Subjective ramblings about beer, pubs and associated topics

Broken English

Sometimes I consider to stop blogging, and I have also thought about switching to blogging in Norwegian instead of rusty English.

Well, the small SiteMeter in the bottom left corner tells me that only a fifth of my readers live in Norway, and almost half of you live in North America.

This means there is still the option of stopping the blog, but changing the language is hardly worthwhile.

And I try to use the spell checker in Google Toolbar, but it hardly improves my grammar.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 15:12 | link | comments (5)
beer, brewers, norway

There are days for everything

From the Neil Gaiman blog.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 14:09 | link | comments

A pint for Rebus

Ian Rankin writes in the Scotsman about Inspector Rebus and the role of the pub.

When he meets an informant in a pub, he's carrying on a grand old Scottish and Edinburgh tradition which is using the pub as your place of work. There was a time in Edinburgh's history when, if you wanted to see a lawyer, you went to a pub. The lawyer didn't have an office, he had a certain place in a pub where he would sit and work and clients would come in and meet him. It's a grand old tradition, and one writers keep up to this day.

I find pubs a great source of ideas. Beermats are a godsend to me. Often I come home from a night in the pub with five or six beermats in my pocket, all with ideas written down on them: jokes, characters, one-liners, things that people have said. Right from the start of the Rebus series, from about the fourth page of the first book, you're in a pub.

Some of the best times I've ever had in my life have been in pubs. My wife Miranda and I cemented our relationship in a pub. We were at university together, and we went to the same lectures and tutorials, but it was afterwards in the pub that the big ideas got talked about. In a tutorial you were too embarrassed to speak in case you got it wrong, but in the pub you had the freedom to spark off different ideas. There were no right or wrong answers in the pub.

Come to think of it, I met my wife in a pub, too...

This is part of a longer piece, which is a mixture of an essay and the promotion of a new beer brewed in the honor of the 20th anniversary of the first Rebus book. Not exactly investigative journalism, but stories about new beers from the local brewery seldom tend to be.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 14:17 | link | comments
beer, pubs, scotland

A welcome initiative

I don't know the details yet, as I have only seen a news item on Norwegian TV2. The essence is that the leader of the Norwegian liberal party Venstre, Lars Sponheim MP, has responded to the plight of a cider producer in his constituency on the Western Coast.

Mr. Sponheim will propose several amendments to the alcohol legislation:

• That producers of cider, beer and fruit wine should be allowed to present their products on the Internet.
• That the alcohol tax on the products only kick in at a certain level of production, stimulating small scale producers
• That the producers should be allowed to sell small quantities of their products directly to tourists if they travel in organized groups
• That all domestic small scale producers shall have the right to have their products distributed by Vinmonopolet.

Rather sensible (I would say that, since I have voiced similar opinions, wouldn't I?), but I feel that point 3 is a bit too restrictive. It shouldn't matter if you travel by car or bus, and I'd set the limit to six bottles.

Skål for Lars!

Update: The proposal is here.

 

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 13:12 | link | comments (2)
beer, norway, microbreweries, cider

50 best West End pubs

If you are in London with a lot of time on your hands, Time Out will be happy to show you their 50 best pubs of the West End. Sure, there are better guides, but it's worth having a look!

 

 

 

 

 

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 15:02 | link | comments
london, beer, pubs

Spicy Mango Bud

This stuff looks nasty. Really, really nasty.

Now Anheuser-Busch Cos. figures beer lovers are ready for its new fruity beer additives called Spykes, says the press release that AP has swallowed without question. For beer lovers? Come on!

Why don't they use distilled alcohol instead of mixing all those flavours with beer?

On the other hand, their beers are not up to much, either! Compared to a Bud, it could be an improvement. Anything you did to a bud would be an improvement.

Even if I was sent a sample of pack of these fluids, I doubt I would try them.

I need more coffee....

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 09:46 | link | comments
beer, usa

The bar at the end of the world

Over at the Good Beer Blog you can find my report from a place where the beer rarely gets too warm. I went to Spitzbergen with two old mates last week. Hardly a place where you go for the beer alone, but the range available was actually better than most Norwegian town of the same size. Considering the logistics, that is quite impressive.

And no, we did not see any polar bears. But we saw half a dozen reindeer. And maybe a fox - it was pitch dark, so the observation was impossible to verify!

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 07:35 | link | comments (2)
beer, norway, longyearbyen

Thanks for nothing!

I think it was more greediness than air safety that drove them, but the Norwegian Government gave their blessing last year to the setting up of duty free shops on arrival in Norwegian airports. There are obvious advantages of not filling up the planes with wine, booze and cigarettes, and the travellers love it. (I think they buy their allowances on either end of the flight, but don't tell the guys in customs!

The most ridicolous taxes are on beer, so you can buy a six pack of pilsener in the shop as well.

I wrote the company running the shops, Trave Retail Norway, asking if they could consider selling some craft beer in the shops, too. Some selected bottles from Nøgne ø or other Norwegian micros, some Belgian Trappists, perhaps?

To be fair, they answered quite fast. The answer is no. They have limited space, and thus have to limit the number of brands they carry. Therefore: No wider beer range.

Thanks for nothing. And I can buy wine before boarding, too.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 12:45 | link | comments
beer, norway

Israeli micros

According to the Jerusalem Post, the micro breweries are conquering Israel, too. At last some good alternatives to the rather bland macros on offer. Some use local spices, some go for the Reinheitsgebot.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 14:16 | link | comments
israel, beer

In praise of brown ales

Eric Asimov at the New York Times has a feature on brown ales today, where they test some of the prime examples avilable on the (Ammerican) market - as well as explaining why this famous English beer has lost most of its appeal in post-industrial Britain.

As with great character actors who are so easy to take for granted, you have to pay close attention to brown ales to appreciate their virtue. They have roles to play — quenching thirst, facilitating conversation, sharpening the appetite — and they do it well. If by chance you notice the fine, almost sweet maltiness of the aroma, and the brisk, dry, mineral quality of the flavors, even better.

Multimedia stuff, too.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 10:48 | link | comments
beer, england, german, brewers, usa

Another one bites the dust

A struggling micro brewery on the North West coast of Norway, Baatbryggeriet, has stopped brewing. It's a tough business if you want to brew at a small scale in Norway. I'd like to mention two factors today - beer with an ABV of more than 4.7% has to be sold through Vinmonopolet -the government monopoly stores. These can be hard to get to, and it's a real struggle to get your products into the shops, even to get into their data base so customers can order your beers.

When it comes to the grocery stores, 98% of the market is dominated by four vertically integrated chains, where most of decisions on what goods to offer are made by suits at the main office. You may be able to convince the manager of your local shop that your beers are splendid, but he may not be able to decide the beer range of his shop.

Add distribution costs in a sparsely populated country, and you may consider starting a brew pub instead.

I have a suggestion which could be considered, especially by the current government with a red/green hue, claiming to promote more jobs out in the sticks:

Let smaller brewers sell their beers directly to the public without any limits on the alcohol strength. But if this is to be of any use, they have to be allowed to trade for a few hours on Sunday afternoon as well, as this is when the customers will be driving along the rural roads, on their way home from their mountain or seaside cabins.

You want to combat drunkenness? Do something about the alcopos and sickly sweet cider. I'll happily discuss how the craft beer movement is a force for moderate drinking with anyone!

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 14:25 | link | comments (1)
beer, norway, microbreweries

Some advantages of living on the English Channel coast

Unfortunately, there were no beer barrels, only wine. But if they are free...

 

Photo from the Svenska Dagbladet web site.

 

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 13:56 | link | comments
beer, england

To the end of the world

The pies are back.

And I am off for a very oval weekend. To a place where they never have problems with keeping their beer cold. To the northernmost pub on the planet. There might be a internet cafe there, but otherwise, dear reader, I beg to be excused until next week.

 

 

 

 

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 13:34 | link | comments
beer, norway, pubs

Statistics

The statistics for beer sales in the government monopoly stores in Norway and Sweden have just been released, and we are talking about two totally different markets here. When looking at the figures it is worth noting that standard lagers at around 4.5% are sold in the monopoly stores in Sweden, while these can be found in supermarkets in Norway.

The strong beer sales in Norway's Vinmonopolet is quite stable at 0,7 million litres per year. By contrast, Systembolaget sold 195 million liters of strong beer, up 9,3% on the year before.

Small wonder that the range of beer available in Sweden is many times better than in Norway!

But some of the beer sold in Sweden finds it way across the border. If we look at just one shop, located on the outskirts of a small town a few kilometers from the Norwegian border, they sold 1,37 million litres of beer last year, up from 1,14 million litres the year before.

This means that just one Swedish outlet sells twice as much premium beer to Norwegians than all the domestic Vinmonopolet shops combined. Time for someone to reconsider their policy?

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 15:20 | link | comments (3)
beer, sweden, norway

The last bottles..

When I was in London in November, I took advantage of a 4 bottles for £6 sale in the Lamb Tavern in Bloomsbury. The barman was Russian, so he probably didn't know that it was a national treasure he was selling off. The Ram Brewery in Wandsworth, home to the Young's ales for several centuries, is no more, and the new Well's and Young's brewery will discontinue most of the beers.

This pic was taken before Christmas, so some of the bottles are already gone. My particular favourites are the St George's Ale and the Special London Ale, I have a faint hope that the last one will continue to be brewed out in the sticks.

I have a special affinity for Young's, not just because of the job they did in keeping the art of old fashioned brewing alive before the tide turned with the arrival of CAMRA. No, it's because during some mellow summer evenings in 1979 I was hooked on Young's special. I was interrailing with some friends, and we met a few guys from Sutton, Surrey who were sleeping in Gare du Nord waiting for the morning train for the Dover ferry, just like us. We took turns swapping jokes and booze, and we agreed to meet up a few days later.

Their names escape me, but that week was the beginning of my enthusiasm for craft beer. I've had countless pints of Special over the years, but the arrival of the Bombardier pump clips in all the Young's pubs tell me those days will soon be over. Hence the suitcase full of bottles...

And go and drink in the Lamb Tavern before they close that down, too!

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 13:42 | link | comments
london, beer, youngs

New brewer up and running

I have managed to get in touch with the new micro Lillehammer Bryggeri, located in the town that hosted the 1994 Winter Olympics, a few hours by car or train to the north of Oslo.

It is a brewpub that currently has four beers available. They have a pilsener, a wheat beer, an ale and a stout. The best of luck for this venture, and let's hope for some more challenging beers once they are fully established.

I will be in the area next month, so I'll try to visit them and give a first hand report.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 12:32 | link | comments
beer, microbreweries, pubs, lillehammer

So, what is missing?

This is getting fun, I rarely get so much feedback as I've had this week.

So what is missing on the Norwegian market?

We have most of the Belgian Abbey ales and a few other Belgians which are generally top of the range. There are German beers out there, but the distribution is rather patchy.

There are very few English and Scottish beers, but the quality of those you can get is fairly good.

There are some Danish micros, but not the right ones. I would have gone for Ølfabrikken and Gourmetbryggeriet, let's hope we see some of their brews in 2007. Sure, it would be nice to have some Mikkeller beers, too, but they are mostly very small scale.

There are three countries which are hardly present, and where the market should be ripe. I miss more beers from Sweden, the Netherlands and The United States.

There are probably several factors in play, the most important that Norway is seen as a marginal market. 

• Our regulations on stronger beers makes it more interesting to focus on, say, Italy, a large country with a small but growing market for craft beer.
• Some of the Swedish craft beers probably end up in Norway as a result of the border trade, but at the same time it could be viable to export them for the Norwegian pub/restaurant market.
• Strong beer has never recovered from being moved from supermarkets to the government monopoly stores, where it is in no way promoted. The beer sales in Vinmonopolet stores is not growing, despite the availability of for example premium Belgian brews.
• The domestic craft beer movement has not taken off in Norway (yet).

But I think there is a market for those who want to focus on craft beers from these three countries. It will be tougher than launching a global brand that can ride on the shirttails of international marketing. But, out there, there is a market that prefers quality over flashiness. And I think that a clear presence on the web, with a decent pub telling the public what they can offer, complete with tasting notes, is a major step. Most pubs in Norway are unable to update their web sites on a yearly basis, let alone daily.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 17:01 | link | comments
beer, norway

A decent list

10 import (bottled) beers which are already on the Norwegian market, and which I would keep in stock in a decent pub. Not a definite list, but something to discuss over a beer..

Orval
Rochefort 8
Duvel
Adnams bitter
Harviestoun Bitter & Twisted
Young’s Special London Ale
St. George Weissbier
Kraus Lager Hell
Thisted Limfjords Porter
Goose Island India Pale Ale

That's three Belgians, three British, two German, one Danish and one US.

Two trappists, one Belgian blond, two bitters, one weiss, one German lager, one porter and one IPA.

Christmas seasonals are kept out. Norwegian micros are in addition to this list.

Sure, you could swap one Trappist beer for another, what else would you change? A saison, perhaps?

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 15:24 | link | comments (5)
beer, norway, pubs

..... since sliced bread?

Beverage Daily can tell us that Guinness owner Diageo has teamed up with an Irish baker to put its iconic Guinness drink into bread, part of a move to expand the brand into a wider range of foods.

Diageo hasdeveloped the bread with the Irwin's baking group, and it has been launched in more than 250 Tesco stores in Ireland and the UK.

Sales of the black stuff have slipped in Ireland over the last couple of years. The firm sold eight per cent less Guinness in Ireland in the year up to 30 June 2006, compared to the year before. Sales were also down three per cent in Britain

“We have been keen for some time to harness the qualities and taste of Guinness into suitable food products for the commercial retail market,” said David Berry, licencing director of Diageo Europe.

“It's appropriate now to ‘toast' the success of Guinness Whole Grain Bread, which we hope will pave the way for further mass market food product development for us.”

“Guinness is such a strong flavour – you either love it or hate it but we've sampled it at shows in Dublin and the response was very positive.”

The loaf is a wheaten bread containing 17 per cent Guinness.

I hate to be a spoilsport here, but maybe the answer to slipping beer sales could be to brew some better beer instead. And if I wanted to launch a bread with stout as an ingredient, it would make sense to make a dark bread.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 15:07 | link | comments
beer, ireland, stout

A decent pub

There are a few pubs in Oslo which are worth visiting, but there is something lacking in all of them. One has a splendid hand picked selection of beers - but only about a dozen. One has the broadest beer selection - but rude and uninformed staff. the micro brewery is OK -but has an uninspired range of beers. One place actually has a broad range of beers, but there does not seem to be any system in what they offer.

Here is what I would do if I was asked to set up a pub in Oslo:

I'd offer real, unpasteurized cask ale from rotating breweries. There are three brewers I'd contact: Norwegian flagship micro Nøgne ø, Møllebyen Mikrobryggeri in Moss and Dugges in Gothenburg, in Sweden, but just a few hours drive from here. When you see the success of real ale on cask in Sweden, there should be a market here, too.

I'd hand pick the best domestic bottled micro beers, which doesn't take long. In addition I'd stock the best bottled beer from the rest of Scandinavia - from Jämtland and Nils Oscar in Sweden and Ølfabrikken in Denmark. I would ask Jämtland to brew my house pilsener.

I'd stock a regular range of Trappist beers.

I'd have a rotating selection of Dutch, German, Belgian and English beer, finding a Continental wholesaler that could send me a steady supply of new beers according to my specifications. Maybe I'd team up with a beer importer to get them to do the leg work. I'd try for a mini beer festival each month, hightlighting a brewery, a region or a style. Everyone should be sure to find a new beer every week, in cask or bottled.

I would set up a website, updated with each change of stock, with the option of having an e-mail subscription.

I'd offer beer tastings.

There would be no Carlsberg products available

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 17:09 | link | comments (12)
beer, microbreweries, nøgne ø, dugges

A petition for a pie

I haven't blogged much about Scotland, and I even forgot to mention the other day that Glasgow is on my list of hoping to visit cities of 2007.

Today I have news from Glasgow, covered by the Beeb, but originating by an online petition by David Hunter. To quote:

Now the owners of the Horse Shoe Bar in Drury Street - Mitchells & Butlers Retail - want to stop selling pies and replace them with a “more varied alternative”. In their words, they want:

“to broaden the pub’s appeal to a wider customer base”.

Now call me traditional, but asking for a “pint and healthy cheese baguette” just doesn’t sound right.

From the about page: David Hunter  has, by his own admission and evidenced by his waist line, consumed several thousand pies and drank more than a couple of pints while sitting at the famous bar.

Tonight we'll drink to David Hunter. And to Scotland.

And I'm awfully sorry that I don't have any pie pics, so I had to nick one from the Tourist board of Worcestershire. About time you set up a Scottish pint and pie site, David!

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 13:25 | link | comments
beer, scotland

All this and a beer that lasts forever..

My schdule for 2006 is taking shape. A very exotic location in a few weeks, later on probably Brussels, Berlin, Helsinki, Florence, Parma, Cyprus and maybe Romania or Bulgaria. And London in late November as usual.

The holy grail of the year is this bottle from Balladin, their Xyauyú riserva 04.

Data di scanenza: La fine del mondo, it says, which I guess means "best before the end of the world."

It has a price label like a good bottle of wine, which I think is appropriate. I found this description on ratebeer:

A beer brewed with wine-yeast and matured in wooden wine-casks at 13.5% ABV going to 14.5% in next productions. Malts: Pilsner Durst, aromatic Dingemans, caramunich 140 Dingemans. Hops: Hallertau Hernsbrucker, Spalt Select and East Kent Golding. Brewing process: the wort is hyperconcentrated then boiled for two and a half hour . Primary fermentation for 25 days in steel vessels. Then after a sterile filtration (to eliminate primary yeast strains) the beer is transfered in a steel vessel with transparent membrane and a "oxygen hat". Afeter several tasting from 6 to 24 months later (it depends on the oxidation velocity, very inconsistant!) the brewer decides when it's time to bottle in 50cl. champagne shape bottles with good quality cork. The production is very limited. Three productions brewed during two years will be available from October 2006.

Posted by: KnutAlbert at 09:43 | link | comments (1)
italy, beer

Iron-willed self control

Happy new year!

I've to a large degree been sipping old Norwegian favourites as well as some English beers over the holidays. Lars Marius kindly invited Geir Ove and me over for a beer tasting as well. These are nice occasions, even if some of the Dutch and Belgian beers were slightly off. And it certainly makes sense to split a 70 cl bottle of strong beer if you plan to get through more than a bottle or two. And some of the more crappy Norwegian beers were in even larger (plastic) bottles.

I could obviously write some wise words about tasting, but instead I'll nick a few paragraphs from Eric Asimov's blog at the NYT:

I can’t think of a recent article that was quite as much fun to research as my column today on rye whiskey. It occurs to me that some of you might be curious about how we go about sampling 15 bottles of whiskey, almost all of them above 90 proof and some breaking 100 proof, without ending up facedown on the tasting-room floor.

The answer really is simple. No challenge is too great nor whiskey too strong to thwart the stalwart taster, provided he is pure of mind, stout of heart and full of stomach. Especially full of stomach.

Whether tasting wine, beer or spirits, it’s imperative to have something in your stomach to absorb any stray alcohol fumes. Even though we spit and do not swallow, some small percentage of alcohol is ingested. Which brings me to the second necessity: stay lubricated! By that I mean drink lots of water. If you are dehydrated the alcohol reaches your bloodstream faster and more dramatically than if you are well topped off. I’m not positive that science bears me out on this, but I personally am always more comfortable when drinking a lot of water, whether in the tasting room or at a wine-soaked dinner.

Incidentally, I say that we all spit, but it’s not always true. For our beer tastings, any number of beer experts have joined the panel as guest tasters, and it seems to be a thing among beer geeks never to spit. The rationale, I think, is that you cannot experience the full, lingering flavors and aromas of beer unless you swallow a bit. Not that the beer lovers are slobbering fools, not by a long shot. They tend to take very small sips and remain the essence of iron-willed self-control.

I would say that iron-willed self-control is perhaps stretching it a bit far, we were slightly less sober at the end of the evening. But we did not wreck the furniture, wake up the neighbours or go on a screaming rampage, either.

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