Beers on the train

When we took the train to Enköping last saturday I brought two bottles of beer with me and Per brought some sandwhiches. The sandwhich was really nice with some nice high quality blue cheese and beer sausage.

The sandwhich.

Estrella Damm Inedit 4,8%

It poured a hazy golden liquid with a big foam that left allot of lacing. The smell was fresh with a hint of citrus. It tasted sweet and malty. Very fresh and easy to drink but a bit to bland to get a better score. I can definitely see myself drinking this on a spanish beach though.

Total: 2,9/5

Biere Nouvelle 8%

It poured a clear golden liquid with a nice big bubbly foam, which left big chunks of foam on the side of the glass. The smell was very weak. The taste was maly with a dry bitterness and a warm alcoholic finnish. At the end it had a hint of sour apples which tickled the top of my mouth.

Total: 3,2/5

Enköpings Open Championship, part 2

When we got to the festival I was suprised that it was so big, I expected about 50-100 visitors but my guess is it was closer to 300, but Im probably way of on that one. 41 beers had entered the competition and they where divided into three classes just as at the Swedish Championship: Bottom fermented (class 1), top fermented (class 2) and special beer (class 3).

Lots of people.....

...in all directions.

Finally enjoying the first beer at the festival. We started on class 1 and worked our way up.

They guys that brewed Karlssons Klister had put some time into marketing their beer. Everybody that tried their beer got a sticker on their glass. I suggested some bikini girls for next years competition.

This time I managed to try all of the classes and vote in good time. It might be because they had different deadlines for each class. The first class had a deadline at 15:30, then class 2 at 16:00 and class 3 at 16:30. This is definitely a system that is worth testing at the next SC.

Alfie and his nicer "twin".

The guy in the blue shirt had his son with him who had entered the competition with his first ever brew. I hope to see him again at the next SC.

They had a barbeque going outside and you could get some hot dogs and beer sausage. Which was really nice and I hope to see in some more festivals. Looks like the hot dogs where really popular as they ran out of them at the end.

The quality of the beers where good and very even. I graded them all around 2,6-3,4 which I think is a very good result. However I didn't find any favorites this time.

After a couple of beers some people where getting a bit to "friendly".

After 4 hours of drinking beer it was time to take the train home. Felt nice to get home to some barbeque.

This was a really nice festival with lots of friendly people. It's so much fun to talk to both the brewers and the visitors. I hope to see all of them next year.

Enköpings Open Championship part 1

Yesterday me, Per, Nicklas, Åke (my father) and Alfie the pop-up-man went to Enköping to attend the Open Championship. Me, Nicklas and Per took the train from Stockholm and Alfie and Åke took the train from Arboga. During the train ride we tried two different beers which I will grade later on.

Nicklas and Per on the train from Stockholm to Enköping.

Since we arrived about an hour before the festival started we decided to hunt for some beer. I hoped we could visit the Corner Inn but it was closed. So instead we ended up at Masouds and had a Mariestads. To bad we didn't know they have an O'Learys in Enköping now.

Apparently Massouds also lets anybody into their restaurant. Took the old guys some time to find us, but they where rewarded with some beer when they did.

"Stayin' alive, stayin' alive ha ha ha ha stayin' aaaaalaaaaaaive". Yepp, looking good on our way to the festival.

The walk to the festival was a nice one with the sun warming us as we walked in the otherwise windy and cool weather.

I will publish a report on the festival and some more pictures shortly.

Enköpings Open on saturday

On saturday it's time for Enköpings Open Championship, a homebrewing festival. It's gonna be my first visit to the festival and it looks like I will be joined by the same guys as the Swedish Championship, my father, Pop-up man and Nicklas.

For thoose of you who don't live in Sweden, Enköping is a town located about 50-60 kilometres north west of Stockholm. I think it has a population around 40 000.

Enköping actually has a place in my background. I lived there, with Karin, for 2 years after finishing my military service. It was our first appartment and the reason we ended up there was that I studied in Uppsala but couldn't find an appartment in town. We even lived 2 weeks in a caravan in Uppsala before we got the appartment in Enköping.

I'll post a report and some pictures when I get back.

Butterflies and lager, part 2

We tried some more beers during saturday.

Engel Gold 5,4%

This was the last bottle I had out of 12 I got from my father a while back. All of them had been better then I expected.

The taste was sweet and alcoholic with some weird tone which didn't feel right. Had it gone bad? However once I tried it, it wasn't to bad. It had a lean taste of bread and malt with an alcoholic finish. The weird smell draws down the point a bit but I have feeling this would have tested better a couple of months ago.

Total: 1,7/5

Grebbestads Lager 5%

It had a strong (compared to other lagers during the test) smell of malt and hops. It had a smooth taste with a low-medium bitterness. Noticable hops and malt taste with some bread in the background. Very nice lager, best of the day.

Total: 2,4/5

Spaten Oktoberfestbier 5,9%

It poured a yellow liquid with small bits floating around in it. Had a small foam that dissapeared fast and left no lacing. The smell was sweet with hints of honey. The taste was malty and sweet with an odd aftertaste. Had this gone bad?

Total: 1,7/5

Paulaner Oktoberfestbier 6%

As with Spaten this also had small bits floating around in it. It had a weak smell with a hint towards something sweet. It tasted watery and bland with an odd aftertaste. Had this gone bad? It sure didn't taste right.

Total: 1,6/5

My personal lesson of the day: Don't let lagers hang around to long. In the future I will drink them as soon as I get home from Systembolaget.

Butterflies and lager, part 1

Eva (Karins mother) and Bertil has been visiting us over the weekend. We went to the Butterfly House (Fjärilshuset) in Haga park (Hagaparken), it's a green house that hosts a rainforest like area. Which contained both exotic plants, fish, birds and butterflies.

It was hot, moist and yeah well they had a plant or two.

The branches where filled with these coocons. We might have been there before the season starts since there where only a few butterflies flying around.

I did manage to find one though. Yeah I might have looked like a moron running after butterflies... and no I wasn't drunk. ;)

Me at Hagaparken. You can't really see it on this picture but the field behind me was huge and packed with people.

After walking around in the park for a while we went home to have some beer and bbq. I decided this was a good time to try all thoose lagers I've had sitting around for a while.

Saku Kuld 5,2%
The smell was slightly sweet and had hints of malt and bread. The taste was fizzy with some malt and a low bitterness. It lacks allot of the bad tastes I relate to lager, but it's a bit weak in taste and smell to reach a higher score. Pretty decent lager though.

Total: 1,9/5

Zlaty Bazant 5%

It had a weak smell with a slightest hint of malt and bread. It tasted bland and watery, had some fizzyness and a hint of metall. A pretty boring lager.

Total: 1,6/5

Gambrinus 5%

Had a malty smell. The taste was lean with not to much fizzyness. However the taste was a bit weak. Better taste then Zlaty though.

Total: 1,8/5

More beers in part 2.....

Sunny Franziskaner

Me and the missus had a busy friday and cleaned out allot of junk we had stored in the appartment and basement. It took us all day but the result was very satisfying. I felt I should award myself with something good and the weather has been excellent these past couple of days so I thought it was time for some wheat beer. I love having a wheat beer in the sun, it's really refreshing. I checked the fridge and choose Franziskaner Hefe-Weissbier and their Dunkel version.

Franziskaner Hefe Weissbier 5%

It poured a cloudy golden liquid with a huge creamy foam that left allot of lacing. It smelled allot of sweet bananas, very nice. Im not sure how common this candy is outside Sweden, but I (and many others) relate it to something called foam banana. The taste is very fizzy at first, then I feel the sweet banana flavour. The overall impression is that this is a very well balanced beer and one of the best wheat beers I've tried.

Total: 3,8/5

Franziskaner Hefe-Weissbier Dunkel 5,5%

50 cl bottle. It poured a dark reddish cloudy liquid with a huge foam which left allot of lacing. The smell is allot weaker compared to the normal hefe-weissbier. But there is a hint of the sweetness in the background. The taste is very smooth and lean with allot less fizzyness then the normal version. It's also more malty with a hint of some toasted bread. A very nice beer but the normal version was better.

Total: 3,4/5

Both are really nice beers, specially for drinking in the hot summer wheater. If I had to choose one I would definitely go for the normal version.