Spent three days in no longer so summery Stockholm last week.
Flew in on Wednesday morning, and departed early Friday afternoon. Moved the lodgings slightly – from Radisson Viking to Waterfront. Still conveniently close to Arlanda Express, but a definitely less weary hotel.
As per tradition, the first port of call was Lisa Elmqvist at Östermalmhallen. The seafood was plain exquisite, and the beer menu same as every year – short, but not at all without merit. St Erik’s IPA was an appropriately fruity accompaniment to a magnificent plate of perch fillets. Took a slight detour at the nearest Systembolaget, and picked up a couple of mainly domestic cans. Ad Libris offered plenty of reasonably priced recent books (including a stealthily published new Jo Nesbø novel), and thus muled a stack of hardbacks back to the hotel.
After acquiring access to the room at the hotel there was not much time before the next leg: a tour at the Nya Carnegiebryggeriet. The trip across the bay on Emelie was pleasantly breezy and quick. The tour was in Swedish, and I must have missed quite a few of the inside jokes – but understood most of the presentation. No surprises (apart from the fact that Carnegie Porter is one of the oldest surviving trademarks in Sweden), brewing is brewing – no matter what the scale is, and at fifteenish tanks the brewery was definitely on the craft side of things. The attached tasting consisted of four very different beers. Kellerbier was immature, straight off a chilling tank. FrIPA and Passion Glow showcased the brewery’s range. The final beer was an unnamed and commercially unlaunched barley wine – easily the best in show: awash in brown sugar, plums and malts, this was a very worthy beer indeed.
A detour on the way back to the hotel took us to Omnipollo’s popup reastaurant in Humlegården. Omnipollos Flora served beer, soft ice cream and food. Opted for a good-sized octopus chunk and lobster rolls for a late dinner. The eight taps served mainly Omnipollo’s own, and quite a few of them were new: vanilla french toast version of Aon was expectedly sweet and dark, but Elsa (accompanied with a slushied cap) was a very fine example of a neither too sour, nor too sweet fruit beer.
FI: Tukholman ensimmäisen päivän anti koostui merenelävistä, kävelystä ja shoppailusta.
brewnardo 