Gouden Carolus Cuvée Van De Keizer Rood/Red 2009 (75 cl bottle) 10%
This beer was part of a news release at Systembolaget last year.

Cost: ? SEK

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Hazy golden liquid with a small white foam that left some lacing.

Fruity, sweet, apples, pears, yeast and wineous.

Medium smooth, medium carbonation. Alcoholic warmth.

A fruity belgian ale similar to a triple only stronger. It feels well balanced but not overly complex. Probably works great with tasty cheeses. But I sure enjoyed it on it’s own.

Having tried both these bottles I got the feeling that both would have aged with dignity. They are both very good now but they might evolve over a couple of years. Anybody have any older bottles that have tried this?

This is the first weekend this year that I won’t drink any beer. Feels like it’s time to be a bit more healthy. I’ve had a very hectic 2010 so far and visited several festivals, also tried lots of nice beers of course But now I need a short rest.

I got some interesting plans in the near future. First up is the Enköping Homebrew Festival and on the 15th of May it’s time to brew some beer again. Will tell you more about it in a later post.

Even though I won’t try any beers this weekend I won’t sit with my thumbs up my ass. I plan to start on my new blog using wordpress. I’ve gotten quite tired of blogspot with all it’s bugs and issues and I have been recommended to try out wordpress. I’ll play around with it when I get time to see what I think of it.

Gouden Carolus Cuvee Van De Keizer Blauw/Blue 2009 (75 cl bottle) 11%
This beer was part of a news release at Systembolaget last year. I also have a bottle of their red beer that I will rate soon.

Cost: ? SEK

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Dark hazy amber liquid with a small dirty white foam.

Dried fruit, yeast, plums and wine.

Medium smooth and medium carbonation. Puckering mouthfeel.

A fruity and nice belgian ale. Lots of flavour and none of them bad. Despite the high alcohol this was fairly easy to drink and it didn’t feel very boozy. This beer is probably best on it’s own but probably works great with some cheeses.

I completely forgot to post the results in my previous post. But I just saw this morning that they are updated at www.shbf.se

Judges Competition

Peoples Choice Competition + extra awards

Detailed Peoples Choice Competition

Program sheet from the SC

Nice to see that Gullefjun got a 6th place in Peoples Choice. I honestly didn’t expect it to perform that well. Since it was only 3,4% and with a very mild flavour that easily got drowned in all the high flavour beers in that class.

I’m also suprised to see we got 4th place with our Nalle Puh Porter. That means the four of us managed to get 1st, 4th and 6th place which feels like it’s way over expectations. How are we going to top that? We better start planning for next years competition right away. At the moment we have two beers in the works, I will write about them later on.

This years festival broke several records. 370 beers participated in the Judges Competition and 103 beers participated in the Peoples Choice Competition. The festival wasn’t just packed with beers it also got packed with people. More then 700 people visited the festival and you can see from the picture above what it looked like when it peaked.


The Peoples Choice Competition was divided into 3 categories, bottom fermented, top fermented and special beers. We had DBH3 and Nalle Puh Porter in the special beers class and Gullefjun in the top fermented class.

Even though I didn’t go shit crazy tasting beer this festival (like I usually do) I have to say it was the most fun I’ve had at a beer festival so far. I loved standing in the booth giving out samples. Everybody where really friendly and we got allot of great comments on DBH3. Nalle Puh Porter and Gullefjun also got their share of course, but the majority went for the Death.

DBH3 actually got so popular we managed to get a gold medal in the Peoples Choice Awards, under the category Special Beers. I didn’t quite understand it at first and it wasn’t until I saw Chrille standing there with the medal around his neck that it sunk in. Felt weird to stand on stage like that, but allot of fun as well.

Unfortunately we “only” brought 38 litres of DBH3 so we ran out fast after the win was announced. I think Benny from Stockeboda and my friend Per was the ones who was the most upset about the lack of DBH3.

A few minutes later it was time for the big announcement, the winner of the Swedish Championship in Homemade Beer. Drakens Dubbel-IPA took home the first place, brewed by Rick Gordon Lindqvist, Tomas Lundqvist and Magnus Alström. Big congratulations to them.

They didn’t participate in the Peoples Choice Awards with the beer which probably was lucky for us. It would have been fun to try it on the spot, but I traded a bottle with Rick just before the festival so I’m going to try it out later. I actually traded quite allot of bottles and I will write about them here later on. They are in Frövi with my father so I will get them at a later date.

To summarize the experience it feels like yet another great SC. I’ve been to several and this felt just as good as the others. The people involved in arranging it should have a huge pat on the back.

Despite staying up late on friday I woke up early feeling very energetic. I had a good feeling about the day and wanted to get to the SC right away. But I knew it wouldn’t be open until 10:00 so I settled down and tried to relax. Which didn’t work so well so I headed of to the festival.

On the way there I did some “touristing” with the trams, taking in the beautiful scenery…. ok I admit it I managed to jump on the correct line but going the wrong way. I eventually ended up showing up 15 minutes late. So much for my plan to be there early. Well my father was worse and showed up just before it started. Someone remind me to pull his ear for that one
When I got there Chrille and Erika where already hard at work setting up the cooler and taps. I brought the kegs out and started working on the decorations. Yes, you heard it right, I got put on the decorating job. But I’m actually quite satisfied with what I could accomplish (which was basically just putting stuff out on the table). Below is a picture of the non-finished booth.
Me and Erika started off in the booth and where prepared to take on the happy beer drinkers.

Since I was waiting for my father I took the time to walk around and check all the other booths out. I fairly quickly ran into the gang from Hembryggarbloggen, a bunch of happy and friendly guys and gals. I got some high quality homebrews and I have to complement them on their nice logo.

I also walked by the sticker competition. The quality of the stickers keep getting better and better each year. Most of them are much nicer then the commercial stickers. Below you can see the three stickers that Chrille made, number 7-9.

I spent most of the festival in my own both so I sadly didn’t try that many beers. However people kept showing up and giving me samples of beer so I was quite satisfied with that. Christer (from Överjäst) even showed up with a couple of beers that I tried. Specially Fett Brett was really nice.

I realised this post got quite long so I turned into two parts as I usually do. Part 2 will include the winners of this years SC and some other things.

After an unusually long drive to Gothenbourg we finally reached out destination after 8,5 hours of driving. The reason it took so long was that we switched cars in Uppsala, picked up a friend at Arlanda and got the kegs of beer in Örebro. But trust me, it was worth the long trip.

As soon as we got into Olles (friend of Per’s that let us stay in his apartment for the weekend) the other guys where very quick to open the first beer of the evening. I however had to wait until I could go to the SC and deliver the kegs of beer.

When I got back from the slightly scary and confusing drive through central Gothenburg I was immediately served a glass of Death By Hops 3 (DBH). But I surprised the others by pulling out a bottle of DBH2. After drinking our beer we headed of to meet a bunch of friends that had come to Gothenburg to visit the SC and basically have a good time. We found them at Victoria which just didn’t feel like a very interesting place to be. So I managed to chase them out of there and we headed of to Tre Små Rum.

I’ve heard allot of good things about this pub and Reza Ganon recently got a golden pin from the Beer Consumers Association. That is as good a sign for quality as you can get.

It took a few seconds after entering to realise that we had come to the right place (well most of us at least). I started out with a Närke Örebro Bitter Peated Viking. Which is a smoked version of their Örebro Bitter. I liked it, but I think I prefer their normal version.

Another beer that stood out was Duggest Bitter Sweet Dream. Great beer that I hope to try again so I can give it a proper rating.

I think Reza got a bit tired of my friends that had drank quite allot during the day, but thankfully for him some of them headed of to a club fairly soon. Me and some other beer lovers stuck around until the pub closed.

Jonny in the background (turned 30 on the day of the SC). Dave “the Bushman” and Mark “the Reverend” came over from England to drink some beer.

My brother, Per and Olle.

When we where about to leave we ran into a couple of beer blogers that had been sitting in the other room the whole time. First up a picture of me and the guys from Schnille och Schmak, Daniel och Ralph.

But also Christer from Överjäst and Weine from Casa Beer Blog. I hope I run into all of these guys again in the near future.

We decided to head of to Bishops Arms Avenyn together to grab another beer. They didn’t have allot of interesting beer and the things that seemed interesting where fairly expensive. I did find Angel’s Share #5 Korre Ale, which I went for. Decent beer that didn’t quite stand out. But to be fair it was 02:00 and I didn’t really give it a serious thought.

Christer shared a very nice beer, Mikkeller 10, with the rest of us before we decided to call it a night. Thanks for that one Christer.

I will post about the SC tomorrow. It was a good day

It’s been a hectic week but we are finally done with the preparations for the Swedish Championship in Homemade beers. The last thing I did was bake a bunch of bread from the malt we used while brewing the two beers we participate with. It resulted in 3 kinds of bread. First a couple of loafs of DBH3 malt made with regular (wheat) flour. I also made some heavier bread with the Nalle Puh malt, using rough rye flour and graham flour. Here are some pictures:

As stated before we (me, my father and Chrille) will participate with 2 beers. A DIPA named Death By Hops 3 and a honey porter called Nalle Puh Porter. Chrille and Erika will also participate with a Mild called Gullefjun. I haven’t had a chance to try that one yet so really looking forward to it. We will also share some chocolate-honey-trufels (thanks Lina!), malt bread and honey (used in the Nalle Puh Porter) at our table.

For those interested I will bring a couple of bottles of DBH3 in case you want to trade a bottle.

My father is already in Göteborg and I plan on leaving tomorrow morning. Me, Per (my beer drinking sidekick) and his brother will drive by car early tomorrow morning. Chrille will drive from Örebro early Saturday morning. I also have allot of friends coming to Göteborg. We usually go on a cruise at this time of year to celebrate Andy and Johnny’s birthdays. But this year we are trying something new.

I can’t wait for the festival this is going to be great.

The Swedish Championship in Homebrews is this weekend and our preparations are under way. I will bring a couple of bottles of Death By Hops 3 to the SC in case anybody wants to trade.

You can either contact me on stefan@beerdrivel.se or just simply approach me at the festival.

Yesterday me and Karin went to Fräcka Halvpannan, a small pub/restaurant in southern Stockholm. I’m not sure how to translate the name but here is an attempt: Insolent Half-pan. I found out about this place through the Swedish Beer Consumers Association. After reading through their menu online I decided to pay them a visit. It was mostly the wide and cheap beer list that got my interest.

The first thing I did was to order a beer, but as it turned out they where all out of my first choice. But the waiter had brought a bottle of Dieu Du Ciel Corne du Diable, which just happened to be my second choice. Quite impressive to nail what my second choice would be. Corne du Diable was a hopped up IPA with lots of grapefruit and a high bitterness. Very nice and I gave it a 4/5.

The olives we got with the beer was very juicy and salty. Marinating in lots of oil and herbs. Before dinner arrived I went ahead and ordered a can of Oskar Blues Gordon Ale. Which is a mix between a Double IPA and an Imperial Amber Ale. Not surprisingly lots of hops but also a fairly high sweetness. I prefer my DIPAs a little bit less sweet but this was a nice beer. Definitely the best DIPA/IAA I’ve had from a can, but then again this is the only one I’ve tried. I would give it a 3,9/5.

Both me and Karin went for the beef tenderloin with potato cake and mushroom sauce. Both of us got just the right degree on the meat. I went for medium-rare and it was perfect, just they way I like it.

To finish off I ordered a bottle of Founders Curmudgeon Old Ale. It poured a very thick and hazy dark dirty amber liquid with lots of stuff floating around in it. A very strong (9,8%) ale with a heavy sweetness and intense flavour of caramel, malt, leather, dried fruit, yeast and hops. I’m giving it a 3,8/5. I had to drink this fairly slowly and about halfway through my desert arrived.

I went for the white chocolate mousse, which looked very small at first. But it was rich and creamy with lots of flavour. Felt like just the right amount at the time.

Karin decided to try their chocolate cake which was a bit dry but very rich. I prefer my chocolate cakes allot more sticky and juicy.

All in all this was a great visit, great service, great beer, great food and all at a very reasonable price. Compared to similar pubs they are on the low end of the price scale. Something worth noting is that the beer and food menu is out of date on their site. But if you read them you will get the general idea of what they have on offer.