

It smelled of yeast, oranges, cinnamon, ginger, spices and some pepper. It was allot better balanced this time and the cinnamon wasn’t as dominant.

It had a complex taste with lots of different spices. I could clearly define allot of the spices from the smell, but others where harder to distinguish which made it very interesting.

I have to admit that it was better than before. It looked better, smelled better and tasted better. Allot more balanced and I wonder what will happen to this beer if it’s stored even longer.
Old score: 3,7/5
New score: 4,3/5



Note: I'm quite suprised when I calculate the new score, 4,3 is an amazing score. It might be a bit overrated, but I really liked it this time so it should be somewhere in the 4,0-4,3 limit.

Busbelgo with extra vanilla (draft) 10%
When they made Busbelgo they also made a small batch with some extra vanilla. It’s basically the same beer as above so I will focus on the differences.

It was smoother and sweeter than the original but didn’t feel as complex. It lacked allot of the different falvors I sensed in the original. Still a very nice beer though.
Total: 3,8/5

Blues Bitter and more...

My father and Chrille had brewed a beer just for this festival. It’s an English style bitter, but they have added some American hops, Amarillo, to make it more “Bluesey”. Besides that they also used some English hops.

Blues Bitter (draft) 4,5%
It poured a hazy amber liquid with a huge foam that lasted a long time and left allot of lacing.

It smelled of grassy hops with a hint of citrus and grapefruit.

It tasted fresh with grassy and flowery hops and was very smooth in my mouth. Felt very easy to drink, but that also made it a bit watery. But it should work great on a sunny day and felt perfect for the Blues festival. Since you spend allot of time drinking beer during this festival it’s great to be able to do so without walking away on your forehead.
Total: 3,5/5

Julitta Chrilles clone (Bottle) 5%
Chrille took part in the Julitta project and this is the beer he made. The Julitta project is an experiment with different Swedish hops. A bunch of home brewers have then made beer from the different types of hops. This is Chrilles version and a fun fact is that his hops was from Södermanland so he used only ingredients from that region. The only thing that isn’t made or grown in Södermanland is the yeast.

It poured a cloudy golden liquid with a small foam that left some lacing.

It smelled of honey, hops, grass and hay.

It was very easy to drink, smooth but a bit watery with a strong taste of honey. An interesting project and it was fun to try it. Would work great on a hot sunny day.
Total: 2,2/5

Chrilles mystery beer nr 2
I got another bottle of mystery beer from Chrille. Last time it turned out to be a wheat bock. With some excitement I opened this bottle as well. Not knowing what was coming.

It poured a dark hazy amber liquid with a small foam that left some lacing. It had a very weak smell. It had a strong taste of iron and sulphur with just a hint of maple syrup. The iron was a bit too much for me and was apparently a result of the water that was used during the brew.

After tasting it Chrille said that it was an extract brew that he added some maple syrup to. It was made on May first so he named it Maple First. An interesting attempt but unfortunately the water ruined it.
Total: 1,2/5

I forgot to take pictures of the two Chrille-brews. So intead I give you two bonus pics:

Chrille made this loggo for his and my fathers brews.

This is the magic beer tap. We did our best to empty it but the beer just kept on pouring.

Frövi Blues and Rock, part 3

We started out slow on Saturday. Both me and Nicklas had to take a nap to get some energy, but Per is almost 100% energy so he had no problem keeping up the pace.

Enoying the sun, but not enjoying the Latvian beer we tested.

On our way down to the lake. I took a swim and we swung by a couple of Chrilles friends that had parked their caravans down there.

Later that evening my parents had invited some friends over for dinner. So me and my friends joined in and then later went over to a neighbor that always has a party during the blues festival.

Chrille and my father in line for some elk kebabs.

Once we got down to the festival it was packed. It seems like the Refreshments had drawn quite the crowd. Don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people at the festival before. Just as the other two evenings we had some elk kebabs.

Per enjoying a kebab and the main stage in the background.

This year they had introduced something new. On the other side of the festival area, opposite to the big stage, they had put up a small tent where a local band performed in between shows at the main stage. They played some Johnny Cash covers. I have to admit this was probably the best show I saw over the course of the festival, in competition with Bonafide on Thursday (I didn’t see all though). People where dancing and they even had to tell people to back off since they were pushing a bit too close to the small tent.

The local band playing in the small tent. "Benis" on the left, Tony Rennegård on drums behind them, Mattias Ekström on vocals and then I'm not sure who the guy on the right is.

Once again a great festival and it just keeps getting better each year. If plan to improve anything for next year I hope it’s the beer. Even going from those plastic bottles to something on a tap would be a great improvement. It was also fun to introduce Chrille, Nicklas and Per to the festival. I hope they had a good time.

Frövi Blues and Rock, part 2

On Friday we went to Bjunges place to play some kubb and drink some beer. The weather was actually pretty nice and we had a good time.

Chrille and Bjunge playing Kubb.

We then got joined by Per who arrived from Stockholm. We had plans to visit a birthday party but first we needed to get a couple of beers down Pers throat. So we went to my parents house for dinner and some homemade beer.

The birthday party was great and I meet up with allot of old friends. There was also a surprise as the man of the house proposed to the birthday girl. Needles to say the mood was really high when we walked down to the festival.

On our way to the birthdayparty.

A new pop-band? Nope, just a couple of good friends.

Once there we immediately went for the beer tent. They had some Spendrups on plastic bottles. Which sadly doesn’t match up to the quality of beer we had been drinking all day. So after chatting with some friends and having a couple of elk kebabs we went back for some homemade beer.

Frövi Blues and Rock, part 1

I wrote this on Friday:

I’m currently in Frövi visiting some friends and family. Last night was spent trying out beers and visiting the Blues festival. Yesterday it was Rock-Thursday and also drug free so they didn’t sell any beer. We finally managed to drag ourselves away from the beer and walked in the rain down to the festival. I was surprised to find somewhere between 100-200 people listening to the music, Bonafide was playing and they made a good performance. We actually ended up staying for the whole show and then bought their album. I also bought an elk kebab. Can’t visit the Blues festival without it ;)

When they finished the last song we walked back to my parents place and tried some more beer. I’m going to cover the beer in a separate article. But to give a quick summary, we started out trying some Latvian beer, and then went on to trying a couple of beers that Chrille had brought with him. We also tried all the home brewed beer we had on tap, 5 in total, including the experimental brews.

Now I need to go wake Niklas up, that lazy bastard.

Bonafide on stage.

Alfie, Niklas and Chrille enjoying some beer.

Me and my father having some Blues Bitter.

Alfie and Roger... no wait...

The delicious cheese

A few weeks ago I visited a flee market (Täby Travbana, backluckeloppis) and just as with other great flee markets I found something unexpected. A guy from Kloten in Bergslagen (not far from where I was born) had a stand where he was selling his handmade cheeses. Now normally this sounds pretty disgusting, some guy selling cheese at a flee market. But I tried it and it tasted great, probably the best goat cheese I have ever tried. I bought a can which I ended up finnishing the same day. So the next weekend I came back and bought two more cans, but with slightly different seasoning.

Today Im starting my vacation and will travel home to Frövi to visit my friends and family. It's a great weekend to come home since it's also the blues festival. I'm actually not a big fan of the music but I'm looking forward to meeting all my friends and also to drink allot of beer. We have allot of interesting beers to try out including out two experimental brews, Busbelgo (with extra vanilla) and Blues Bitter. I also heard that Chrille had some interesting beers and I know we have a couple of bottles we haven't had time to try yet.

The fantastic sausage!

We are having visitors this weekend, Karins mother and her livingpartner. Amongst other things we made a trip to Waxholm yesterday. The weather was fantastic, but the best part was actually a sausage. A company named Rombergs had a spot amongst the red shacks in the guest harbor. They had set up a BBQ and where serving these amazing sausages with some sour dough bread. The sausage was very meaty with some amazing spices. Apparently the owner specially orders these sausages using locally produced pork and his own spices. A great initiative and I hope I encounter these soon again. Well I ended up buying 20 extra that was frozen, so I guess I'll spot them on my own BBQ shortly. ;)

Even without the sausage, Waxholm is a great place to visit. Specially during the summer when the whole place comes to life.

Besides visiting Waxholm we also had some dinner at our place and just generally having a good time. Nothing special to report regarding beer though. We just had some lager and wheat beer that I have already written about.

I was really close to falling into the water just before this picture. Damned jetty trying to throw me overboard!

The guest harbor. There where some shops, a place serving fresh fish and the sausage place in thoose red shacks.

View from the guest harbor. The place was steaming with boats.

This is where I bought the sausage.

Visiting Oslo, part 3 - The Beer

As I wrote earlier I bought 6 bottles. My intention was to go all out norwegian but I had already tested several of the Nögne Ö they had stored so I felt more in the mood to try something new. I started out testing two belgian beers. They where very similar in taste and quality. Not sure why they had two so similar beers when the supply was so low.

Silenrieux Sara Blonde (Biologique) (Bottle) 6%

It poured a cloudy golden liquid with a huge foam that slowly receded and left a nice lacing on the side of the glass.

It had a smell that leaned towards white wine. Fruity with some sweetness and yeast.

The first taste was very smooth in my mouth and not as fizzy as I would have expected. It tasted of white wine, yeast, sweet and fruity, with a hint of orange. However the flavor was quite weak and quickly dissapeared in my mouth.

Total: 3,1/5

Leireken Special Spelt (Leireken Witte Spelt Ale) (Bottle) 5%

It poured a cloudy golden liquid with a big foam that left just a little bit of lacing. There was also some small bits of yeast floating around in the liquid.

It smelled fruity with some yeast. Not as strong as the above beer.

This one was also very smooth, but had a much weaker flavor. Had some fruits and yeast. But besides that it was a bit watery.

Total: 2,9/5

At this point we left the appartment to go to Huk. When I came back I was craving hops and my mouth watered when I thought about the two IPAs I had in the fridge. I started with the american.

Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA (2008 and later) (Bottle) 7,1%

It poured a clear golden liquid with a big foam that left some lacing.

It smelled of grassy hops, grapefruit and a hint of pineapple. Very nice!

On the first sip I noticed the high bitterness. Then I tasted the grassy hops, citrus and a hint of grapefruit. It felt like it lacked something though, it doesn't really "attack" the entire mouth as I would expect it to do. But besides that a very nice beer.

Total: 3,4/5

Nøgne Ø India Pale Ale (Bottle) 7,5%

It poured a hazy copper liquid with a huge foam with big bubbles that left allot of lacing on the side of the glass. It also had some yeast floating around in it. It looked very appealing.

It had an aroma of grassy hops, citrus and grapefruit.

The flavor was filled with grassy hops, citrus, grapefruit and a hint of some other fruits. Felt very smooth in my mouth. A very nice beer and was very well recieved by my friends.
Total: 4,1/5
Haandbryggeriet Odin’s Tipple (Bottle) 11%
It poured a pitch dark liquid with a small brown foam.

The aroma was filled with chocolate, nuts and coffey.

It had a taste of dark chocolate, nuts and coffey. It was also sour and sweet, something that I didn't expect. The alcohol was well hidden and I didn't expect to see 11% on the label.
Total: 3,5/5

Haandbryggeriet Norse Porter (Bottle) 6,5%
It poured a pitch dark liquid with a huge dark foam that quickly dissapeared.

The smell was very weak and I had a hard time distinguishing any aroma at all.

The flavor was similar to their Odin's Trippel, but allot weaker. With chocolate, coffey and nuts.
Total: 2,7/5

Visiting Oslo, part 2 - Vinmonopolet

The first thing I did after waking up on saturday was to run down to the nearest Vinmonopol (similar to the swedish Systembolaget). My first reaction upon entering was: Where the hell is all the beer? I started to get scared that my norwegian friends where right: "There are no good beers in Norway". Ran around for a while before asking for help. They had stored what little beer they had on a shelf that was hidden from direct view. It was definitely the least favored type of alcohol in the store, which was dominated by different kinds of wine and spirits.

However what little beer they had was quite interesting. I actually had a hard time choosing as I couldnt bring anything home with me. So all the beer I bought had to be tasted the same day. I ended up buying 6 bottles, which I will cover in detail in part 3. But I could have easily bought 6 bottles more.

I wasn't suprised that the beer was more expensive then in Sweden. However what striked me as odd was that the gap between bad/cheap (whatever word you want to give it) wasn't that big. A Hansa lager cost about 48 SEK while a Nögne Ö IPA ended up at 78 SEK. In comparison to Sweden I think the Hansa would cost about 10 SEK (or in that region at least), while the IPA would cost 51,90 SEK (Thanks Marc!). So the incentive to walk down "Cheap-road" is smaller in Norway compared to Sweden. However as I understood it, the majority buys their beer at the supermarket. I never checked the prices but heard something about 200 SEK for a 6-pack of 4,5% lager.

To summarize: The supply in Norway is quite low, but what they have is quite nice, you just have to spend a little extra to get it. But compared to Sweden the difference in price on the more interesting beers is not that big. But on lager it's a huge difference.

Visiting Oslo, part 1

Last weekend I went to Oslo to visit a couple of childhood friends who live there, Markus and Martin. When I arrived on friday two other friends had already spent a couple of days... and nights in Oslo, Roger and Keso.

I took a flight through Norwegian airlines and since I didn't check any luggage in it was a very smooth flight. Took about 50 minutes to fly, 40 minutes by buss from Gardemoen to Oslo and then another 7 or so minutes to my friends appartment. Felt like I was one minute sitting at work dreaming about a cold beer and the next I was in Oslo drinking one.

The first evening we went to a pub and the morning after I imidieately visited Vinmonopolet. I just had to check out the local supply of beer. I'll tell you more about this in part 2. After a quick breakfast we headed out to Huk, which seems to be where a large part of the Oslo population goes to bath and enjoy the sun. After burning myself into a crispy bacon shape we headed back for some food and beer.

Roger and Keso on their way to Huk.

Just arrived at Huk, the weather was really nice. Markus, Martin and Roger are getting a couple of blankets out. Well Roger is just supervising the work ;)

The water was great, not as cold as I would have expected.

Nice view.

On our way back to the appartment. It's in central Oslo.

It's wednesday but it still burns.

Martin and Markus enjoying the hot breeze and a cold beer.

I really had a good time in Oslo and it was allot of fun spending time with my friends again. Also, thanks for the hospitality guys :)