It was supposed to be so different. It was supposed to be a rousing tribute to indomitable spirit, adventure and camaraderie. It was supposed to be about the Craft Brewers Conference, about trendy craft beer bars filled with perfect looking Californians, of parties overflowing in brewers and over 140 San Diego beers on tap, of a late-night bus ride to a grungy rock club to punk out with the Ska boys and a swanky World Beer Cup gala dinner with all the glitz and glamour of an Oscars ceremony.*

But it somehow went horribly wrong when thunder clouds rolled in from the west over Chicago this afternoon and closed the city’s airport, causing my United Airlines plane which was already on route to the windy city to be diverted to Indianapolis, turning a routine sub-four hour flight into a plus 10 hour one.

I waited in a stage of ever-increasing anxiety as the air traffic chaos that followed the storms stalled the captain’s attempt at taking off four times. I watched with a growing sense of frustration and finally defeat as the hands of my watch ticked around to the time my connecting flight to Stockholm left. Rather ironically exactly on time.

If you gave away a free six-pack of Ingrid, an iPad 6, a ticket to The Avengers and a date with Scarlet Johansson you might just get a queue this long. Maybe.

As I trudged out of the gate at Chicago O’Hare’s Terminal one four hours too late I didn’t think things could get much worse. Until I saw the line to United Airline’s Customer Service Desk and realised it could.

For six and a half hours I stood in that line, without food, water or a single toilet break. Finally I was told by an assistant clearly tired of breaking bad news all night that there was only one seat to Stockholm left (via London) leaving at 3.50pm the next day. I was also informed that all the local hotels were now full and I faced the simple choice of driving over an hour away to find a proper bed or to try and make the best of things on one of the Terminal’s light blue plastic gate chairs. With little say in the matter I accepted the tickets and headed off to find some food to eat, only to discover the restaurants had shut a few hours before and would not open until 6am.

And so here I now sit at 2am as the day’s earlier storms have returned to light up the Chicago sky and shake the windows, eating a Hersey’s Chocolate bar and drinking a Minute Maid juice I liberated from a nearby vending machine, wondering how I am going to fill the 13 empty hours that lay ahead of me.

My company is my fellow displaced travelers, aimlessly wandering up and down the empty terminal halls, staring into the windows of shuttered shops to pass the time. And the nice chap with the thick Chicago drawl on the public address system repeatedly telling me that the City of Chicago is offering stranded passengers free pasta in terminal three and not to leave my bags unattended (this wouldn’t be a problem I’ve muttered to him under my breath as neither I nor my airline can find them anyway).

My bed for the night, complete with complementary blankets to complete that 'vagrant' look.

I’ve therefore decided given my predicament and lack of sleep that my stories from San Diego should be written another time.

For now I’ll try and line this plastic chair with the blankets handed out by airline staff and grab a few minutes of shut-eye and dream of home and the mountain of Bacon and Egg McMuffins I’m going to order in four hours……..

*Actually I can’t see Jean Dujardin sporting a goatie, tattoos and a T-shirt with the slogan ”You Look Like I Need A Drink” at the next Oscars ceremony. But relatively speaking it was an extremely well orchestrated event.

I think I know what it’s like to be dead.

Chicago, Chicago, it's a hell of a town!

I’ve just spent 10 hours buried in a small wooden box in Rest and Fly at Arlanda reluctantly listening to other people making out, opening and shutting doors, talking on telephones and dragging suitcases recklessly down corridors.

I promised myself as I woke at 4.14am to once again check the clock on my iPhone that if this is really is what being dead is like then I’m going to do my absolute best to stay alive for as long as possible.

Newly released from my coffin and with a new lease of life I’m writing this post from the departure lounge on Terminal 5 as I wait to board my flight to Chicago and then onwards to San Diego, the city that this year hosts the US Craft Brewers Conference.

Simply put the CBC is the largest gathering of brewing talent in the world. Here the people behind the beers and breweries that are rapidly becoming familiar names in pubs and fridges across Sweden meet to talk, share, learn and party.

And judging by the upsurge in sales of US craft beers both at home and overseas it looks like delegates will have plenty to celebrate, which is good because I’ll be there to crash the party and report back to you with some of the goings-on at the USA’s largest beer trade festival.

In fact it’s not really one festival but three, because as well at the conference itself there’s BrewExpo America that runs alongside it, an orgy of stainless steel, clever gadgets and pungent ingredients that I plan to spend a lot of time at this year for obvious reasons.

And then there’s the small matter of the World Beer Cup that’s the cherry on the cake of my epic week ahead. This coming Saturday night (and I still have to pinch myself as I write this) BeerSweden is attending the glitzy awards ceremony as an official media endorser. I also happen to know some Swedish beers are in the mix for some awards. I wonder if I need to buy a tie?

After 12 hours of drinking local beers it's probably not just Dogfish Head's food, beer & music that's going to be mashed-up. Pacing yourself is vital if you're going to get the most out of the CBC!

But that seems a lifetime away right now. First I need to lose 9 hours, battle through the queues at US, navigate my way through Chicago’s sprawling O’Hare International Airport and finally check in to my hotel in San Diego, where no doubt all I’ll want to do is go to bed just as everyone else is going out.

It’s probably wise to resist the bars the first night because at 9.30am the nest morning my packed party work schedule begins with a 7-hour (!) guided bus tour around four local breweries, including a beery breakfast at Societe Brewing Company followed by stops at Lost Abbey / Port Brewing Company, Mother Earth Brew Company and Iron Fist Brewing Company.

As if that’s not enough then there’s the official welcome reception at San Diego Zoo where for the first time in my life I will be drinking beer in close proximity to man-eating animals and assume I survive that there’s a Dogfish Head beer and food mash-up kicking off until late.

And that’s just Tuesday. You get the general idea. The CBC is utterly over-the-top, utterly exhausting and utterly worth getting buried alive for.

See you on the other side!

*If anyone from Expressen is reading this I’m available for any headline writing gigs you’ve got open.

Yesterday I went back to school. My teacher was Jessica Heidrich. The subject? Beer.

Jessica Heidrich giving the crowd her best Jazz Hands at Umeå University yesterday.

The Queen of Swedish brewing flew into a chilly City of Birches to give a lecture on the story of beer past, present and future at Umeå University, followed by an in-depth tasting of beers for students and alcohol industry tradespeople at the complex’s celebrated Restauranghögskolan.

It’s not often a leading light of the Swedish brewing scene makes an effort to travel this far north so I put on my Converse, picked out the coolest T-shirt I could find, applied a ridiculously large amount of hair product and cycled to campus determined to blend in among my fellow ‘students’.

Unfortunately the harsh fact I am 43 years old and was clearly stumbling around with no clue as to where I was going gave the game away almost immediately.

“Are you lost?” said a kind young man in very large rimmed glasses.

“No, it’s just that I’m attending a lecture at Ljusgården and I can’t quite remember where it is”, I replied.

“Ljusgården?” he probed.

“Yes” I said.

“Which one?” he retorted.

“What, you mean there’s more than one?”

“You’re not really a student here are you?” he said, before kindly pointing me in the direction of the Teacher Education Building where Jessica was just about to start her lecture to a full auditorium.   

Click on the picture to read my lines!

After a recess (that’s an educated break, right?) it was into the Restauranghögskolan’s wine-tasting room for a more in-depth look at the science of brewing, what with Jessica’s lengthy background in microbiology made for fascinating listening.  A total of nine beers were tasted (seven of which were S:t Eriks beers) while Jessica talked more about the growing consumer trend towards craft beer and particularly its prowess as a partner to food.  

After almost 5 hours of intense study my head was spinning with dates, graphs and analysis (and maybe, perhaps, a little bit of beer) so I headed off home (after spending 10 minutes trying to locate my bike) to do some ‘homework’.

As I sat in my sofa sipping on a S:t Eriks APA I reflected to myself that going to school wasn’t as scary and boring as I remember it being back in England and that a Degree in Beerology has a very nice ring to it, don’t you think?

All the talk was of a terrible vintage as the vines started to crack and wither in the early March heat. By April farmers and residents of Duras sought refuge in the Bastide town’s cool bars where they complained bitterly of the heat that had settled like a blanket over the Dropt valley for weeks.

All hope of a decent start to the growing season seemed lost – until I turned up for an Easter holiday.

Within hours the azure blue skies that had been a permanent feature of Duras for over two months turned grey and the first drops of rain seen for months threw up puffs of dust as they hit the cracked earth.

The locals are ecstatic and there’s lots of hugging and kissing as they scoff to each other about how the vines are busily beginning to bud in the damp air.

I on the other hand am less enthusiastic at the long-term forecast of rain and chilly winds and have no choice but to take cold comfort in Le Tip Top bar, where I am writing this sipping a Leffe Blonde as I stare out of the rain-spattered window and wonder if it’s warmer in the north of Sweden.

But then I stop and rethink. I’m in France, a country overflowing with great cheese and wine and embrace the unshakeable truth that it never, ever rains in bars. Suddenly I feel a little better and catch the waitress’s attention to order another Leffe.

It may rain every single day until I return to Umeå this weekend but I’m determined to enjoy this little ‘blog-mester’ anyway. I just wish those farmers would shut up for a bit…..

Assuming I don’t get washed away I’ll see you all right here next week. Until then à tout à l’heure.

Darren

One of Sweden’s highest profile beer bloggers has announced he’s abandoning beer in favour of wine after admitting he’s always thought wine “is a far superior drink”.

Darren Packman, the man behind the popular BeerSweden blog announced earlier today that he can “no longer live the lie” that beer is his favourite drink.

This blog has already got a fresh new look.

“For almost 17 years I’ve been travelling the world telling people that beer is more complex and more exciting than wine when I’ve secretly thought the complete opposite. Enough is enough. It’s time to come clean”, said Packman.

The award-winning blogger has even changed the name of his beer blog, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world, to WineSweden with immediate effect.

“I got caught in a lie. It started out innocently enough when I joked with friends in a pub one night that beer was better than wine and within a few months I was export manager of a brewery. By then it was too late. I was trapped”.

Packman said it wasn’t uncommon over the years to have a cheeky glass of red after returning from one of his popular beer talks.

“I’d spend the evening telling people all about the pleasures of drinking beers like IPAs, APAs and even Barley Wines but as soon as I got back to my hotel room I’d pour myself a refreshing glass of Cab Sav, something of a personal favourite of mine”.

"It feels like a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders", says Beer Blogger Packman

Packman said the tipping point came as he sat down to analyse the latest beers being released at the Systembolaget on April 2^nd.

“With the possible exception of Brutal Brewing’s ‘Hale to Nothing’ I just couldn’t continue deceiving people by recommending any of the beers”.

“It would have been so easy to encourage people to rush out and buy beers like Nøgne Ø #500, Thornbridge Raven Black IPA, Flying Dog Kujo Imperial Coffee Stout, Braunstein Organic Wheat and maybe even BrewDog Lost Dog from those irritating ‘craft beer revolutionists’ over in Scotland but I just couldn’t do it any more”.

“From next week I will start my new life as a wine expert and finally I’ll be free from all this ‘craft beer’ nonsense”.

Packman admitted persuading BeerSweden Trev to switch from grain to grapes was difficult. “We exchanged some strong words but a glass of Chilean red finally convinced him. Last week I saw him wearing a cravat with his Harrington so the transformation is now complete”.

As a parting gesture to his many thousands of followers Packman has agreed to publish the list of beers being released in the morning.

“It’s the least I can do I suppose”, he said, sipping on a delicately decanted glass of Chill Out. “But I won’t be there trying to scoop any of these beers. You’ll find me in the wine aisle searching for a robust Bordeaux to enjoy with my father instead”.

Exclusive launches (available in limited batches. When it’s gone it’s gone)

T5
11617 Nøgne Ø #500 Norway 500 59,90SEK
11624 Dragets Kanal Dubbel IPA Sweden 250 26,80SEK
11647 Smörpundet Porter Sweden 250 25,20SEK
11673 Ichtegems Grand Cru Flemish Red Ale 2009 Belgium 750 62,00SEK
11679 Slottskällans Kloster 2012 Sweden 330 31,90SEK
11688 Thornbridge Raven Black IPA UK 500 49,50SEK
T6
11637 Ørbæk Barley Wine 2008 Denmark 500 85,00SEK
11690 Thornbridge Bracia UK 500 99,90SEK
11689 BrewDog Lost Dog UK 330 129,00SEK
T7
11642 La Grande 2010 Belgium 750 88,50SEK
+11648 Flying Dog Kujo Imperial Coffee Stout USA 355 37,90SEK
+11671 Bourbon County Coffee Stout USA 650 132,30 180
+11697 Jan de Lichte Belgium 750 73,00SEK

News (will be available for at least one year)

Base
1439 Guldkällan Sweden 330 11,00SEK
1485 Hale to Nothing Sweden 330 14,90SEK
1611 Breznak Czech Repulic 330 9,90SEK
T1
1432 S:t Eriks American Pale Ale Sweden 330 16,90SEK
1484 Falcon Raw No 9 Sweden 330 12,90SEK
1574 Pabst Blue Ribbon Export USA 355 12,90SEK
T2
1509 Störtebeker Bernstein Weizen Germany 500 19,90SEK
T3
1521 Greene King IPA Export UK 500 19,90SEK
1543 Thwaites Lancaster Bomber UK 500 20,90SEK
1587 Brakspear Triple UK 500 27,90SEK
1599 Braunstein Organic Wheat Denmark 330 17,90SEK
1695 Napa Smith Organic IPA USA 355 21,90SEK

In the second part of this guest guest series (part one here) Nic Townsend, an Aussie who has migrated to Gothenburg, tells us how he started out brewing beer at home. We’ll be following Nic’s progress from beer kits (easy) to all-grain brews (as complicated as you want to make it) in his ongoing quest to create great beer one batch at a time. But first lets reacquaint ourselves with Nic’s story:

”I’m a born-and-bred Melbournian, who moved to Gothenburg to be with my Swedish ‘sambo’. Like so many antipodean expats before me, I started working in a pub which not only helped pay the bills between freelance writing assignments but also acquainted me with many of Sweden’s finest beers. Five years on (I originally said I’d only stay a year) I’m no longer working in a bar but my appreciation of good beer lives on”.

 ————————————————————————————

When you’re an inexperienced home brewer following the instructions on the can is safe and reassuring and this is exactly what I did for my first three batches of home brew. But once I got the hang of it there was something slightly unsatisfying about making beer like this. It was almost too easy and it was time to move out of my comfort zone.

Dextrose v malt

Beer kit instructions typically recommend adding dextrose to the contents of the can and the Coopers kits conveniently suggest you use one of their branded versions of the stuff. Dextrose is basically sugar (in fact it looks and tastes like icing sugar), and it’s added to increase alcohol content and carbonation.

However there are alternatives to dextrose, namely malt. The key difference is that dextrose will add CO2 and alcohol but is taste neutral and so it won’t add anything to the flavour of the beer. Malt on the other hand, while not producing as much alcohol as the corresponding amount of dextrose, will affect the beer’s flavour and colour.

Malt comes in multiple varieties including light, pale, amber, wheat and dark. It also comes in two different forms: dry and liquid. The liquid variety is essentially the same as the syrup that comes in the beer kits expect it hasn’t been hopped. Dry malt is a powered substance and tastes just like Milo or Ovaltine (which shouldn’t come as a surprise since both are made from malt extract).

So my first step in improving my beer was to substitute dextrose for malt, however its not a case of either/or as you can mix the two, or mix different types of malt.

Finishing hops

With a little imagination home brew kits can create some exciting beer!

Beer kits already include bittering hops but you can still add extra finishing hops. After buying a bag of the classic American hop Cascade I decided to attempt an American pale ale. I came across a number of methods of adding finishing hops, such as using a coffee strainer and pouring the contents into the wort. You can also buy hop pellets in a teabag-like package, which you just leave in the fermenter. In the end, I put my hops into a muslin straining bag and left them in boiling water for 10 minutes. After removing the hop bag, I poured the water into the fermenter with the beer kit.

Regardless of the merits of each method, the extra hops made a huge difference, particularly to the smell. It is also a quick and easy addition with very little extra cost.

Specialty grains

After making two batches of IPA I still had plenty of cascade hops left over so I decided to make an American brown ale. It was also the perfect opportunity to begin using specialty grains. I wasn’t expecting to go anywhere near grains until I was fully proficient in extract brewing but then I discovered that adding specialty grains is as simple and straightforward as adding finishing hops.

Specialty grains add flavour and colour to beer, but unlike base grains they don’t need to be mashed. Again, using a muslin straining bag, I steeped some crystal malt in some hot (but not boiling water) for about 45 minutes. Once I removed the grains, I added some cascade hops, boiled for ten minutes and then added the water to my wort. The end result – a beer that was very close to Brooklyn Brown Ale.

Other adjuncts

Apart from grains and hops it’s also possible to improve your beer kit with a range of adjunct ingredients, including fruit and spices. With Christmas getting close, I attempted a Julöl (Xmas beer), by steeping cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, ginger and orange peel in warm water. Again the result was impressive and was a great addition to my Christmas dinner.

Each of these additions incurred very little extra cost or took much time or effort, and yet each made a huge difference to the end product. They also opened up new possibilities and made me realise that far from being limited or constrictive beer kits still allowed for a lot of creativity. Exploring all the different finishing hops, speciality grains and possible adjuncts could keep me occupied for years. But I’d set myself the goal of making an all-grain brew so I had to move on.

IN THE NEXT POST: Nic tackles bittering hops, flavouring hops and dry hopping.

Since I announced my big news of last week I have been overwhelmed at the response to my plans to start a craft brewery.

I was of course really hoping that you, like me, thought the idea of starting a brewery was a cool one but nothing prepared me for the level of support and positive feedback I got from beer fans and my friends in the brewing industry.

I honestly don’t think I’ve stopped smiling for 5 days. My face actually aches

Naturally some of you have asked questions about the new brewery and also how it might affect this blog. Therefore I’m going to tackle just a few of the most frequently asked questions and try to answer them as best I can.

The Beer Studio sounds awesome – can I get involved?

The short answer is yes! I want the Beer Studio to be the most community-based brewery in this country. I have always actively tried to engage people in both the BeerSweden blog and the BeerSweden Forum as I believe together we are stronger and can make a real difference to the beer scene in Sweden.

In the coming weeks and months I will be presenting some exciting ways for you to become involved in the growth of Beer Studio. This may include ways to contribute or invest and will certainly include ways in which you can directly influence the types of beers we brew and how we run our business.

Your involvement will be nothing short of crucial. Without you Beer Studio is a broken record!

Will you still be BrewDog’s Scandinavian Top Dog?

When I finally signed the contract on Sigtuna’s former brewery I contacted BrewDog James and told him about my plans. I also blamed him and Martin for getting me into this mess in the first place, as there’s no doubt that spending time with the BrewDog team is one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to start a brewery! James thinks the project is ‘awesome’ and I’m humbled to have his backing and support. So yes, I’m delighted to say I’m still going to be talking about Brewdog’s amazing beers for the foreseeable future!

What’s going to happen to BeerSweden?

This is probably the question I’ve been asked the most.  The truth is that I’ve been considering how to evolve BeerSweden for some time now. Beer Studio is simple going to bring my plans forward a bit. I’ve always been a pretty frequent poster (on average I post content around 4-5 days a week) and on top of that there’s the Facebook page and the BeerSweden Forum. That’s a lot of hours (not complaining – I love writing about beer – just saying) and with the Beer Studio project now underway something has to change or else my poor little brain is in danger of exploding!

Have you seen Beer Studio's new Facebook page yet? Just search for it and share the Like

I’m already working on an exciting new format for BeerSweden – one which gathers some of the best beer writers around to provide you with the latest beery content about the Swedish beer scene. I’ll always be very actively involved in BeerSweden but will probably have to cut down on the sheer number of personal posts to allow me time to develop Beer Studio.

I’m totally committed to ensuring BeerSweden remains one of the absolute best sources for beer-related news and content on the Internet for many years to come. I’m also going to continue hanging out over at the BSF and watch as it grows to become Sweden’s most active online forum for beer enthusiasts.

As and when I make any changes to BeerSweden I promise you’ll be the first to know about them!

That’s it for now. If you’ve got any more questions please just mail me and I’ll do my very best to answer you by return.

I’ve never been frightened of change. In fact I welcome it. I’m certain over the coming month we’re going to go on an amazing journey. Along the way we’ll change the way beer blogs are perceived and create a Swedish craft brewery the likes of which has never been seen before.

Sound good to you? Then what are we waiting for? Let’s get started!

I’d be lying to you if I didn’t say I have one of the most amazing jobs in the world. After all I get to write about, talk about and on a rather regular basis drink some of the best beers in the world.

I also get to hang out with some of the most creative brewers on the planet and rack up thousands of beer miles traversing the globe to great bars and pubs to talk and drink with fellow beer enthusiasts.

An estate agent would probably describe this as 'compact living'.

That’s the good side of the job, and it more than compensates for the bad side of the job, which in my case is traveling. I know, some of you are probably already forming the sentence “oh boo hoo, poor you”, in your heads and that’s OK – I probably would to if I didn’t spend so much of my life lying on uncomfortable airport benches, sitting on buses next to people that really could do with washing themselves a bit more thoroughly and hauling bags laden with beer bottles through strange cities trying to find the next budget hotel I’ve checked into.

That, in my world, is the down side to my life as a beer whateverIam, and the only reason I’m mentioning it at all is because it’s just struck me as clearly as if someone had picked up my laptop and hit me over the head with it that I wouldn’t want it any other way. Sure, the fact is the hotel room I’m writing this post in right now is probably more ideal as a location shoot for Bangkok Hilton 2 and I’d really rather ignore the claustrophobic sight of magnolia-coloured wallpaper weave when I pull back the tacky curtains. I’d also rather not know what the unidentified black grunge in the shower ‘area’ is (room would, in this instance. be too grand a word).

But then I know I can shut the door on all this and leave it behind. That just a few minutes brisk walk away I can be sitting down enjoying a frothy glass of bready Czech pilsner at Soldaten Svejk, or a perfectly presented gleaming glass of Chimay Tripel at Pressklubben. I might just skip across town and drop into NK to shoot the breeze and sip on a glass of Sierra Nevada Ruthless Rye IPA with the Wicked Wine guys or check out the phone-list beer menu at one of the Monk’s Cafés.

I wonder what's happening outside? Oh crap, that's right....I didn't pay for a view.

The point I’m trying to get to here is that good beer and good beer people are all around us all the time, regardless of the room you’re sitting in. You just have to know where to look and if you don’t know then open the door, step outside and go and explore. They are there, I promise you.

Have a great Friday everyone and I hope to see a lot of you at the Linköping Beer Expo tomorrow (after I’ve checked into my slightly larger hotel room that is).

Cheers and beers!

Darren

*much

This Saturday I ignored the fact the car needed to be washed and the house practically demanded to be hoovered and instead spent seven hours with a group of three avid homebrewers watching as they brought a Double IPA to life in their kitchen before putting it straight into a closet and firmly shutting the door.

Hardly surprising really when you discover that this enthusiastic gang of amateur alchemists call themselves Västerslätts Garderobsbryggeri (Västerslätts Closet Brewery).

For many people the social aspect of beer begins the moment the bottle is breached or the pint is poured into their glass. For others, however. the fun starts long before that.

From top left: Measuring out the malts; straining the wort; taking a reading of the Original Gravity; hop soup; chilling out; beating in the yeast; the beer is finally shut in a closet.

Brewing beer at home always changes a person’s view of the drink forever. But it’s not just learning the science behind brewing that adds another layer of appreciation to what beer is but (in my opinion at least) more importantly it gives people a great opportunity to get together, hang-out and have fun.

Brewing beer in your kitchen doesn’t need to be complicated. Like preparing a good meal there is a recipe to follow, ingredients and equipment that need to be organized and a checklist of steps that needs to be ticked off. One of Sweden’s top brewers once said to me that brewing beer was no more complicated than baking bread and he’s right, although you have to wait a little bit longer to enjoy the fruits of your labours.

In fact waiting is something homebrewers have to do a lot of. Waiting for the water to boil, waiting for the mash to release its precious cargo of starches, waiting for the water to boil again, waiting while the hops stew in the wort, waiting while the naked wannabe beer is chilled down through a heat exchanger so that it’s ready to embrace the yeast and finally the longest and most agonizing wait of all – fermentation.

The good thing about waiting is that it creates plenty of empty time that can be filled with great beer! And that’s certainly something that I. along with Christian, Anton and Johan from Västerslätts Garderobsbryggeri (VGB) managed to do this weekend, passing the hours talking beer and more important drinking it (mainly in the name of research of course).

Among the great beers that glued together our long day together was a four-year-old bottle of Dogfish Head World Wide Stout (making that the first beer of the day was either very brave or very stupid), an intriguing bottle of Cigar City Humidor Series IPA (green peppercorns, graphite and pencil shavings), a year-old Mohawk Barley Wine (prunes and sherry), a bottle of BrewDog Lost Dog (rum, molasses and raisins) and finally a bottle of first batch Ingrid that has evolved into nothing short of cloudberry jam.

Finally, after a working day in the kitchen the beer – an aspiring 7%-ish Double IPA by the name of Fat Bumblebee – was sealed into a plastic fermenter and placed in a warm cupboard* for a week of primary fermentation.

It was high time to head home. In just a few hours Loreen would be bursting into tears after winning the final of the Swedish Melodifestivalen with her clubby hit ‘Europhia’. I already kind of knew how she felt. Brewing beer with friends is, after all, amazing.

*Don’t think for a moment this is the only cupboard VGB uses to condition its beer. “Oh no, we have another cupboard to keep the beer in when it goes into bottles”, said Anton. This makes VGB the only two-closet brewing system I know of in Sweden.

What a week! Most of the talk has been about yesterday’s release of 29 beers at the monopoly. That and cooing over cute pictures of the newly appointed Duchess of Östergötland. And of course the Oscars, where this year it turns out that silence really was golden.

Personally it felt like I spent most of the week on the number 65 and 43 buses as I traveled to and from Östersund to give a BrewDog beer tasting at the Bishops Arms. What made this tasting particularly notable was the fact it was probably the last time I am ever going to taste and talk about ‘Hello, My Name is Ingrid‘ in public as we popped open half a dozen bottles to share amongst us.

With over 5 months in the bottle now it’s amazing to see the new curves Ingrid has developed. Gone are the intense mango, peach and grape tones that shone so brightly in her younger days, to be replaced by far more mature cloak of ripe cloudberries.  If, like me, you struggled to pinpoint the fruit in the young Ingrid you should have no such difficulties now. I would however recommend those of you that still have a bottle or two hidden away not to wait too much longer to enjoy them as even the brightest stars will fade one day……

Hopefully many of you will be sitting on a huge haul of new beers from yesterday’s release. I managed to scoop up most of what went on sale here in Umeå and placed orders for several of the bottles that you can only grab on release day in the posh shops in Stockholm, Malmö and Gothenburg. My fingers are now crossed that a few funky bottles of Stillwater will be heading up to Västerbotten sometime soon…..

Last night I spent some time scratching my head as to which beer to try first. As I felt in the mood for some hop action I picked Sigtuna East Coast IPA and can report that I got all the action I could handle.

This beer – reincarnated from the brewery’s Summer IPA* - pours a clear lustrous amber orange under a sudsy beige head that quickly collapses. The nose is surprisingly malty (a bonus in my eyes), with a layer of Walkers shortbread biscuits smothered in orange and caramel and topped with passion fruit and grass. Caramel sweetness explodes in the mouth like a firework but like a firework instantly fades to be replaced by one of the most aggressive bitter and dry finishes I can recall in a Swedish beer in ages. This beer doesn’t just curl your tongue, I think it actually attempts to dissolve it.

If you love hops – and I mean love them as much as Björn Ranelid loves publicity – then this beer is for you. If you’re more into malt or just starting to ramp up your hop intake then buyer beware! I’m already a hop-lessly (see what I did there?) lost cause so I’m calling Sigtuna East Coast IPA out as my After Work Friday! Beer for this week.

Now it’s time to pack the missus, skis and kids (not necessarily in that order) into a car and head south and inland to the mountains for a few days of dangerous winter pursuits. I will however be taking a big chunk of this week’s new releases with me to review and help ease my aches and pains after a long day on the pistes.

Have a safe, happy and thawing weekend everyone!

Cheers and beers.
Darren

*and check out the difference in price!