http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/ Personal blog of Lars Marius Garshol. en larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/208.html In the Nordic countries there is a whole style of brewing that has so far almost completely escaped the attention of beer enthusiasts, although some tips of the iceberg are showing above the surface here and there, if you look carefully. I'm referring to the traditional homebrewers, who have just about nothing in common with the new wave of US-inspired home brewers. What makes these brewers so interesting is that the beers they brew belong to styles that are almost completely unknown outside of these communities. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2010-01-16 14:48:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/207.html When I saw that Dr. Jekyll's Pub in Oslo was arranging a tasting with Brewdog, featuring their Tactical Nuclear Penguin beer, the world's strongest at 32%, I knew I had to go. Unsurprisingly, so did Knut Albert (his blog posting is here) and Geir Ove. The tasting was given by James Watt, who is responsible for Brewdog's marketing. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2009-12-17 08:41:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/204.html It's hard to find the really good pubs in most places in the world of any size, but London presents special challenges, for a number of reasons. First, there is the sheer size of the city, which has a population larger than many countries. Second, there is the enormous number of pubs (about 4000, according to many sources). And, third, there is the vast difference in quality between the average pubs and the really good ones. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2009-10-18 13:26:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/201.html Innis & Gunn has met with a divided reception among beer enthusiasts. Some really like it, some think it's not bad, and some hate it. Personally, I quite like it, and it's one of the very few beers that are oak-aged and fairly widely distributed. So when Dr. Jekyll's pub in Oslo announced a tasting with Dougal Sharp, the creator of Innis & Gunn, I signed up. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2009-06-21 19:23:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/196.html Beer consumption in Norway may be falling, but craft beer production is booming. To cope with increasing demand Haandbryggeriet recently ripped out their old brewing plant, replacing it with a new one. The old one had a capacity of 900 liters per batch, whereas the new one does 2000, more than doubling the batch size. In fact, since the old one could only do 700 liters of strong beers (because of the amount of malts), capacity is close to tripled for these beers. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2009-02-22 13:00:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/194.html I don't usually do beer reviews on this blog, but I got "reviewer copies" of the BrewDog Paradox Smokehead and Isle of Arran, and thought they were worth writing about. Contrary to what you might think, this doesn't mean breweries have suddenly started to send me their beers, clamouring for me to review them. BrewDog sent them to Knut Albert, who kindly passed them on to me. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2009-02-15 13:35:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/193.html It's odd that the pub should in one sense be the ultimate English tourist attraction, since all countries have their own bars and cafés, but somehow the English pub has become part of international culture. And deservedly so, because there really is something special about English pubs. A good English pub is almost like a communal living-room; a kind of home away from home. That is, the good English pubs are like this. They are of course outnumbered by the indifferent or even bad pubs, which are just boozers like those you find anywhere in the world. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2009-02-10 12:34:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/192.html The summer after finishing high school a friend and I set out on an interrail trip through Europe. In England, one of the things we wanted to experience was a proper English beer. So we ordered a Guinness. This was a mistake on many different levels, but I'll limit myself to three here. First, Guinness is of course Irish, and not English. Secondly, we could have had it just about anywhere in Norway. But perhaps the worst mistake was that what's most unique about British beer culture is the cask method of serving beer draft. Guinness, however, even in England, is served from keg, like draft beers in the rest of the world. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2009-01-25 15:07:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/189.html Not long ago, my advice to anyone wanting to try Norwegian microbrew in Oslo would have been to buy bottles from the Wine Monopoly stores and drink them in the hotel room. Not very appealing, of course, but the alternative would have been to hit the two or three pubs that carried a couple of such beers each, where you would have had to argue with the waiters in the hopes of perhaps persuading them to sell you one. (To be fair, Bar & Cigar could be relied on to not just have some, but to also sell them.) larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2009-01-17 13:08:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/187.html I've written before about my experiences as an uncertified beer judge, and when the Norwegian homebrewer's association offered their beer judge certification course again this year I decided to apply. My goal was to learn more about the beer brewing process, to improve my ability to analyze beer, and to learn about specific flaws in beer and how to detect them. If I'd also have to teach myself the Norwegian beer style guidelines I decided that was a price I'd be willing to pay. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2008-11-20 15:39:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/185.html Amber Gold and Black is Martyn Cornell's new book on the history of British beer, currently only available in self-published ebook form. Getting it as a PDF wasn't ideal for me, as it meant I had to pay quite a lot to get it printed, but since Martyn is extremely well-informed on British beer history and passionate about getting his story right, I was more than willing to put up with this in order to be able to read the book. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2008-11-17 18:06:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/186.html Samuel Adams Utopias is the world's most expensive beer in regular production, costing about USD 100 in the US. In Sweden the government alcohol monopoly takes in a few bottles every time it's produced, and a friend managed to get hold of a bottle from a pub in Gothenburg. It cost about USD 300 there, though, so he wisely decided to split the bottle with others. In the end we were eight beer enthusiasts who gathered in a flat in Oslo to try it. And, of course, since we were getting together anyway, we brought a few more beers to try at the same time. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2008-11-15 21:40:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/179.html The Danish Association of Beer Enthusiasts have been arranging beer festivals for several years, but this year was the first time I was able to go. In fact, this was my first ever real beer festival, since the only ones I'd been to before were the Norwegian ones, which don't really count, as they rarely have any new beers, or even that many people. The EBF, on the other hand, was the real thing: roughly 1200 beers on offer from all over the world and more than 21,000 guests. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2008-11-13 15:25:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/169.html I wanted to make the 2K series quite long, with various lists of beers selected by different criteria, but I never managed to find any selections that inspired me enough to actually write the pieces, so we'll round off with the obvious one instead. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2008-09-07 14:19:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/177.html In April a group of beer enthusiasts booked a tour at Haandbryggeriet where we were shown around the brewery and tasted some of the beers. And since they knew of us from our blogs and from RateBeer they also let us taste some test brews of unreleased beers. Being real enthusiasts and raters we of course were quite vocal with our opinions, and apparently they appreciated that, because they invited us back this week to review some more test brews. Of course, we didn't need to be asked twice. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2008-09-03 21:44:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/175.html The state of the Norwegian beer scene never ceases to amaze me, and given that I'm a native Norwegian, I thought international readers might enjoy a look at what goes on here. If nothing else, it might have some entertainment value. The occasion for this blog entry is a beer test, initially published by a Norwegian magazine about cottages (as in summer houses, mountain retreats, etc). This magazine is owned by the media conglomerate Schibsted, which also publishes the main Norwegian daily, and so the test has now made its way onto the site of said daily. So the unwary reader could be forgiven for assuming that it was published by the most prestigious newspaper in Norway. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2008-08-20 21:04:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/174.html I did another post on this subject back in May 2006, but since then I have done lots more ratings of Norwegian beer, and a number of new breweries have appeared, and so it seems about high time to revisit the subject. The basis of this overview is 320 ratings of Norwegian beers, starting in September 2005 and ending yesterday. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2008-08-02 15:52:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/167.html I've written before about the importance of beer temperature, and creative ways of getting it right, such as using my laptop or a digital thermometer. I've been frustrated with the temperature at which beer is served in many places, and so dreamed of some kind of micro-wave based heater that would solve the problem for me. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2008-07-02 20:56:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/164.html Now that I've passed 2000 beers I figured it would be interesting to go back and look at which of these beers were the absolute worst beers. Many craft beer lovers think the worst possible beers are the mass market brands like Budweiser or the local national giant, and pour scorn on any industrial beer that is low on taste. I'm no fan of these beers myself, but there are things that are worse than having no taste, or some hints of off-tastes. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2008-07-01 18:41:00 CET http://www.garshol.priv.no/blog/161.html On Saturday I finally passed a milestone I've been looking forward to for a while: beer rating number 2000. That's right. I've now tasted 2000 different beers. Or, to be more precise, I've written ratings of 2000 different beers on RateBeer, which is how I can be sure of the exact number. I tasted lots of beers before I started rating which I've never seen again since, so these are not counted. larsga@garshol.priv.no (Lars Marius Garshol) 2008-06-04 23:17:00 CET