Explorations in beer
c/o Hops, the finest nordic beer magazine has decided to call it quits.
But instead of a simple “that’s it”, the editors have ruled that four more issues shall be published as a long goodbye.
Bought a thick stack of the back issues and subscribed for the final stretch.
FI: Pohjolan paras olutlehti poistuu pitkin jäähyväisin.
Had completely missed that Alko is running a program of limited selections. No idea how long it has been running on beers, but this discovery of a triplet of Mikkellers was pleasant – two big imperial stouts and one interesting / scary cherry wild ale is a fine combination.
FI: Ainakin ensimmäinen bongattu pienerä näyttää sopivan vaikuttavalta.
Scoreswise, the 2020 crop was even – both the domestic entry and the overall winner shared the score.
Brouwerij de Molen does not compete with fancy labels, but contents-wise the edition of Hel & Verdoemnis aged in Bowmore barrels left a deep impression. It combines dark chocolate with smoke – just as expected for an Islay-touched beer. I think this baby got picked up in Amsterdam’s Bierkoning – should have stocked up on a much wider variety of de Molen’s darkest brews.
Domestic winner was also an imperial stout: Coolhead’s Peanut Butter Caramer Crisp, whose beauty has been previously extolled in this very blog. A far sweeter stout than its dutch colleague, sticky and clingy even.
FI: Tumma voimakaksikko.
Took a slightly more modern theme in use.
Clearly the era of carefully inlining photographical content into the flow of text is gone.
And that necessitates a reworking of the posts, as the narrow confines of a message no longer accommodate the old skool ways.
So pardon the mess in the archives for a while. This should not take that long to accomplish.
FI: Kuvien säätöä WordPressin mielestä tolkullisemmin asetelluiksi.
Upgraded to a paid plan.
New domain is use right away: http://brewnardo.com.
No more commercials spewed amongst the content.
And there was much rejoicing.
FI: Mainokset pois ja uusi osoite.
Every hobby (and laterally, every blog centered on a hobby) needs a side project.
The first side project here will be a series of articles on beers that left a lasting impression – most of them positive, but hardly 100% so.
Aiming for chronological order, to the limits of recall.
Kicking off with a truly classic czech entry first. Stay tuned.
FI: Vahvimpia muistijälkiä oluenmaistelu-uran varrelta.
Visited Panimo Himo last month and was quite thoroughly impressed. So impressed that I failed to take any photographs on site.
Himo is located in the Pirkkala Citymarket überstore in Tampere. The location pretty much necessitates using a car, as it is firmly located in the big box store neighbourhood.
The brewery itself is within the store, whilst a subset of the offering (anything over 5.5 ABV) is sold in a separate location within the building. A location that is not at all signposted in the main store, likely leading to missed sales.
Himo is a real and serious brewery-in-shop, and first of its kind – its sole predecessor, Tammisto failed to impress with its offers of bland beers regularly sold out, and not one of them going above the milkstore limit. Himo, on the other hand ranges from odd sours to quadruple IPAs, not catering solely for the everyday shoppers.
Pirkkala shop’s beer selection is the biggest I’ve seen in Finland, and very nicely laid out, with most of the wares cold-stored.
Will be back. With a camera.
FI: Himo yllätti erinomaisen positiivisesti, oluita monesta tyylistä.m
In a much abbreviated archæological trawl of memories, the “best of”-selections shall be constrained to annual updates up to the most recent past.
Top honours go to Stone Brewing’s 2018 edition of W00tstout. A thick and wondrously deep and sweet stout. It truly is a mystery why I never stocked up on this afterwards as it was easily available over the christmas period.
And curiously enough, this beer further cements how wrong I was about Wil Wheaton back in the day – my dislike of Wesley Crusher has been reversed by the likes of headlining Stand By Me, being a reliably prickly NPC in Big Bang Theory and creating Table Top, the first sensible board game channel on Youtube. And this magnificent “pushing the winter away, sip by sip”-beer.
Domestically the highest score was attained by Coolhead’s Juicy Lucy, a very hop-heavy DIPA. Especially appropriate with its namesake – a cheeseburger in which all the cheese has been stuffed within the patty, explicitly helping prevent the meat from drying out.
In this, as in all “best of”-listings new beers shall have precedence ahead of repeats (even if the scores do not agree, otherwise the winter solstice-classic Sunturnbrew would top the chart every year).
FI: Vuoden 2019 parhaat kahdesta ikisuosikkikategoriasta: sameaa IPAa ja makeaa imperial stoutia.
For a few years Alko, the domestic supplier, has provided monthly “special batches” – divided to beer, wine and harder liquors, which are released on the first Thursday of the month.
The selection themes have been rather variable, ranging from severely unnecessary (milkstore-ABV’d beers) to really interesting (european IPAs from odd countries). The special batches have also replaced the annual “craft beer months”.
August theme is on the limp side, opaquely termed “low alcohol choices” has two beers that are easily available in any well-equipped stores, a sour that I wasn’t that fond of, a low-voltage gin’n’tonic and fortunately also two actually worthwhile entries – both previously unsighted session IPAs.
After a two year Covid-induced absence, the first trip abroad was the very much traditional annual summer visit to Stockholm.
A lot had stayed exactly the same, but some things had changed – no more large-scale urban renovation at Sergelstorg.
Pre-ordered some beers from Systembolaget, and was kind of disappointed at the selection available on the “tillfälligt sortiment” shelves – nowhere near the circus of taste I recalled from the earlier visits.
Ate at Lisa Elmqvist (best seafood risotto so far anywhere) and Blue Light Yokohama (massively good small Japanese dishes). Unfortunately neither locale offers a meaningful beer menu, especially the royal fishmonger’s selection is borderline ridiculous, considering the quality and ultra-local nature of the food.
Omnipollo’s Hatt provided a very welcome pizza & beer late evening meal. In the intervening years a new neighbour had sprung up: Stigberget’s Fot. The taproom is located very near the Slussen tunnelbana station and offers a wide selection of in-house beers, but more than half of their taps were guested.
Walked past Omnipollo Flora in Humlegård and dropped in to Mikkeller after the first round of shopping.
Spent the warmest day (uncomfortably reachingh past +30C) walking around Skansen – the original plan of visiting the UNESCO world heritage site on Drottningholm having been scuttled by too many other people having the same idea (and the ferry thus being sold out). Skansen’s outdoor museum / zoo fortunately was windy and shady enough for comfort, capped the visit with cold beers, accompanied by some very inquisitive chickens.
Had our very first “release date pickup” on the last day in Stockholm. Omnipollo released a bourbon barrel aged version of Noa, picked up a bottle from NK-huset’s shop before heading out to Arlanda for the flight home.
All in all a very pleasant visit. Imported a score of beers, only one bottle had leaked a little during transit (but that’s what plastic and duct-tape sealed Wineskins are for).
FI: Tukholmassa kuumaa ja mukavaa. Matkalaukullinen olutta tuomisina.
On account of an aluminum shortage Fat Lizard has reverted back to conventional cans.
FI: Ei enää aukene koko kansi Läskiliskon tölkeissä.
Yeah, despite promises to be active and all that, the restarted blog went fallow almost immediately, pretty much a year ago.
So here’s restart 2.0.
It sure was a long year, but despite the COVID-bunkering, writing fell by the wayside.
So, here’s to a another new start. Proudly headlined with a bland stock image.
FI: Jos tällä kertaa jaksaisi pidempään kuin pari viikkoa.
brewnardo 