I have a kind of bloggy confession to make. I’ve been going on (and on, and on) about the joys of pairing beer and food over recent months and yet when I look back through my posts searching for anything to do with this amazingly rewarding past-time I can only find a handful of articles. I have therefore fallen into the classic trap of not practising what I preach.

Not good enough!

Although, in my defence, I actually do practice combining the flavours and textures of beer and food all the time at home, where most evening meals (I tend to skip breakfast) are enjoyed with a bottle of beer to share at the table.

Like yesterday for example, when we decided to have a BBQ at the summerhouse and catch the last warm rays of another wonderful summer’s day up here in Norrland. Fancying something a little more ‘exotic’ than the more traditional pork and salmon meals I’ve recently prepared on the BBQ me and the missus went for spicy Thai-style beer skewers, to which I paired BrewDog Punk IPA.

Here’s what we did:

Cut the thin beef slices (lövbiff) into long strips and put onto wooden skewers (make sure to soak the skewers in water for approximately 30 minutes before so they don’t burn so quickly on the BBQ).
Rub the strips with roughly-cut fresh garlic, lime juice and lime & lemongrass pepper, fresh coriander, soy sauce and sunflower oil (to help them stop sticking to the BBQ grill).

Flash cook on the BBQ (they really only need a minute or two each side otherwise they dry out and adopt the texture of shoe leather) and serve immediately with lightly salted Basmati rice.

To this serve with a dip made of:

Fresh lime juice
Soy Sauce
Fresh chopped Garlic
Crushed chilli
Fresh coriander (this is the secret to this dip so make sure whenever possible to use freshly picked coriander).

.
I drank Punk IPA with this meal (actually I had a sneaky bottle before while waiting for the BBQ to glow ) and the beer’s tropical fruit body practically made out with all the lime and coriander. I can also imagine the coriander ‘core’ to this dish makes it a good fit for a Belgium Wit beer (like this one), a herby pilsner (like this one) or a piney US hop bomb (like this one).

There. I feel a little better now, although the Beer and Food category of this blog is still more frozen chicken nuggets when it should be grilled jam-glazed free-range chicken breasts (if you know what I mean).

So please, if any of you have beer and food pairings that work for you, whether you’re a professional chef or a passionate amateur who likes to match their meals with beer (or add it to the ingredients) then why not send them (English or Swedish) to me at darren@beersweden.se and I’ll happily add them to the blog.

Together we can make mealtimes more interesting! Thanks

*This article is based on a post I made over at the new BeerSweden Forum, where members are beginning to add their own recipes and tasty food/beer combos. For inspiration and much more you really should get over there and check it out!

Disclaimer: I’m BrewDog’s Scandinavian representative. I am also the one who ALWAYS gets to peel the potatoes.

What do Betamax, hydrogen-filled blimps, making the Titanic too….titanic, George Lazenby as James Bond and leisure suits have in common?

They were all pretty bad ideas, weren’t they?

Not really such a good idea, was it.......

I had one of those last week when I tried to launch a new monthly Facebook competition concept over at BeerSweden’s FB page I’d been working on called ‘Tag-a-T’ in which all you had to do was tag your name to a picture of a beery T-shirt, ‘LIKE’ BeerSweden’s FB page and the page of the brewery supplying the swag in order to win it.

Simple. I thought.

Until that is until I started getting emails about 15 seconds later after it went live from concerned BeerSweden followers telling me that my Facebook account could be closed down unless I removed the competition immediately.

Some frantic online research later and it turns out it’s true. Buried in Facebook’s Terms and Conditions in small print so small it would make estate agents and divorce lawyers giggle with glee it states that your account can be frozen and your toenails turn black and fall out for improper use of Facebook’s native features. (I may have made the bit about your toenails up).

Which led to one of the shortest T-shirt giveaways in the history of the Internet as I was forced to remove ‘Tag-a-T’ from Facebook and migrate it over here where it’s me rather than Mr Zuckerberg that makes the rules up.

So here it is, slightly re-tweaked but in essence still a simple chance to get a free beery T-shirt every month. Remember you have to be a LIKER of both BeerSweden and BrewDog Scandinavia to stand a chance of winning.

Just post a comment with your preferred T-shirt size (S/M/L/XL) under this post to enter. I’ll pick a winner at random at the end of the month and inform the winner by responding to the mail address registered when you comment.

Happy tagging everyone!

(PS: if you run a cool brewery with great looking T-shirts and want it to feature in next month’s ‘Tag-a-T’ competition just mail me at darren@beersweden.se).

Don’t worry – this isn’t an April Fools joke (we’ll leave that to Spendrups). Today a whopping 30 beers go on sale at the Systembolaget!

Some of them are familiar faces in new formats, others old friends making their annual return as part of a group of 13 Easter beers hitting the shelves at 10am today.

So let’s start with the Easter beers first. I normally look forward to these holiday releases of beer with about as much enthusiasm as a doorstep visit from the Jehovah witnesses because you often get bludgeoned with the same type of beer over and over again.

However today’s Easter beer release contains a pretty reasonable range of styles and flavours, including what I believe is the first Swedish brewed black IPA in the form of Mohawk Black IPA Easter Edition, the first beer that’s going in my shopping basket this morning. Black IPA is a trendy new beer style born in the USA (where it is also known as Cascadian Ale) which combines the hop intensity of an IPA with the dark, roasted malt complexity often associated with porters and stouts.

Second on my list will be Mikkeller Green Easter IPA, a seasonal name tweak of his superb Mikkeller Green Gold. Not much to add really, other than if it says Mikkeller on the bottle, you know what to do. Buy one.

Then come old favourites Oppigårds Easter Ale, which rarely disappoints, followed by the citrus and spice Pumpviken Påsköl from Nynäshamns Ångbryggeri and newcomer Mohawk Red Easter, an American Amber Ale that promises plenty of caramel malt flavour topped with layers of hoppy peach and apricot.

Also worth looking out for are Nils Oscar Kalaspåsköl and St Eriks Påsk Ale.

These beers are all temporary listings brewed in relatively small batches so once they’re gone they’re gone, unlike the rest of the beers being launched today, which are guaranteed by the Systembolaget to hang around for at least the next year.

Here there’s a couple of familiar beers that have been given a new look – Spitfire Premium Kentish Ale has slimmed down from a 500ml bottle to 330ml along with its price tag, which at 13.90SEK represents great value for money for a quality English ale in my book.

BrewDog’s iconic Punk IPA has switched from 330ml bottle to a 330ml can. But that’s not all – the beer has dropped from 6% to 5.6% and undergone a radical recipe change that I was one of the first people on the planet to experience. Will you prefer old or new Punk? Only one way to find out!

Nils Oscar Hop Yard Ale is a must. It’s been around a little while on keg but now we all get the chance to take it home with us. Saison Dupont is more classically Belgium than TinTin and absolutely one of the best saisons in the world (in fact the beer that turned me on to this amazing style). At the ridiculously cheap price of 23.90SEK for a 330ml bottle I’m booking a big chunk of fridge space for this one

Rodenbach is back with their Grand Cru – a sour ale that is a blend of 1/3 young beer and 2/3 beer aged for two years in large oak vats. The result is a beer that takes on many of the characteristics of a fine wine. A little hard to get used to for those unfamiliar with the style, but if sours are your thing, you shouldn’t miss this one.

Top Swedish brewer Jessica Heidrich has proven time and again that she can work wonders with hops, delivering a solid series of St Eriks beers with plenty of flavourful punch for the price. I’ve bought every one of her beers so far and don’t see why I should break the habit today.

It’s great to see Flying Dog finally making it into the Systembolaget with a long-term listing for its Gonzo Imperial Porter after having been shunned for so many years because of its objection to the Maryland-based brewery’s use of its ubiquitous catchphrase ‘Good People Drink Good Beer’, which the SB considered broke its rules about promoting the consumption of alcohol. Looking at the unbelievably cool label on my review bottle of Gonzo I note they’ve removed the ‘offensive’ line. Shame, because……..

The last beer I’m singling out is Cheap Thrills from Spendrups Brutal Brewing. I’ve already said everything I needed to say about this beer here. However I can’t resist asking the question why we have been deprived so long of beers from Flying Dog, a multi-award winning US craft brewer, because of its use of the harmless Hunter S Thompson quote ‘Good People Drink Good Beer’ when Spendrups Brutal Brewing can step right in with a major listing for a canned beer on which is printed the line ‘Good Beer for Good People’?

Sound familiar? Sound fair? Add to that the brand itself is called Cheap Thrills (now THERE’S a clear violation of the rule about promoting the irresponsible consumption of alcohol, right?) and I’m calling this the biggest April Fools joke since this one

BrewDog James has just sent over this picture of the new-look BrewDog Punk IPA cans that are rolling off the canning line and into the Systembolaget from April 1st.

Craft beer in a can is a hot issue in the beer world right now, with these guys in the US leading the way and a small but growing number of micros following them.

In Sweden cans have a rather nasty, deep-rooted association with cheap industrial lager brands (and all that that entails) so it’s going to be really interesting to follow this launch and see how beer fans vote with their cash. Will it be the new Punk IPA in bottles or can?

In case you’re wondering Punk IPA cans will contain beer has been brewed, dry hopped and lightly filtered at BrewDog to the same specifications as their kegged and bottled Punk. It is being canned at another UK brewery as BrewDog hasn’t got its own canning line (although that’s something I know the guys are thinking about in the future).

The beer is also being canned unpasteurized, which hopefully means all the juicy, zingy hop character that makes Punk IPA punky will hit you the second you crack a tinnie open.

So what do you think about the swing towards craft beer in a can? Are cans really only good for beers you normally find on ferries? Would a can take away from your enjoyment of a craft beer or could it add to it? What’s the best canned beer moment you’ve ever had (even better, what’s your worst one)?

ps: There’s already lots of exciting debate over at Brewdog’s blog on the issue of cans ‘v’ bottles. Check out the comments here and here.

Yes it’s true. Sweden’s most ‘Get Up and Go’ beer blog is packing its bags and is on its way to Scotland later this week to spend a bit of quality time with those maverick brewing chaps at BrewDog.

As you already know BeerSweden likes to be at the centre of all things beery and there’s little doubt that the epicentre of alternative beer brewing in Europe (and arguably the world) right now is focused on the small fishing town of Fraserburgh situated a little way north of Aberdeen in Scotland.

That’s because it’s here that James Watt and fellow BrewDog founder and Brewmaster Martin Dickie hatch plans for world domination and create some of the most avant garde beers coming out of Europe right now. Their role call of brands makes for more extreme reading that the beer list at Akkurat in Stockholm, including the already classic Punk IPA, Trashy Blonde, Hardcore IPA (which just picked up a gold medal at the World Beer Cup) and the two alcoholic monsters Tactical Nuclear Penguin and Sink the Bismarck.

When they’re not brewing beer here they’re often flying off somewhere else to do it, recently to the US to collaborate in the brewing of the first ever black pilsner.

I’ll be meeting up with James when he headlines a BrewDog event in Stockholm this Saturday night organised by their importer Cask Sweden. Check out their FaceBook page for more details and if you’re in the capital be sure to come along as there will be the largest selection of BrewDog beers ever seen in one place in Sweden available to try at reasonable prices.

I’ll then be flying back with James to Scotland the next day for 48 hours of hanging out with the BrewDog pack. Rest assured I’ll be taking my camcorder (Sorry Trev – you’re going to have to stay at home this time) and plan to record a very special episode of BSTV from within the brewery itself. I’ll also be live blogging while sniffing out all the news about what other BrewDog beers might be making their way over here to Sweden, including (hopefully) an advance tasting of the new Abstrakt range I wrote about a little while back.

One thing’s for sure – it’s going to be an extreme brewery trip so make sure you come along for the ride!

Beers and Cheers!

BeerSweden Darren