January 20, 2012

Every year the beer restaurant chain in Finland owned by HOK-Elanto has a winter ale festival from mid-November or so until the end of the year. Usually they run out of the best stuff well before Christmas, so it’s a good idea to start sampling early. 2011′s list of ten beers was not particularly impressive, but there were certainly some gems there. I sampled some at Hádanka — a beer restaurant specializing on Czech beers — with a friend of mine. Here is a brief, overdue report.

La Chouffe: N’Ice Chouffe 10.0% ABV, 750ml bottle (Belgium)
This Belgian Christmas Ale is spiced with with thyme and curaçao, from the established La Chouffe brewery. They usually make pretty good stuff, even if nothing mind blowing. This one was enjoyable, I shared the bottle with Pekka. Nothing particularly memorable about it — the spices are not evident and it mostly just tastes like a decent Belgian Strong Ale — but certainly worth trying.

Stadin Panimo: Stadinator 7.0% ABV, 330ml bottle (Finland)

German style Doppelbock, and a very impressive one! As I recall, it was very dry, with characteristics of a strong stout, or perhaps something like Rochefort 8. Nothing that would make it a winter ale in particular, but this one was a very pleasant surprise, and I hope to be able to find a bottle of it somewhere, or maybe just try it again at one of the pubs before the season is over.

Hornbeer: Julehumle 6.5% ABV, 500ml bottle (Denmark)
IPA which reminded me of US style pale ales. Nothing in particular about it that would make it a ‘Winter Ale’ or ‘Christmas Ale’, but it was a decent enough IPA which rich hops and a strong flavour. I started to get a little bit bored with it towards the end though — a small bottle would’ve been enough. The beer does make me curious about other offering of Hornbeer though, which I’ve never heard of before. Apparently, this particular beer has not been made before, and had its ‘world premiere’ at this Winter Ale festival.

January 8, 2012

Brewery: Svaneke Bryghus (Denmark)
Beer: Jule Spektakel, 8.0% ABV, 500ml bottle
Style: Belgian Style / Christmas Ale
Listed Ingredients: Water, Malted Barley, Hops, Trappist Yeast
Rating: 4/5
Probably Vegan Friendly

Appearance
Deep brown, almost black, pours a rather light head for a beer of this type.

Aroma
A delicate balance of malt, hops, dried fruit, and fresh spiceness.

Taste
Malt, typical for a Belgian Style Ale; some fruitcake type mixture of spices and sweetness balances the maltyness. Warming, with a hint of chocolate in the aftertaste. Hops are not predominant.

Overall
I’ve never heard of this Danish brewery located on the island of Bornholm, but their website lists a selection of very interesting looking beers — such as a Chocolate Stout and a Red Hot Chili Ale — and if their Jule Spektakel is anything to go by, they might be very good indeed. This beer is certainly Belgian Style in most of its characteristics, but it has added spicyness and some sweetness resembling dried fruit. The combination is tasty, and quite fitting for a Christmas Ale. The beer is very rich and heavy though, so the 500ml is maybe a bit big, this might be better off served like a Trappist beer: smaller bottle and from a goblet. A Christmas Spectacle indeed!

December 24, 2011

Brewery: Nøgne Ø (Norway)
Beer: Underlig Jul, 6.5% ABV, 15°P, 30 IBU, 500ml bottle
Type: Christmas Ale
Listed Ingredients: Maris Otter, Munich, caramel, and chocolate malt; Columbus and Cascade hops; 5 different spices (Cinnamon, Ginger, Cardemom, Coriander, and Cloves), English ale yeast, local Grimstad water
Rating: 4/5
Vegan Friendly

Appearance
Very dark brown with a hint of ruby, pours an impressive head — thick and creamy.

Aroma
Winter spices: cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, maybe a little bit of fresh hoppyness too.

Taste
Sweet and spicy, warming — what you’d expect from a Christmas Ale. Ginger is perhaps the strongest flavour, but it’s a nice mixture of winter spices. Not overwhelmingly strong, but it is a rather sweet beer, so one to be sipped slowly. It’s bottle conditioned.

Overall
‘Peculiar Christmas’ in English, although not that peculiar. Quite typical, really, but certainly a tasty one. Very nice and warm spices. My immediate reaction was that I’d like some gingerbread with this, although the beer is in fact a bit of a Christmas pudding itself! I would like to get a better impression of the ‘beery’ characteristis, especially the combination of malts. The spices are a bit overwhelming, and you might even think that you’re drinking a cup of strong chai instead of a beer. Nøgne Ø does some very good beers, so there shouldn’t be a need to hide behind all these spices. Still, this is what you want on a cold winter night, it really does warm you up nicely. They say that the beer is inspired by ‘gløgg’, i.e. mulled wine, which is a popular beverage in Finland too around this time of year (we call it ‘glögi’). The recommended serving temperature of the beer is 10°C/50°F, but on their website they hint that you might try it warmer — I take it that this is to suggest actually heating it up, like you would with mulled wine. Well, I didn’t try this, but I imagine that this could be interesting; I have had some nice warm krieks before.

December 23, 2011

Brewery: Stallhagen (Finland)
Beer: Julbock, 6.8% ABV, 500ml bottle
Listed Ingredients: Water, Malted Barley, Hops, Yeast
Style: Bock
Rating: 3/5
Probably Vegan Friendly

Appearance
Virtually black, pours a modest head, which disappears swiftly.

Aroma
Toasty, dry maltyness with a hint of chocolate.

Taste
Very malty, with a dryish mouthfeel and dark chocolate. Not your typical Christmas beer, even though this is labelled such — there’s no Christmas spices or the sort of sweetness that you’d expect. It’s a dry bock, and not a bad one at that. However, I do feel that it lacks the sort of complexity that you might get from a stout or porter of similar characteristics.

Overall
I’ve seen beers by this brewery from Åland before, but I think this is the first time I’ve actually had one. I’ve got their Witner Porter waiting as well, and I’m looking forward to it. The Julbock was pleasant enough and I could imagine drinking it again, even though it made no lasting impression.

December 15, 2011

Brewery: Laitilan Wirvoitusjuomatehdas (Finland)
Beer: Savuruis (i.e. ‘Smoked Rye’), 5.3% ABV, IBU 30, 500ml bottle
Listed Ingredients: Water, Malted Barley, Malted Rye, Cascade Hops, Yeast
Style: Smoked beer
Rating: 2/5
Vegan Friendly

Appearance
Hazy, brown, pours a fairly modest head.

Aroma
Smoky, but not too strongly, a distinct aroma of smoked food rather than anything else. Difficult to discern anything else.

Taste
Fairly mild, the smoke is not particulraly strong, but it’s certainly there. I was expecting more of the smoke flavour. Then again, the beer doesn’t have any other strong characteristics, so even the fairly mild smokyness is enough to overpower other aspects of the beer, such as the rye malt. The Cascade hops is what comes through next, but the malt is somehow in the background.

Overall
I’m not overly impressed with this beer. I do like the concept of a Rauchbier — a smoked beer — but I think the Germans may be better at this… Obviously, if you’re going to do a smoked beer, you better make sure that the other characteristics of the beer are such that they can take the smokyness, or you could go all out with the smoke in which case it doesn’t really matter. But this beer is somewhere in between. It tastes more like a pretty generic beer with a little bit of smokyness. There is a rather similar beer by another Finnish brewery, Karhu (a brand owned by Sinebrychoff, which is in fact owned by Carlsberg — so not that Finnish after all!), called Korpisavu. That one is based on generic, crap beer, but they’ve gone for a pretty smoky flavour, so in the end it might actually be better than the Laitilan attempt. Laitilan does do some other decent beer though, and it’s a much smaller brewery, so worth supporting simply because of that. I hope to try their porter some time soon.