Do I look sad? Well that’s because I am, with the news that has just reached me that one of my favourite beers of all time, the utterly elegant Saison Dupont, is facing the ignominy of a T9 listing and the threat of a slow and painful demise at the monopoly.

T9 is the type of listing few beers want (unless you’ve managed to qualify up from the ordering assortment that is). If you’re a T9-er it basically means the Systembolaget doesn’t have to stock you on their shelves anymore and only local demand will ensure you’re ever seen in public again. It’s where all beers that haven’t sold enough eventually end up. A kind of ‘God’s Waiting Room’ for beer if you will.

Sadly this is now the case for Saison Dupont. I can’t say enough nice things about this beer and I still get goosebumps when I recall stumbling across an uber-fresh keg of it in Biarritz last year.

Saison Dupont is intelligent beer. It forces you to think, wills you into trying to unwrap its spicy cloak of lemon and sweet pears. It a world where so many simple beers give it up on the first date Saison Dupont would have you get down on one knee and offer it a ring before allowing you to go any further.

Saison is a style of beer that hasn’t been explored that much by the Swedish beer industry yet (but when it has been it’s been magnificent) and is perhaps considered a little odd by many.

However as a food beer saisons are hard to better. The sage of beer and food pairings, Garrett Oliver, once proclaimed: “If I were forced to choose one style to drink with every meal for the rest of my life, saison would have to be it.” We should listen to him. He really does know what he’s talking about.

So is this really the end for Saison Dupont in Sweden? Are we listening to the death rattle of a classic beer? Well that’s up to you and me to decide. Only by buying the occasional bottle at our local stores will we keep it from slipping into oblivion.

For this reason alone it’s my AfterWork Friday beer this week and will be every Friday until it comes back to us and reclaims its rightful place on the shelves of the monopoly.

It’s Friday 13^th today so I’m being extra careful to avoid black cats, dropping or breaking anything, crossing roads, eating peanuts or tying my shoelaces. In fact I’m writing this weekly update from my bed, where I plan to stay until Saturday, with only occasional and very short excursions to the fridge to get a cold beer.

Excuse me for interupting but is this the way to söder?

This week the ‘man on everyone’s lips’ (which was perhaps the most unfortunate thing I said this week) known as Tjinooken was finally unmasked and his beer served to expectant crowds at Oliver Twist and Akkurat.

And following the hype comes the hyperbole for a new lager brewed by Nynäshamns Ångbryggeri that will become a regular feature in both the pubs in Stockholm’s ‘söder’.

Tjockhult Tjinook is a beer that first and foremost is designed to be refreshing and easy to drink, with chinook hops (supported by a dash of citra and centennial) lending their light, citrus flavours. The reaction to its launch this week was overwhelming positive (kegs were drained faster than Ingrid for goodness sake) so if you’re wandering around söder in the near future you might want to pop in and try it. Oh, and if you see a bedraggled looking character snoring under a bridge nearby throw him some spare change – it may just be Tjinooken!

This was also the week I announced that it’s London Baby! for BeerSweden next weekend as I travel to the UK as the only Swedish representative at the first ever European Beer Bloggers Conference. I won’t be alone however, with Mattias and Jessica to keep me company and also beers from NYAB and Oppigårds to pour out among the delegates.

Romeo and Juliet, Bonnie and Clyde, Simon and Garfunkel, Bamse and Skalman – they’re practically inseparable and better as a pair than by themselves don’t you think? The same could be said for burgers and beer, which is the theme of the latest awesome BeerSweden competition I launched this week to celebrate the opening next month of the Bishops Arms ambitious gastro-pub in Linnégatan in Stockholm. Remember to send me your ideal burger and beer combo before June 1^st for a chance to win some VIP prizes!

So how am I going to kick the weekend of this week? Well I’ll be popping open a bottle of Brooklyn Summer Ale as my After Work Friday! beer that Brooklyn’s charismatic BrewMaster himself Garret Oliver recently told BeerSweden all about.

The beer is being launched at the Systembolaget on Monday and I can already reveal it’s as summer as Crocs and mosquito repellent.

Have a safe and lucky weekend everyone and don’t forget it’s Småbryggeriernas Dag tomorrow so if you’re lucky enough to live near a Swedish craft brewery then show them your support and drink local!

Cheers and beers!

Darren

Found this very interesting article about a National Geographic-organised tasting of Scandinavian beers held in Washington DC last week by possibly the nicest gentleman in craft brewing, Garrett Oliver – Brewmaster of Brooklyn Brewery.

Now if I’m being perfectly honest the first thing that struck me was the fact that the National Geographic Society organises beer tastings. And here was I thinking NG was all about stunning photography and documentaries about rare and endangered species of tigers. I will be renewing my subscription without delay!

The fact that this tasting of Scandinavian beers took place at all and the extremely positive words of Mr Oliver about the beer scene in this part of the world are testimony to what I and other beer writers/bloggers been saying for some time now. Sweden and our Nordic neighbours really are producing some of the most interesting beers on the planet!

So now you don’t just have to take my word for it. If National Geographic says it’s true it’s true and that’s all there is to it.

(Footnote: It’s worth mentioning that Sweden only had one beer in the tasting, Nils Oscar’s highly rated barley wine. This is largely due to the fact that all the beers appear to have come from the same US beer importer who only represent Nils Oscar and Oppigårds to date – although admittedly that’s one hell of a start! The star of the show is undoubtedly Nøgne-Ø, which are rapidly earning a well deserved reputation as the most adventurous and export-friendly Scandinavian brewery there is. I’d suggest more micros in this country could learn a lot from what they are doing to win over new markets).

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If there’s a food and drink combination that’s more misunderstood, more just plain wrong and yet more blindly followed than wine and cheese I don’t know of it.

Wine and cheese is considered by many to be the gastronomic mating equivalent of when Brad met Angelina – a pairing so perfect that it has become food law dutifully followed by restaurants and at dinner parties around the world. I’d put money on the fact that whenever you see the cheese plate coming out you automatically look around to check where that bottle of red wine is, don’t you….

Perfectly understandable of course. We’ve been told for decades that wine – specifically red wine -  is the obvious partner to cheese. After all the Romans did it, and if it’s good enough for Julius Ceasar then it’s good enough for us, right?

Well no. No it’s not all right any more. It’s high time this particular food and drink myth was busted. The fact is that beer is a better partner to cheese than wine. That’s a bold statement to make but I’m going to tell you why.

I spent several very happy months travelling around Sweden in 2009 conducting a beer v wine dinner event with a very nice sommelier called Henrik. Before each event we would sit and talk (often rather heatedly and at great length) about food and drink. One of our favourite topics was what to serve with cheese and here rather surprisingly Henrik was prepared to raise something of a white flag.

You see that fact is that Henrik and a lot of other wine experts know the dirty secret that wine isn’t actually that good with cheese. It can however make average wines taste a little better – a trick that has allowed hotels and restaurants to flog us countless millions of bottles of crap wine for years. Cheese coats the palate and blunts the flavours of wine – even the bad flavours. It’s the great equaliser but it’s more a food marriage of convenience rather than a love affair.

If you want to experience some real ‘gastro passion’ you’ve got to be prepared to break this stupid food law and try beer instead,

Beer harmonises with cheese in a way wine simply can’t. Beer and cheese share a common ancestry, both traditionally produced on farms and both containing plenty of earthy, musty and yeasty flavours that complement each other so well. If you think wine has a historical right to cheese think again. Monks in Belgium knew of the heavenly match of cheese and beer as far back as the Middle Ages, happily consuming both in their monasteries even to this day.

Wine is a bit of a one trick pony when it comes to cheese, relying largely on the interplay between fruity sweetness and salty/sour cheese. But beer can do all that -  and much more.

The rich, nutty caramel malt flavours of beer are impossible to find in wine yet they meld effortless with the nutty flavours of many cheeses such as mature cheddars. The spice and acidity of a Belgium wit beer is a mouth-watering combo with goats cheese, cutting through the cheese’s soft body whereas red wine merely bounces off it.

And don’t even get me started on Stilton and barley wine (yes, this is a beer), where the decadent rich fruits and deep malt flavours of barley wine can take an earthy, barnyard and salty Stilton to a whole new level.

As with all food and drink pairings there are no written rules but here are some of my favourite beer and cheese matches to get you started:

Cheddar with IPA – the idea here is to match the big hoppy flavours of IPAs with the sharpness of mature cheddars.

Goats Cheese and Mozzarella with wheat beers – both these cheeses are light and fresh so the uplifting, breezy flavours of a Belgium Wit beer or German Heffeweizen complement each other perfectly.

Gouda with low-hop/high malt beers – because this style of cheese is usually cured with brine, wine or even beer it’s best enjoyed with a milder beer that leans towards malty sweetness rather than bitter hops. The nutty character of brown ales can work wonders with Gouda!

Blue cheese with porters and stouts – powerful blues need a powerful beer to match them and the deep roasted, chocolate and coffee qualities in many porters and stouts do just that.

Brie and pilsner/lager – brie and other soft cheeses with bloomy rinds often have fairly low taste profiles so it’s good to match them with more delicate beers such as pilsners. An added benefit is that pilsners/lagers are generally more carbonated, helping to scrub the mouth out after eating sticky soft cheeses.

I found this video of perhaps the world’s greatest authority on beer and food, Garrett Oliver, who is not only the head brewer of the highly respected Brooklyn Brewery in the US he’s also the author of ‘The BrewMaster’s Table’, a book I consider to be the bible on beer and food matches and one I’d warmly recommend you buy.

The specific cheeses and beers he tries on film are hard or impossible to find in Sweden but his message is spot on. So move over wine. Cheese has got a new best friend and its name is beer!