Swedish Beer - Part VIII / Wisby Klosteröl

This summer I spent a little time in Visby, home of Gotlands Bryggeri - makers of Wisby Pils (which I had already encountered). It turns out they make a whole range of beers, something which became clear to me during my time on Gotland.

While there I tried a couple of their beers, and I found Wisby Klosteröl ('monastery beer') particularly pleasing. They call it a 'fresh' beer because it's neither filtered nor pasteurised, but I found it a very refreshing and tasty as well.

I'm currently looking forward to tasting their Bulldog series of pale ales...

Ch'ti

On a recent trip to France, I finally had an occasion to try Ch'ti Blonde - something I've been wanting to ever since I saw the French comedy Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis. Once again a French beer brewed quite close to the border with Belgium..

It was a quite pleasant experience on the whole. Very drinkable - the 6.4% ABV are well-masked.

Swedish Beer - Part VII / Carnegie Porter - Part II

Since I'm about to move, I figured it would be a good time to bring out one the bottles of Carnegie Porter I have been storing in a dark, undisturbed corner of a cupboard in my kitchen since last fall and see how the taste has developed over the 7-8 months that passed since I had my first taste of it.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but it managed to surprise me no less: Not only is it smoother than I remember it from last fall, but it most notably quite a lot sweeter too - almost (certainly) too sweet for my taste.

However, as I am not moving very far this time, I plan to bring the rest of them with me to my new residence and see how they develop upon further ageing.

To be continued...

Juullip Immiaa

Someone close to me recently went on a business trip to Greenland and brought me back a bottle of Godthaab Julebryg (Nuuk Yule-brew).

Many elements of Greenlandic culture are in a sense also Danish - perhaps particularly the beers, as the brewing tradition was introduced to Greenland by the Vikings. Godthaab Bryghus (Nuuk Brewhouse) operated in close collaboration with a small chain of local breweries in Denmark, and true to Danish tradition they make this semi-dark Yule-brew. Fortunately for me bottles were still available when my friend was there in February.

Of course I'm interested in trying their other products, but it appears I may have to go to Nuuk and visit their bar to accomplish that...

Swedish Beer - Part VI / Yule Ales

Living now in Sweden, I expected certain traditions regarding Christmas and beer to be observed. I was not let down. After I returned from Brazil, Systembolaget had rearranged some of their goods to make space for a few shelves dedicated to Christmas beers. Anticipating pre-Christmas visitors I picked up a handful.


Åbro Julbock didn't quite live up to my expectations - while it was dark and clearly in the style of Scandinavian Christmas beers in general, it seemed lacking in taste when compared to the two excellent Christmas beers from Nynäshamn Ångbryggeri and Nils Oscar. The Winter Ale from Oppigård was a pleasant surprise: true to its name, and unlike the others it is actually an ale.

Danish Beer - Part VI / Bear Beer II

Danish brewery Harboe's is probably most famous for Bjørnebryg^[1] - which would translate as 'Bear Brew', but in the US I saw it sold under the name 'Bear Beer' (in Trader Joe's) - with the trademark polar bear on the label. Interestingly, when I bought Bjørnebryg in the US it was probably the first time in my life I ever bought it - and mainly for warped nostalgic/patriotic reasons. Thing is - to my mind Bjørnebryg has a rather dismal reputation: it's not famous for being a particularly good beer, but much more so for being a relatively cheap strong beer (traditionally 7.7% ABV). In short, it has the reputation of being a beer for alcoholics.


But if Bjørnebryg's raison d'être is it's comparatively good alcohol/price ratio rather than the taste experience itself, then that begs the question of why the Swedes seem to want a low-alcohol content version of that beer? While Systemet sells Bjørnebryg holding 7.2% ABV, some Swedish supermarkets sell a version with 2.8% ABV. Naturally, I was intrigued. Unfortunately, as I expected, there is no good reason for buying this beer. And the real one is so intensely alcoholic that I ended up mixing the two for a more drinkable (if not memorable) compromise.

^[1] While Danish brewery Carlberg also sells a strong beer leaning on the imagery of the raw power of exotic animals (Carlsberg Elephant Beer, 7.2% ABV) this sales tactics not unique to Danish breweries as witnessed by e.g. the Finnish Kahru and the American Rhino Chasers.

Swedish Beer - Part V / Oppigård

Systemet carries a whole selection of beers from Swedish microbrewery Oppigård - so far I have seen Golden Ale, Single Hop Ale, Summer Ale and Starkporter - and they are generally very good. I'm looking forward to trying the Winter Ale, which I expect to be available any time now...

The great beer aside, there is another detail which I quite like. The brewery started selling beer as recently as 2004 and the labels say Gott öl från Dalarna - Början på en tradition which translates as Good beer from the Dales - The beginning of a tradition. I say: Skål to that.

Bacon, Beef & Blue Cheese Stew

I see I haven't been particularly diligent about my promise to follow up here with dishes from the bacon book I got a while back. Well, time to do at least something about that.

Browsing aforementioned book, a beef, bacon & blue cheese stew caught my attention, and decided to have a go at it - with some minor modifications.

Ingredients:
- 125 g (4.4 oz) bacon
- 3 large onions, coarsely chopped
- sunflower oil
- 1.13 kg (2.5 lbs) beef cubes
- 8 tbsp flour
- 2.5 dL (1 cup) Bedarö Bitter^[1]
- 5 dL (2 cups) beef broth
- fresh thyme
- dried rosemary
- 3 leaves bay laurel
- 1 tbsp white wine vinegar
- salt & pepper
- blue cheese^[2]
- bread for serving

In a large pot, the bacon was fried over medium/high heat till crisp, then removed from the pot. The heat was reduced to medium/low and the coarsely chopped onions were added. The onions were cooked with occasional stirring for over an hour till caramelised - actually I think this part need some optimisation: the recipe said to caramelise the onions at low heat for 20 minutes, but this appeared to be far too little for proper caramelisation - then onions were removed and the heat upped to medium/high and oil was added.

The beef cubes were coated in the flour, and browned in the pot after removing the lightly caramelised onions. Then the beer and beef broth were added. After stirring well (to ensure that no lumps of flour were still stuck to the bottom and sides of the pot) the thyme, rosemary, bay laurels, vinegar, salt and pepper were added and the were onions returned to the pot. Contrary to the recipe I was following I did not return the bacon to the pot at this point. The pot was brought to a boil, covered and let simmer for two hours.

The stew was then served with crumbled bacon and crumbled blue cheese on top - and a piece of bread on the side. The reason I didn't add the bacon before simmering for two hours, but instead afterwards was that I wanted to retain some crispness in the bacon.

It was truly delicious - very intense flavours and quite a heavy dish too. I'm strongly considering trying this again with some mashed potatoes and a green salad on the side.

^[1] Obviously not essential which ale - I'd go for any good, strong IPA.
^[2] The original recipe recommended Maytag (from the US) blue cheese, and I used Swedish Kvibille Ädel (30%), but any good blue cheese sufficiently hard to crumble should work.

Swedish Beer - Part IV / Bedarö Bitter

Bedarö Bitter was the first beer made by Swedish microbrewery Nynäshamn Ångbryggeri (Nynäshamn steam-brewery) when they started out in 1990's and it is named after an island in the Nynäshamn archipelago.

I can see why it's sufficiently popular to be widely available in systemet: It truly is a bitter ale - very fresh and delicious. The bitterness is reminiscent of excellent pale ales from the West Coast of the US, but the alcohol content is more modest than those.

Chocolate Porter Layer Cake

After reading about a chocolate stout layer cake in bon appetit the Mrs. wanted to try it out, and since I'm all for cooking with beer I was most supportive of the idea and went myself to systemet to procure a good porter. After buying all the ingredients, we thought the amount of frosting suggested in the original recipe sounded a little over the top (1 lb of chocolate and 2 cups cream) and decided to go for only half the amount of frosting.

Ingredients:
- 280 g (10 oz) flour
- 85 g (3 oz) 90% chocolate
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 200 g (7 oz) margarine
- 250 g (8.8 oz) + 3 tbsp sugar
- 3 eggs, separated
- 1 ⁷/₈ dL (0.8 cups) Carnegie Porter
- 1 ²/₃ dL (0.7 cups) freshly brewed coffee
frosting:
- 250 g (8.8 oz) 57% chocolate
- 2.5 dL (1 cup) cream
- 1 tsp powdered instant coffee

First some coffee was brewed, the egg yolks were separated from the whites, and the 90% chocolate was melted over hot water. Meanwhile the salt, baking powder and baking soda was stirred into the flour in a mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, the margarine was beaten (using an electric mixer) together with the large portion of sugar until fluffy. The egg yolks were added to the margarine-sugar mixture and beaten well into it. Subsequently, the melted chocolate, porter and freshly brewed coffee were beaten into the mixture one after the other. Finally the flour mixture was beaten into the dough.

In a separate bowl (and with clean beaters) the small portion of sugar was beaten with the egg whites until stiff. This egg-white foam was gently mixed (not beaten) into the dough, which was baked in two portions in baking paper lined baking pans (vertical sides, 22 cm (9 inch) diameter) at 175 C (350 F) for 25-30 minutes (until a knife inserted into the centre came out clean).

The two cake pieces were allowed to cool 20-30 minutes in the pans before taking them out and letting them cool completely.

For the frosting, the cream was heated in a small pot together with the coffee powder with occasional stirring - once it reached simmering, it was poured over the 57% chocolate (broken into large squares). After letting it stand for a minute, it was easily stirred into a homogeneous mixture. The frosting was covered and chilled in the fridge - with occasional stirring - until it had thickened sufficiently for easy assembly of the cake: some 2-3 hours.

One cake piece was placed upside-down on a large plate and approximately half the frosting was spread on it in an even layer before placing the other cake piece on top (upside-up) and spreading the rest of the frosting evenly over the entire cake.

We had the first piece of it the same day but although it's not as heavy as certain other chocolate cakes, we still had to save some for later. Interestingly, the notes of coffee and porter were much more notable on the first day - which could be good or bad depending on your point of view. Personally I liked it that way and was a little disappointed that it was 'merely' a very good chocolate cake the following days as we ate the rest.

And no, we never thought there was too little frosting on it...

Update: I have since made this cake again a couple of times and note the following improvements to the procedure: (1) Rather than melting the dark chocolate separately, it can simply be dissolved in the freshly brewed coffee. (2) The electric mixer is only really good for beating the egg whites with sugar to a white foam - for everything else, I find it's preferable to just mix using a ladle. (3) With a spring form that is 5 cm (2 inches) tall all the batter can be baked in one pan (takes about 60-70 minutes at 175 C (350 F)) - once cooled it is reasonable easy to cut the cake in two and assemble the layers as above.

Swedish Beer - Part III / Carnegie Porter - Part I

Now, after covering some of the basics, the time has come for considering some quality Swedish brews.

The old school label of the Carnegie Porter was the first thing about it that appealed to me. Turns out that this label is authentic as well - unchanged since they started brewing this beer in Gothenburg in 1836.

You'll notice that the top of the label reads "Årgang 2009", which translates roughly as "Year 2009" or perhaps "Vintage 2009"... Yes, the Carnegie Porter supposedly matures over time, changing the taste notably towards the smoother and more balanced in a year or two. But the process is supposed to continue for years and years after that, so that a 10-year-old Carnegie Porter is a taste sensation of both extreme richness and extreme lightness. Curiously, however, the smaller label on the back clearly states a Best Before date already some time in 2011 !?!?

At present, the bottle I opened was already a good beer. A good dose of hoppy bitterness makes for a quite balanced taste and thus a comparatively non-sweet porter. Next time I go to Systembolaget, I shall buy some more and store them away for future tasting.

To be continued... here...

Finnish Beer II / Kukko Tumma

In Finland several of the major beer brands make both a lager, a pilsner and a dark beer.

When I went to the restaurant Sokeri Jussin Kievari in Oulu I decided to have a Kukko Tumma (dark) with my reindeer stew.

I was quite pleased with this - both the beer itself and the combination.

I don't know if Kukko beers are available outside of Finland, but so far I haven't seen them in Sweden (where all we seem to get is Lapin Kulta and Kahru).

Grolsch Kanon

On my most recent trip to the Netherlands, I didn't really have time to shop around for beer (although I did enjoy a lot of witbier at a dinner - it was summer, after all).

As if to make up for that a friend had done some shopping for me and send me home with a couple of bottles of Grolsch Kanon. At first I didn't give the name much thought, in fact I didn't even read the fine print on the label until after I tasted it and found it surprisingly alcoholic. Turns out that was with good reason: it holds some 10-11% ABV.

Finnish Beer I / Bear Beer I

I first saw Kahru (Finnish for bear) in Arlanda airport (outside Stockholm), and the label appealed to the mood I was in.

It was also my first encounter of Finnish beer, so I wasn't sure what to expect. Turns out it's a decent, strong lager.

Later I learned that Kahru tries to set itself apart from the competition on the home market by being sold in pint sized cans (rather than the half litre cans the other ones are sold in).

Danish Beer - Part V (Ærø)

On a trip to Copenhagen earlier this year, I picked up a selection of Ærø beers - that is: beers from Rise Brewery on the Danish island Ærø. For reasons that I can't very well explain I had high expectations - very high.

The stout was the most memorable of them - quite sweet, and very much to my liking. The pale ale and the dark ale didn't quite live up to my expectations (which, as stated, were very high), but the true shocker was the walnut bock - I found it anything but the harmonious that their homepage boasts. On the contrary, the taste had odd elements that would have been much more welcome if I was drinking a herbal bitter of some kind. Proceed with caution.

Systembolaget - Part III / Swedish Beer - Part II

After having noticed several beers available with different alcohol contents, I decided to see if I could taste the difference. For starters, I chose Mariestads - a typical Swedish lager - thinking that if anyone should know how to make decent low alcohol content beer, it should be the Swedes. At a local supermarket I picked up a few cans of the 3.5% ABV, and later - in Systembolaget - I picked up a few cans of the 'export' variety holding 5.2% ABV.


As you can see they appear very similar - but how do they taste?

When I first tasted the 3.5% version, I thought it wasn't so bad - but it paled by comparison to the 5.2% version once I tasted that. Yes, it true: you can taste the difference, and the higher alcohol content version simply tastes better - it's more flavourful, a more full-bodied, quite simply: a better beer...

Swedish 'Danish' beer

At a social gathering with my work I noticed this gem of dubious labelling: "Dansk Fadøl" (Danish draught beer).

Regarding it's Danishness, I will just say that I have NEVER seen this beer outside of Sweden. And as for a can of 'draught beer'.. well, I guess I don't really need to comment on that.

To be avoided.

Systembolaget - Part II / Swedish Beer - Part I

On my first trip to Systembolaget, I decided to start with the basics and got what I reckoned to be fairly standard, perhaps even classical, Swedish beers.

To be fair, I had only heard of Pripps Blue (a big Swedish brand - infamous amongst some Danes) and Spendrups Old Gold (because I'd seen it sold at Ikea in Switzerland). The rest was based on intuition.

But I like to think I wasn't far off the mark. Most of these were fairly similar pilsners.

Starting on the left, Three Towns (TT) was actually the biggest disappointment to me: very drinkable, but lacking in taste and character and ultimately - to my taste at least - boring. Perhaps a good place to start for those favouring cheap American beer.

Spendrups Old Gold on the other hand was the most extreme in the other direction - although perhaps not as extreme, the first beer it brought to mind was the German king of bitterness: Jever.

The rest of them are much more alike. I got a very favourable first impression of Wisby, bot not so much that I'm sure it really is significantly better than the others. Åbro Sigill is branded as an organic beer, but apart from that I couldn't tell any difference between that and Åbro Original.

If you look closely at the picture, you might notice that Anderssons says "starköl" on the label - although this translates as strong beer, this does not mean it is in a league of its own here (all beers pictured are 4.5-5.2% ABV). Rather it's a curious consequence of the 3.5% ABV limit for supermarket sales: all beers above this limit appear, by definition, to be "starköl" (which is ood to me, having grown up in Denmark where a standard pilsner is 4.6% ABV).

Systembolaget - Part I

In the 19th century, having seen alcoholism as the scourge of mankind, the state of Sweden introduced to the world the concept of alcohol monopolies: the first was in Falun but other local monopolies soon followed. By 1955 all the local monopolies were united into a national alcohol monopoly: Systembolaget.

Systembolaget's monopoly isn't 100% - f.ex. rare wines and whiskies are sometimes sold at auctions, and supermarkets can sell anything with an alcohol content up to 3.5% ABV. I can't tell you why the limit was set at 3.5%, but I can tell you how I know the limit is at 3.5%: In supermarkets one sees all kinds of otherwise familiar beers (e.g. Carlsberg and Pilsner Urquel) that are suddenly only 3.5% ABV (or even less).

In times when the exchange rate was different many people in southern Sweden going to Denmark to buy alcoholic beverages, but currently the traffic is going in the opposite direction (as dictated by the current exchange rate). Supposedly Systembolaget used to be a very drab experience: more like going to the pharmacy and requesting specific items, but in recent years the stores have changed into much more customer friendly boutiques: one can walk the aisles and take a good look at everything. The goods are usually really well described and the staff is friendly.

Had I lived in Sweden 10 years ago I would have undoubtedly been frustrated with the lack of any cheap beers for mass consumption - but these days (being perhaps more mature) I appreciate the wide selection of quality products (and having moved on from student aid to something reminiscent of a real pay I can also much better abstract from the details of prices).

Danish Beer - Part IV (Nørrebro Bryghus)

Over the past years, I've heard a number of good things about Nørrebro Bryghus in Copenhagen, but as it has only come into existence since I stopped living in Denmark (as a consequence of the relatively recent surge in micro-breweries in Denmark), it wasn't till recently that I had a chance to visit it myself.


When you enter you have the choice of going upstairs (restaurant) or downstairs (bar) - as I came mainly for beer I chose downstairs. I was happy to see that they have a good number of beers that they make themselves (I think 8), but from the way the menu was written I suspect there's isn't quite the same rotation of beers as certain other places I like (although clearly there was some rotation).

I went for a 4-beer sampler and had Ravnsborg Red (ale), Golden Spike (IPA), Globe Ale, and La Granja Stout. While I quite liked both of the first two, I didn't find the taste of the Globe Ale as interesting as the concept (an environmental impact conscious beer) .. and the stout was clearly a mistake on my part. If I had read the description more carefully, I would have surely noticed that it contains coffee - which I don't like. If you want a coffee stout, by all means, check it out. For snacking I had some beer-roasted almonds - which turned out to be hotter than the name suggested as they also contained chilli.


The night ended with Stuykman Wit and Vårsaison ('spring season') both of which were in the Belgian style. Would I return to this place? Yes, indeed I would.