Subjective ramblings about beer, pubs and associated topics

Adnams again

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 14:25 | link | comments (3)
beer, england, bitter

A beer guide to Copenhagen (and more)

Have a look over at RateBeer for an updated beer guide to Copenhagen, which sums up why a visit to Denmark is more interesting than ever.

And for a particularly good piece of food writing, have a look at the New York Times today. (Free, but you need to register.) Nora Ephron writes about the Lost Strudel. A quote:

Food vanishes.I don't mean food as habit, food as memory, food as biography, food as metaphor, food as regret, food as love, or food as in those famous madeleines people like me are constantly referring to as if they've read Proust, which in most cases they haven't. I mean food as food. Food vanishes.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 14:31 | link | comments
beer, denmark

The thousand kroner beer

I felt that the #100 beer from Nøgne Ø here in Norway was beyond my budget when they charged 100 Norwegian kroner (in the state monopoly shop, not in a bar) for a bottle. Well, for those of you who are residing in or visiting Denmark, you now have the possibility of really testing the depth of your wallets. According to Danish daily Politiken, you can now have a bottle of Samuel Adams Utopias 2005 for the staggering sum of 995 Danish kroner. You order this from the web site of the coop stores, and then pick it up in your local store.

Samuel Adams has brewed a total of 8000 bottles of this beer with 25% alcohol, of which just a few are on their way to Denmark. (Bottles is not the correct term, they call them ceramic containers covered with copper.) I would not be surprised if the lot are picked up by local beer clubs so their members can have a small tipple for a few hundred kroner. I think I'll pass on this one, but if anyone offers to buy a round, I'd be happy to try!

Before you start looking around for it, according the brewers themselves: Due to legal restrictions, Samuel Adams Utopias can not be sold in the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, South Carolina, Washington, and West Virginia.

Could someone do an estimate on how much this beer would cost in Norway?

 

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 10:08 | link | comments (3)
beer, usa

Bottled science

Science News has a cover story on the science of brewing, which you might find interesting. Sorry, it was not my in-depth reading of science journals that led me to this, but Beer Rag.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 14:05 | link | comments (1)
beer, brewers

The Green Lemon strategy

The Los Angeles Times has an article focusing on the decline in beer sales for the major actors on the European market. It seems like Heineken is desparately trying to do everything at once, both by promoting beer by opening its own restaurant on the Champs Elysees in Paris and through giving avway free beer and staging concerts for Spanish youngsters. InBev seems to think the solution is to launch Beck's Green Lemon. (For some reason, I am happy to report I do not own any shares in InBev!) Carlsberg is actually the one moving against the trend by launching their own micro brews, previously covered here.

To all the big brewers (may they forever be known as  Lagerboys) I want to send a Christmas present: A fourpack of Hobgoblin from the Wychwood brewery. For other readers: Try their Bah! Humbug Christmas Ale, too! (And I think I'll order a Lagerboy t-shirt)

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 12:20 | link | comments
beer, carlsberg, christmas

The Ghost of Christmas Past

So, here it is, the 1998 Christmas Ale from King & Barnes. It smells like a bag of sweets. Beautiful dark amber colour, and - as no surprise - almost no fizz at all. A strong taste, very like a fortified wine, related to both sherry and port. Despite it being stuck in its glass bottle during those years, one should think it was aged in an oak barrel. This is beyond any ale I have ever tasted. If I had a decent cellar, I would lay down a few bottles of strong beer every year. At the same time, this is not a beer I would like to drink often.

I hada bottle of Young's Christmas Pudidng Ale in London recently. In this ale I find the same taste of dried fruit, but the difference is that nothing is added, the fruitness comes from the maturation. There are echoes of some garden berries, too. You remember the red currant wines your grandmother made? After a few decades in the cellar, they often developed into something like this.

This is not for the beer novice then. I would suggest an age limit of 30 for drinkers of this one. And if the term Barley Wines wasn't already taken, I would use it for this. Allow to stand until clear before serving, it says on the bottle. 7 years should be enough!

And if you want to try more recent vintages, Google gave me this sad story:

Formed from the merger of King & Sons, a maltsters set up in 1850, and G. H. Barnes & Co., a brewers dating back to 1800, in 1906 this family owned brewery survived until they were taken over by Hall & Woodhouse in Spring 2000, with all production at Horsham ceasing. Sussex Bitter and Old Ale are brewed at Hall & Woodhouse, Mild Ale is brewed at the Hall & Woodhouse owned Gribble Inn. The last member of the King family involved in the company still brews in Horsham as WJ King & Co (Brewers).

So it's truly a ghost,, then!

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 20:36 | link | comments (1)
beer, england, christmas

Merry Christmas

I will be blogging during the holidays, too - but for now: Merry Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 14:12 | link | comments (4)

Guess what I found?

Lurking behind those bottles of strange scnapps from former members of the Warsaw Pact, while checking up on my stock of aquavit for the holidays.

There it was, twinkling like a ruby. A bottle of 1998 King & Barnes Christmas Ale. If we manage to get the kids off to bed at a decent hour, if the apartment starts to resemble something where we can decently celebrate Christmas, maybe....

Ho ho ho!

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 20:34 | link | comments (1)
beer, england, christmas

London again

 

 

Join me on a trip to the Museum of London over at A Good Beer Blog, where I also launch the idea of a new museum.

Come to think of it, there should be a special gallery for pub signs, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 09:09 | link | comments
london, beer

Mighty micros

Just to make you envious. A six-pack from the Real Ale shop.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 13:41 | link | comments (1)
beer, england

Beer marketing, Slovakian style

Before we get too Christmassy, and to underline the point that I really try to look beyond Scandinavia and England, here are two cards I picked up in Bratislava earlier this year. You know these free post cards you find in bars and restaurants just about everywhere. It seems like they are fed up with EU regulations telling them which warnings to put on their cigarette packets, so the distributors of Budvar (the Czech Budweiser, the drinkable one), decided to use them in a marketing campaign. We are not talking about subtle ironic messages here - the first one says: Bulvar causes addiction.

 

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 11:24 | link | comments
beer, slovakia

Beer marketing, Slovakian style 2

The second card is even less subtle. Bulvar kills!

Do you think these are very helpful tools for selling more of this beer? Discuss.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 11:18 | link | comments
beer, slovakia

A beer shop worth seeking out

There are many reasons for taking a few hours off and go to Richmond if you are in London. It is a pleasant green suburb where the shopping is less frantic than in the more central areas. It has several splendid bookshops where you can spend time browsing. It has lots of small cafes with tempting cakes. It has some classic pubs, many of which serve the Young's range of ales.

I recently spent a Sunday in Richmond. The Sunday roast at the Orange Tree was served in the old fashioned way, as if BSE and all other food scares had never happened. With a stack of Sunday papers I continued to the Waterman's Arms, where I had another pint and could happily spent the rest of the day. This is close to a famous riverside pub, The White Cross, but it was too cold to sit outside and a bit too crowded outside there. That is probably the pub for a weekday afternoon instead, especially in sunny weather.

I crossed the Richmond bridge into Twickenham, where after a few hundred yards down the main street I found the Real Ale shop. This is a specialist shop selling only bottled ales from British micro breweries. This is not the place to find the famous brews from the big players, but rather a wide selection of beers from breweries in villages you'd never heard of. Friendly staff ask you if there are special types of beer you like, and then help you to pick a selection. There are even free samples (at least for me!). These beers have previously only been available in the local area around the brewery, so it should be a big help for those who are up and coming. There are even samples of hops and various malts that you can smell and taste.

I bought with me as many bottles as I could, and plan to enjoy them over Christmas.

While there are other specialist beer shops in London - The Pitfield Beer Shop and  the beer shop in Borough Market are the most profiled - this bold venture deserves all the custom it can get. I hope both the local public as well as other Londoners and tourists support this shop. And if you stay in the area, they even do free deliveries! It is open seven days a week. See their web site for details about beers in stock and opening hours.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 09:06 | link | comments (4)
london, beer, youngs, bottle conditioned

A day out in Cambridge

In addition to running this blog, I am also contributing to A Good Beer Blog, where the good editor Alan retouches both my photos and my English before publication ( which someone should probably do here as well). I don't think I have told you about me reporting on my visit to Cambridge a few weeks ago, which you will find here. A sorry excuse for a post, I know, but in addition to all the Christmas preparations I'm off to see King Kong tonight.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 08:54 | link | comments
beer, england

The comeback of the can

The Philadelphia Enquirer has a regular beer column - Joe Sixpack. The recent article discusses the use of beer cans in micros, where both the costs of setting up the canning line and the belief that proper beer should be stored in glass bottles and kegs have been an obstacle to canning. This is slowly changing - there are quite a few micros out there now offering canned beer.

I don't have time to go into this discussion right now, and I obviously see the point that bottles are needed if you want the product to develop in the bottle. At the same time there are other types of beer that ar well suited to canning. And as craft beer is no shipped across the globe, there is a lot of glass being sent with it as well, and I have a feeling I sometimes pay more for the glass than for the beer.

And to quote one of the brewers covered in the article, Oskar Blues:

Why squeeze such a big brew into a little can? Because we think fun in the great outdoors calls for great beer. Our cans go where bottled beers can't, where flavorless canned beers don't belong. They have a point.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 09:01 | link | comments
beer, usa

Blondes have more fun

Castelain Ch'ti Blonde – a new acquaintance, not found in its native France, but aboard the ferry between Copenhagen and Oslo, as far as I can remember.

This is a Blonde, according to the label, but something quite different to the soft blondness of Duvel. It is a rather sharper, mature one. It comes in a champagne style bottle (but not with real cork!) and is quite sparkling.

It has a lot of fruit flavour, mostly apple. We're talking green apples here with and adge, not the sweet golden delicious type. Slightly metallic, but not unpleasant, finish. There is some bitterness here, but you cant¨ really taste the hops. A little fruity sweetness lingers in the mouth. Great!

This tastes like a beer with looong traditions, but it is actually fairly recent. According to beer guru Protz this beer was launched as a Christmas beer in 1978 and helped revive a brewery dependent on brewing weak beer in large quantities for the miners in Northern France. The miner has been in the logo of the company until recently.

That makes me remember that I have or have had in my possession a beer glass with this logo, probably nicked from a bar in Strasbourg in the early eighties. I'll have a look next time I am tidying in the basement. For some reason my collection of beer glassed was removed from the place of honour soon after I met the girl who became my wife. But I haven't smashed them, so maybe I will put them up for adoption or auction them off for charity one of these days!

They have won lots of prizes, both in France and beyond, and there is a nice Ch'ti web site – check it out!

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 12:12 | link | comments
beer, france

Titanic Stout

One should think that Titanic Stout was brewed in Belfast where its namesake was built - they could certainly use am independent brewery. But no, this beer comes from Stoke-on-Trent where the captain of the Titanic was born. Widely available in England - I picked up my bottle in a Sainsbury store. This was CAMRA Champion bottled beer of Britain in 2004 and it is also in Roger Protz' 300 beers to try before you die book.

Very dark, and the roasted malt is evident in the toasty flavour as well. But there are more complex elements in there, too, as appropriate in a proper stout. Coffee, liquorice, fruit (prunes, raisins), and there is even room for a proper dry, hoppy finish.

I though until earlier this year that I didn't like stout, but that was before I went beyond the brew from St. James' Gate in Dublin and started exploring the rally good ones. While it seems that many micros are able to brew a good IPA, making a good stout or porter is a more advanced task.

"Suggestions that Titanic beers go down well are not met with approval", according to Protz. Well, this was a good beer indeed, and I will certainly try more beers from this brewery when I have the chance.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 21:30 | link | comments
beer, england, stout

A pint of Fuller's Anniversary Ale

Dark ruby colur, nice head. Properly served in a proper glass, which means it has cellar temperature - not too cold and not too warm. Beautiful lacing on the glass. A very English taste. Smooth, but with the malt and the hops lingering underneath. Fruity, yet dry in the finish. A good beer, but not splendid enough to rank with the best of the other Fuller's beers. Where to enjoy this?  Bell and Crown, Strand-on-the Green, Chiswick, London - close to Kew Bridge.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 13:39 | link | comments
london, beer, fullers

More beer blogs

Some time - maybe during the Holidays? - I will work on the links from my blog. I might have to change the template or something to be able to link more properly to other beer sites.

I found a friendly comment on my blog this morning from one of the guys behind The Brew Lounge, blogging from Pennsylvania. Fairly new, so you don't have to wade through a lot of old postings. Good writing, and a baby panda as a bonus. Check it out!

Beer of the trip! is UK based, and updates on CAMRA activities, including comprehensive reports on beer festivals.

Simon W blogs about Riddle Valley Pubs in Lancashire, England. Honest reviews on the pubs, the beer and the food. Nice photos of the pubs, too, the only thing I miss is a map and some instructions on how to get there. I often go to London, and I really ought to see more of the country, including rural pubs!

For the rest, see the links in the left column. I ought to contribute more to A Good Beer Blog, I know. I have promised Alan an article on the Museum of London's new exhibition. Soon.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 08:15 | link | comments (1)
blogs, beer

Ringnes Julebokk

The very best of the seasonal beers from the big Norwegian brewers. Not a traditional Christmas beer, this is a bock that was launched some years ago when the upper limit for alcohol content in beer was lifted in Norway. Warming, with an aroma similar to port, as you often find in strong dark beers. Good balance between the sweet malt and the hops. This is as strong as beers should be in my opinion, beyond ten per cent there is not much to gain except for sheer strength.

I think I'll buy a few extra bottles to drink on chilly evenings through the rest of the year.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 11:07 | link | comments (6)
beer, norway

Two ways of keeping cold

The micro brewery movement is reaching the most remote corners of the globe. According to the newsletter of the Danish Beer Enthusiasts,  there are plans to open a brewery in Greenland next year. This means there is a job opportunity for a brewer who’d like to spend some time working in a really exotic place.

 

The same newsletter also mentions a new gadget for cooling your beer - The CoolIT USB Beverage Chiller . I quote from their web site: With the USB Beverage Chiller at your side, you can keep your beverage chilled and stay at your computer longer.Just seconds after plugging the chiller into your computer’s USB port (no external outlet needed), the coldplate chills to 45 degrees Fahrenheit, the perfect temperature for keeping your beverage chilled.

Why am I not totally convinced this will be a big seller? At forty dollars?

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 09:22 | link | comments
beer, denmark

Beltaine - Birra alle Castagne

I had a few Italian beers left from earlier this autumn, and I thought a chestnut beer would be appropriate for the advent season. This beer has a light straw colour, lively carbonation and a creamy head. Then for the taste, which was very disappointing. Lactic acid are the words that comes to mind, here is a brew that’s gone wrong. No discernable chestnut taste. 6% alcohol.

 

I suppose it was my bottle or my batch that had gone wrong, so I’ll give it a new try the next time I go to .

 

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 16:54 | link | comments
italy, beer

Want ketchup with that? No thanks, I'll have a tomato beer....?

A Japanese brewery has launched a tomato beer, according to the Daily Yomiuri . If we are to believe the blurb, it is called Tomato Bibere, the reddish brew has a characteristic taste, combining the sweet flavor of a tomato with the bitter taste of hops. One tomato is used in the production of each 330-milliliter bottle. 

 It does not say anything about the other ingredients or the alcohol contents. I think I'll pass this one.. There are Belgian oddities which I tend to avoid as well. But I have a few ales from St. Peter's Brewery in England with interesting spices which I'll come back to. And tomorrow: the story of the chestnut beer.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 13:33 | link | comments

Beer and popcorn

The Canadian election campaign is rolling, and I expect that Alan will give full coverage of this over at his Good Beer Blog:

The federal Liberals scrambled Sunday to control the damage from their first serious gaffe of the election campaign after a top aide to Paul Martin suggested Canadian parents could blow any extra child-care money they get from Ottawa on beer and popcorn.

An obvious solution would be to subsidize beer and popcorn instead.

I am very sorry I don't have any pictures of popcorn, Canadian or otherwise, available at the moment. Alan, do you have one?

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 10:44 | link | comments
canada, beer

New beer magazine

Beers of the world was launched earlier this year, but I was unable to get hold of a copy of the first issue. They said they were sold out when I tried to order it online, but they now offer issue 1 and 2 at a discount.

Anyway, I bought issue number 2 in London earlier this month, and I rather enjoyed it. I was a bit puzzled about the cover feature on Ireland - "Not just a nation of stout drinkers", which I believe they are - but this is professionally made, well written and gives a good coverage of the European beer scene. An emphasis on British beer, which is where most of their advertising revenue comes from, but I have no objections to that. A publication like this will obviously try to be nice to everybody in the beer business, so this is not the place to find nasty comments about the big brewers. But that's why we have blogs, isn't it? There is room for everyone who wants to spread the Word here!

Check out their web site at http://www.beers-of-the-world.com/

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 10:12 | link | comments
beer

Every town should have one

Here in Oslo there is a pizza delivery car with a slogan on the side saying Don't you wish this car was on its way to your house?

Maybe, but I'd rather have this one, which offers free delivery in the Richmond/Twickenham area in South West London.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 10:48 | link | comments
london, beer

What I don't want for Christmas

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 13:50 | link | comments

Advent calendar (not only for Norwegians!)

There is a beer blog that has, somehow, slipped under my radar called the Brew Site. Lots of interesting postings and right now an advent calendar! I think I'll make one myself next year.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 09:54 | link | comments
beer

Free beer (in Norway!)

Sorry, this one is for Norwegian readers only: Today's  (8 Dec) prize in the advent calendar at www.trikken.no is a gift certificate to spend at the restaurant with the best beer selection in Oslo!

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 15:52 | link | comments
beer, norway

Norøl is back (and thanks for the plug!)

Norøl - the association of the Norwegian beer enthusiasts, has been fairly dormant for a while, but they seem to be getting back on their feet. Anyone interested in beer who reads Norwegian should subscribe to their electronic newsletter. (The last edition gives a warm recommendation of my blog, for which I am grateful!) Together with the slow, but steady, growth in the number of Norwegian micros, this looks promising indeed. New web pages should be up during the Winter.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 10:34 | link | comments (2)
beer, norway