BrewDog 77 and Zeitgeist

I picked up two new Brewdog beers at Systembolaget the other week. They where both part of the release to the ordinary supply.

BrewDog 77 Lager (bottle) 4,9%
It poured a clear golden liquid with a medium sized white foam that left a little bit of lacing.

The smell was the best part of the beer, even though it wasn't that good. A noticable smell of malt, bread and caramell.

It had a smooth and dry mouthfeel. Tasted of malt, bread and a hint of caramell. But where´s the hops? Where's the rebellion? In the end it's just another average lager and doesn't seperate itself from the rest.
Total: 2,2/5
BrewDog Zeitgeist (bottle) 4,9%
It poured a pitch black liquid with a medium sized light brown foam that left some lacing.

It had a smell of coffey, chocolate and burned toast.

It had a smooth and dry mouthfeel. Tasted the same as it smelled with some coffey, chocolate and burned toast. It feels like there is something lacking in this beer. There's nothing wrong with it, but it feels like it doesn't bring anything to the table.
Total: 3,1/5

Testing Urthel

On friday it was time to try two beers I've had sitting in my fridge for a while, Urthel Trippel and Quadrupel. Both are brewed by De Koningshoeven, which is a monestary. I'm quite suprised to see that they also brew La Trappe. Looks like they make allot of beer, I always thought they only made the La Trappe beers. Anyway lets see what I thought of them:

Urthel Hibernus Quentum Tripel (bottle) 9%
It poured a hazy golden liquid with a big white foam that left allot of lacing.

It had a strong smell of yeast, spices, hops, citrus, nuts, ripe fruit, apples and a hint of pepper. Nice smell, I liked it.

It had a similar tast ewith yeast, spices, coriander, ripe fruit, apples, banana, hops and a hint of orange. Medium-hich carbonation and an alcoholic finish. At first it wasn't very smooth, it felt a bit stingy in my mouth but it got better at the end. A nice beer though I enjoyed it.
Total: 3,7/5
Urthel Samaranth (bottle) 12%
This is their quadrupel. It poured a clear dark golden liquid with a medium sized foam that left a nice lacing.

It had a smell of caramell, ripe fruit and a hint of burned toast.

It had a strong taste of caramell, peppers, nuts, ripe fruit and a very strong alcoholic finish. Medium amount of carbonation and a thick liquid. It tickled my mouth and wasn't very smooth. It had a very strong alcoholic taste, too strong if you ask me. It took over and covered all the other flavours in the beer.

The score might be a bit to high but I got another bottle so I can re-evaluate later on and see if it has changed over time.
Total: 3,1/5

An Australian in Stockholm, part 3

We continued our walk south towards Old Town. We have a history of joking about us swedes being vikings and coming over to ravage England every now and then. Also, me and my dad had a 25+50 years party a couple of years ago where the theme was vikings. So I figured a good place to go would be Sjätte Tunnan (the Sixth Barrel), which is a medieval restaurant/pub located in a cellar in Old Town. The staff is dressed in medieval style clothing, the place is lit by candels and decorated by weapons and armor. In the background you hear some kind of medieval music playing. A nice atmosphere to drain a ceramic jug of mead.

Dave at the Sixth Barrel.

After the mead it was getting a bit late, so instead of walking up to Akkurat we walked around the block to Glennfidich Warehouse. They usually have allot of swedish micro beer on tap and just as with Bishops Arms I wasn't dissapointed. We decided to these beers should end our evening:
Nils Oscar Imperial Stout (tap) 7%
It poured a pitch black liquid with a small light brown foam that left some lacing. It had an unexpected smell of fruit candy, black currant, blue berries and some sourness. It had a strong taste of burned toast, sweet chocolate, coffey and nuts. It was smooth and dry. A weird beer, the smell didn't match the taste at all, felt like two different beers.
Total: 3,5/5
Dugges Never mind the Bollox! (tap) 9,2%
It poured a dark hazy reddish liquid, with a small light dirty orange foam. It had a strong smell of caramell, malt, bread, something sweet and alcohol. It tasted of caramell, malt, something sweet and had a warm alcoholic finnish. It had a smooth and thick mouthfeel and it tickled my mouth. A very nice beer.
Total: 4,2

An Australian in Stockholm, part 2

After finishing off our beers at Monks we felt it was time to move on and try to find something to eat. We walked down Vasagatan to Bishops Arms. They have renovated and the front looks very fresh now, however I actually liked the old wodden entrance. My hope was to find some interesting swedish beers and I wasn't dissapointed. I found two beers on tap that I hadn't tried before:
Ocean Rallarporter (tap) 5%
It poured a pitch black liquid with a medium sized light brown foam. It had a fairly weak smell of chocolate, coffey and nuts. The taste was also a bit weak but I found some chocolate, nuts and coffey. It had a smooth and dry mouthfeel. I'm actually a bit dissapointed, would have expected it to have a bit more taste.
Total: 2,7/5
Strömsholms Slussvaktaren (tap) 4,6%
It poured a clear, dark golden liquid with a small white foam that left some nice lacing. It had a fairly weak smell of grassy hops and citrus. It tasted of grassy hops, citrus, hint of grapefruit, burned toast and some bread. I think this would work great sitting in the sun on a hot summers day.
Total: 3/5

Both of the beers where fairly weak and didn't taste much at first. But after finishing our dinners and cleaning our palletes they got allot better. We both agreed that these where workermans beers. They where both named after a profession and this could be a good way to quench ones thirst after a rough day at work. We finished of our beers and decided to continue our trip south...

An Australian in Stockholm, part 1

An old friend from Australia, Dave the Bushman, visited Stockholm for a few days. Of course we had to celebrate this with trying some beer. We started out by walking to Monks Café on Wallingatan. They had an american festival going but the real reason for going there is their own beer. I quickly spotted something new:

Paulines Hoppy White Ale (tap) 5,8%
It poured a very cloudy golden liquid with a small and creamy white foam. It both smelled and tasted of foam banana, citrus and a bit of coriander. It was smooth, mild a bit watery with a low carbonation and an alcoholic finish. Pretty nice a summer time beer.
Total: 3,4/5

Since they had an american festival I asked for the beer menu to see if we could find something interesting. Dave reacted to some of the prices which I agree are a bit over the top. He was also suprised to see that they had allot of beer from south america. I was personally suprised to find so many dutch and belgian beers in a list of american beer. However they did have a few on sale and I spotted Struise Mikkeller at a reduced price of 99 sek. We also figured we should try an american beer and I wanted to try Lagunitas a Little Sumpin' Extra! Ale. But they where all out of it. Instead the bartender recommended Maximus from the same brewery.

Struise Mikkeller (bottle) 9%
It poured a hazy dark golden liquid with a small foam that lasted a while. It had a strong smell of caramell, vanilla, something sweet and it was all covered in some warm alcohol. It had a strong taste as well of fudge, caramell, vanilla, apples and something sweet. It had a smooth and thick moutfeel, very enjoyable. Nice beer, but I'm suprised to see it labeled as a DIPA, it felt more like a barley wine. Well not exactly like a barley wine but not that far off.
Total: 4/5
Lagunitas Maximus (bottle) 7,5%
It poured a clear golden liquid with a medium sized white foam that left very little lacing. It had a medium heavy smell of hops, fruits, caramell and bread. It tasted mostly of fruity and flowery hops and just a bit of grassy hops. Also sweet of butter scotch and caramell. It was smooth with a medium-full thickness and tickled the top of my mouth. Also had an odd kind of funky taste, not sure what that was. Not one of the better DIPAs I've had but still a decent beer.
Total: 3,4/5

Moral panic!

I just read a funny story at Brew Dogs blog. Apparently there has been some moral panic among politicians around their beer Tokyo* . It has an ABV of 18,2% and for some groups that is Satan in a bottle. Politicians and lobby group are trying to ban the beer in the UK. As a response Brew Dog has brewed Nanny State. A 1,1% beer with lots of hops. I just have to love that kind of humor, apparently the politicians didn't quite see the fun.

It seems to be two groups that are activelly working to ban the beer in the UK. Alcohol Aware and the Portman Group. The first group seems to be plain anti-alcohol, with topics like Drink Driving, Alcohol & Violence, Underage Drinking and so on... The second group seems to focus on social responibilities around alcohol. Maybe the two groups are more similar then that but the first feels a bit more unbalanced at a first glance. I tried to find their own statements in the matter but couldn't find it.

I've seen a similar moral panic in Sweden. Specially around the Swedish Championship in Homemade Beer. To make a long story short, the Peoples Health Department tried to stop the competition. But the result was that instead of having the SC in a pub, restaurant or similar establishment, where you can have a decent meal and pay for the sampling. You now have the SC in sports halls or similar buildings and the sampling is free (brewers share their beer with you). Good job PHD, I'm sure holding back home brewers and beer enthusiasts is a great way to preserve peoples health.

I've always wondered why these kinds of organizations feel a need to charge at the more serious parts of alcohol consumption. The people they are attacking are enthusiasts that take their beer seriously. I would be very suprised if there is a strong correlation with violence, underage drinking, drunken driving etc in these circles. In my experience most alcohol related violence happens around bigger clubs and pubs that stick to cheap lagers, ciders and different kinds of spirits. Underaged drinking in my experience happens around cheap lagers and spirits as well. Why charge at the one part of society that actually takes their drinking seriously? A beer like Tokyo* will most likely be drunk by someone that is very interested in it. Very likely that person will take notes, discuss it with a friend and/or eat a piece of chocolate or similar to go with the beer. What you won't see is a 14 year old boy pounding back 10 of these bad boys. Primarily because its an expensive and exclusive beer, but also since the taste is quite extreme and you need a certain palate to appreciate it.

The question also arises why a 18,2% beer is bad, but a 40% vodka is perfectly acceptable? Maybe it's not moraly right to brew anything stronger then a watered down 5% lager?

I guess none of the people at these kinds of institutions will read this, but at least I can rant a bit and get it off my chest. But if someone happens to stumble on it, I ask you this: Why don't you encourage a more serious view on alcohol instead counteracting it? Why don't you visit a festival and look for yourselfs with kind of people visit them? Open your eyes and go out in the world. Don't let ignorance ruin a good thing.

I think I've ranted long enough now. Cheers! I'm going to the pub to chug a couple of bottles of Tokyo*.

Spreading the joy of beer

I just got an e-mail from my good friend Nicklas who you have probably seen on this site before. Before I meet him he usually stuck to mass produced lagers. But I started pouring a variety of beer down his throath and it seems like it's been a success. He has now started his own blog about beer: http://beer.mez.nu/ It's going to be fun reading about him expanding his interest in beer.