Nøgne Ø, Special Holiday Ale

So, this time it's going to be the season beer last Christmas (Nøgne Ø Special Holiday Ale). It's the crown jewel created in collaboration with three breweries: Nøgne Ø, Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales And Stone brewing company. This is a once in a year seasonal beer which is done every year but it's never the same. Confused? I was too. It's a beer that is done each year following the same recipe with Norwegian juniper berries, Michigan chestnuts and white sage from Southern California. The difference is created by changing the brewing and aging practices. This tradition was started in 2008 in San Diego.

The beer comes with 8,5 % of alcohol, which is quite a lot to a Finnish taste. In this beer however it's very nicely covered with the different nuances of the taste. But before the taste you notice the nice dark brown color (105 EBC units) that is dim because of the sediments in the beer. The aroma of this beer conceals a lot inside. You can notice the spiciness that comes from the chestnuts and the juniper accompanied with the hops (Brewers gold and Columbus in this case). More complexity to the scent follows with the malts (Münchner, Crystal, Chocolate, special B, Rye and Oat malts in this case) and their sweetness. Especially the Chocolate stands out very strongly.

Taste includes signs of awesome hops used that work really nicely in balance with the juniper berries' sour taste. The IBU is however "only" 50 which makes this beer an "easy drinker". There's also a lot off honey in the after taste. This combined with the nice hoppy aftertaste and I'm sold at least. With each single sip you take you can find new kinds of branches of flavor. This makes the beer last long. It also causes you to be left with the feeling that one of these is not enough!

It's tasteful enough to stand by itself but might be accompanied with some season foods as well. I think that the alliance of Finnish Christmas ham and Nøgne Ø Special Holiday Ale could be the next big thing.

If it is the complexity and quality you are after, then here's a beer for you! Pity though that next year this beer is no longer available... as such but it might even get better right?

Coming up are the middle Twins from the American Canis Major:

"Good people drink good beer." Hunter S.Thompson

Carbonade Flamade with beer

This time I'm not going to write about beer... well not only about beer.You see, I celebrated my thirtieth birthday a week ago and my fiancée made some Carbonade Flamande (Flemish Stew) as a meal. This is a recipe that I had in one of my beer books (actually the very first one of them, received as a gift on my 24 th or 25 th birthday from Mr. J-M, so thanks again!). Since then I've really wanted to test this recipe and now after 5 years we've gone around a full circle and had a go with it! The idea simple: to have a stew that is rich in flavor and substantial and all this cooked with beer. Perfect!

I've tried few different dishes with beer in them and start to think that it's widely underestimated ingredient in our kitchen! On the other hand it feels a bit like wasting beer but on the expense of gastronomic experience it's acceptable. In the future I'm going to be using more and more beer in my cooking. Lately there has been a lot of different kinds of articles about food with beer in it.

So the recipe is as follows:

(6 portions)

Ingredients:
about 750 g of boneless stew meat or roast beef
100 g of bacon
4 onions cut into rings
1 ground clove of garlic
3 tablespoons of flour
1/4 l of water
1/2 l of lambic/stout/Flemish brown ale (this counts on the taste so you have 3 different variations!)
1 bay-leaf
1 tablespoon of brown sugar
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons of salt
1/2 teaspoon of thyme
1 teaspoon of ground black pepper
1 teaspoon of red vinegar
some parsley

And here's how it's done:
Slice the meat to about 5 cm long slices. Fry up the bacon in small pieces until it's crispy. Remove the bacon from the pan and pour the dripping to a cup. Glow the onion and the garlic on the pan in 2 tablespoons of dripping until they're soft (aprox 10 minutes) and put them aside. Use the rest of the bacon dripping to fry the meat for about 15 minutes. Drip the flour on the meat and pour in the water slowly. Add the garlic and the onions, beer (btw. we used Aldaris Porteris Stout from Lithuania and it gave a really nice taste), bay-leaf, brown sugar, mustard, salt, thyme and the pepper. If needed, add water until the meat is fully covered in fluids. Warm up until it boils and then reduce the heat. Stew for about 1-1,5 hours until the meat is cooked and tender. We put the stew to oven in a pot. Take out the bay-leaf and mix in the red vinegar. Add the bacon and parsley on top. Ass a side dish you can have pasta, fries, or as we had stuffed tomatoes, rice and broccoli.

Serve with brown ale, old ale, pale ale or porter. We had Ridgeway IPA and for test reasons only also a Oatmeal stout from one of my favorite breweries, Samuel Smith (if you haven't tried their imperial stout and Taddy porter, I only say that you should). Both went really well with the stew although they weren't exactly on the serving proposal. The notes will follow later.

I want to say big thanks to Laura for preparing this great meal as I wasn't able to get it done myself in five years! ;) Thanks also to the people taking part eating this delicious stew.

In the near future you can expect something as rare and exceptional as the following on this blog... just hit me, J-M: you are again responsible for this! you seem to be involved in quite many of my beer experiences... well, I can only thank you for that, so thnx mate!

Meinklang, Organic Urkorn Ale & Organic Dark Lager

The Meinklang farm (http://www.meinklang.at/en/page/page_59.html) produces these two beers not only according to traditional German Reinheitsgebote (and beyond) but also in the worlds first 100 % biodynamic brewery. They work in association with Gusswerk brewery in Salzburg. They use the oldest grains of the world in their beer making, some of them being found even in the possession of Ötzi - the ice man (not Kimi Räikkönen), which makes it a pretty darn old grain already. They even claim that thus has the beer some health effect, such as eyesight improving and cancer-prohibitive properties. Man, I would had tried these beers without the sales promotion but now it's even more fun, knowing that it's healthy!

This pair of bottles, the twins I call them, were caught from grocery store in Turku. The bottles seemed to stand out from the crowd with the picture of cow on them. I personally have never been such a fan or spokesman of the bio-culture. And again I have nothing against that either, it just hasn't been "my cup of tea" to use the expression. This would only mean that I went for the beers with no prejudice, no good nor bad. I also could say that this pair was selected out of curiosity, like if this time would bring something new to the table.

First up was the Urkorn Ale. This Ale is told to have 4,7 % of alcohol (says so in the bottle) but when looking it from the Worlds Widest Web it seems that it holds even more, 4,9 %. I might take this in a way that the bio process is not that stable causing some variety to the alcohol levels but that would be considered as a bad attitude against the subject now wouldn't it. Also the quality standards set would not allow this. The color was left a bit open because I didn't have the glass to pour it to (I was sitting on the assistant drivers seat). Looking through the brown bottle it seemed light in color and considering the backgrounds there shouldn't be too much color in it anyway.

The scent of this beer was constructed on top of the yeasty malt which is a pretty sweet combination. You can also notice some sweet salmiac with the hops (from area of Mühviertel) used. The taste is a light but typical ale with a strong malt accompanied with light hop. This beer has also a distinctive yeast flavor in it which gives also a pretty soft feel to the beer. In the aftertaste you can notice a touch of roasted malt and still the yeast. This makes it a surprisingly complex bio despite the light taste!

Next up was the Dark Lager. Having the same 4,7 % of alcohol as the Urkorn Ale this beer stands out in this duel with no mentioning on the Meinklang web site... Despite of that it exists! The color is dark, and I would even say close to Finnish Home-brew. The beer is also unfiltered which makes it cloudy. The scent is all sweet malts with fruity elements close to raisin (again the raisin is haunting me!). It also smells a bit industrially sweetened... but in an organic beer...? Well, that's what I smelled.

The taste consists of sweet roasted malt and fruity elements. In the aftertaste you can experience some dryness that comes from the roasted malt. Also some elements of coffee and chocolate after a while. There's a nice balance of sweet scent and taste and the dryness of the aftertaste.

To sum it up, both of the beers were a bit pale and I don't mean the beer type but the fact that there was something missing from both. When remembering that we are talking about Organic beers again we can lower the bar a bit and both of the beers rank quite nicely. Both of the beers were also missing some depth in the taste but it might also be a fault of the taster. ;) Considering an Organic beer as an organic beer it can match to any other beer.

So it turns out that putting things into right viewpoint or context you'll get more out of any experience. Now there's the depth missed in the beers! And what a philosophic closing!

Up ahead...

Brewdog, Tokyo

The ones who know this beer are probably keen to hear how it all ended up with this beer. Well, I'd say it ended up pretty well. I got myself a new experience in terms of beer and also in terms of a new restaurant. The later part was offered me by the surprise my fiancée arranged me by taking me to Olutravintola Birger (http://birger.fi/), a place I have heard so many stories of. Finally it was my time to see what the fuss was about!

The place itself was pretty much smaller than I had imagined but the selection of the beers was even over my wildest dreams. Now I had a dilemma: should I try the legendary Tokio or go maybe go for few other Brewdogs products? The problem was solved as my friend offered to buy the first round, thnx again J-M! :) Why so? Well, this beer again has at least two special features. 1. The alcohol level is mind staggering 18,2 % (Brewdog also has product ranging up to 41 % of alcohol, Sink the Bismark EDIT: Also a very limited edition of The end of the history with 55 % of alcohol) and 2. With the price of one bottle you can buy a case of 24 cans of "normal" beer from a local grocery store. So the choice was obvious.

About the beer itself, I think I have never been so nervous in front of a beer, at least after my first Belzebuth (at that time the strongest around with 15 % of alcohol, nowadays only 13 %). Holding the glass up against light you can really see the dark reddish color... almost like it was... black (to the ones who didn't get that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRJxafiqHvw).

The scent from this beer is overwhelmingly complex and rich. Just like tons of fruits and berries being squashed to your nose at the same time. Tons, and after that one raisin. The raisin sort of gets its place from top of it all.

The taste of the beer replicates those of the scent's getting some more new angles from the hops (which is alleged to be Galena). The hops stands out from the beer in a weird way when you drink it. It's not that present while smelling it. This is weird also because the IBU's on this devil is 90, and still it's not even making your mouth dry. After the kick of the sweet attack of the berries and fruits (and the raisin) you can sense a hint of sweet coffee, perhaps with milk even...  The sweetness of the malts is present all the time. And there's more, the cranberry really gets its place in the taste. In the aftertaste you'll get the oak flavors from the oak chips used at the aging phase. The taste is so complex it's hard to describe and there's no running away from it!

Btw. I'm not sure if you noticed but at the Brewdog website the beer is called Tokyo and on the label in the picture above it's spelled Tokio. A little word game there...

There's something negative in this beer as well and it's the whole package. I mean, I'd love to have another one or another beer after this but it seems pointless as you have no ability to concentrate on the small nuances on the taste. This one wears you out. But in a good way. Still I'm determined to have another one in some point, just to experience the roller coaster of tastes!

Still to come...

Brooklyn, local 2

So, this is it. I'm writing my first notes for a beer from Brooklyn, NY. When I first saw this bottle on the liquor store shelf I knew that I'm going to get two beers at once. Firstly because of the sheer size of the bottle (0,75 liters... it's not a big bottle...? With 9,0 % alcohol...? No?! Damn you!). Secondly because the beer is 100 % bottle fermented. This means that there are a lot of sediments on the beer. I got this tip from a TV show (don't remember the name but it was about tasking beers) that you should pour the beer first gently to the glass and taste it. After that you can mix what's left in the bottle and pour it to the glass and voilà! You have yourself another beer in front of you! In this case you can drink one (or even two) glasses poured gently and then try this. Take my advice, it really opens up new worlds! The bottle has a cork cap such as champagne bottles.

Anyway, the beer is brewed by the Brooklyn brewing company (http://www.brooklynbrewery.com/) that produces a wide range of fine beers to my taste at least. It has been around from 1988 so even I am older than the brewery. This means also that it hasn't got any heritage as a burden to make exactly the same kinds of beers as our fore fathers did 300 years ago, and don't take it so that I wouldn't like the old recipes. There is a time and place for those as well.

As mentioned earlier it has 9 % of alcohol which makes this a beer a beast after which you definitely are in no shape of driving or operating any types of heavy machinery. I don't want to lecture because this blog is not about that. The color is reddish brown and bleary even on the first gentle pour. The scent is well protected by the well formed foam so you might want to smell it from the bottle. The scent, once I found it was spicy and sweet with a hint of roasted malt on it. You don't notice the high alcohol level on the taste which is a pleasant surprise. On the first pour you can really notice the roasted malt in the flavor with the well balanced nuttiness. The spiciness comes next with the pleasant sweetness on many layers, syrup as one of them. This must come from the Belgian dark sugar and raw wildflower honey from NY used in it. The hops used in this beer come from Europe as well as the malts. The level of hops is very well in balance with rest of the tastes.

Act two: pour the yeast and sediments to the glass. The color gets lighter and you get more foam. The sweetness increases both on the scent and taste as well as the spiciness. The aftertaste gets some lemony lightness.

In the end this was a really nice experience from one of my favorite breweries. It's also a nice mixture of Belgian and American style, Belgian being on the top. Stays really stable till the last drop. Goes to the Top 10 on my list of tasted beers!

Coming up in the near future, among others are these twins...