This is the final part about my visit to the Örebro Beer and Whisky festival. As I mentioned yesterday we came back to Brill. This time Marc introduced us to Michael Dugge from Dugges Bryggeri.
Out of the swedish breweries I would say he is my second favorite after Närke. It’s a brewery that always deliver nice quality beers. This time Dugge was primarily promoting their Celebration Ale. But they also had allot of interesting beers on bottle which we tried. But the beer that stood out the most was this one:
Southern Tier Pumking (Bottle) 9%
It tasted very sweet like liquid cockies and spounge cake, lots of sugar and sweets. Very odd but also very interesting. Not sure how I would have liked this in a full glass but as a sample it was quite nice. To bad we missed out on the Creme Brulé beer they had from the same brewery.
Total: 3,6/5
It was allot of fun to finally meet up but I don’t have much recollection of what we talked about. I blame the beer for this. DAMN YOU BEER! Anyway shortly after meeting David and Fredrik we decided to call it a night.
During the festival me and Per tried 50 different beers. Most of which I had never tried before. I’m not sure why we tried so few, we usually end up closer to 90 beers during an evening. But it might have to do with the amount of beer you where served, which felt more like 20 cl+ rather then 15. But I’m not complaining, I tried less beer but I got more of the good stuff.
I really enjoyed ÖBWF. They had done a good job of decorating the place and it felt very fresh and new. Most of the light came from candles or the booths and it felt spaceous. It was a bit cramped close to the more popular booths at the end, but you could always choose something else. Getting from one booth to the next was very fast since there was allot of space between the booths.
I heard some people say the supply was low but I felt that there where more then enough beers to try. I would have been able to walk around there for 2-3 more days and still have beers to try. All in all another great beer festival, I’m definitely coming back next year. The festival year is now over for me and I will have to wait until 31st January to visit Belgofesten. But having visited 5 festivals this year, 3 of which happened over the last 2 months, it actually feels nice with a little break.
However I still wanted to try his beers so me and Per ordered one of each: 
Stockeboda Ljus Ale (Tap) 5,2%
This is a pale ale that was very easy to drink, smooth mouthfeel and light body. Some taste of malt and hops with a low bitterness. Not that exciting but it will probably work on the masses.
Total: 2,8/5
Stockeboda Vinternattens Mörker (Tap) 5%
As far as I could see this beer was pitch black. Also smooth like it’s pale little brother but with the difference that this one was more spicey with some caramell. I think this one was a bit better then the Pale Ale. But they where both a bit to light for my taste. Might be better to try them under better conditions.
Total: 2,9/5
After saying goodbye to Benny we walked around for a bit and sampled various beers. Then landed at Great Brands where they had several interesting beers. The one that stood out the most was a beer from Harviestoun, a brewery that keeps on delivering good beers. I didn’t think much of them when I first tried them on a cruiser to Åland. But that’s all water under the boat now.
Ola Dubh 12 years (Bottle) 8%
This is really Black Oil (3,4/5) that has been stored on a 12 year old Highland Park cask. This is a smooth beer with lots of taste of chocolate, coffee, whisky, nuts and wood. A very nice beer and I think it was second best after Kaggen.
This one will also be released at Systembolaget on the 1st of December. With the price of 50 sek per bottle it’s an absolute steal. A little bird also told me that they are releasing the 18 and 30 year old versions later on that month.
Total: 4,3/5
We also had some beers from Anderson Valley, Rogue and Avery. The best of them was this beer:
Avery IPA (Bottle) 6%
This beer had a distinct taste and smell of fruity hops. High bitterness and medium body. Top that with a smooth mouthfeel and you got yourself a very tastey brew.
Total: 3,7/5
After a couple more Avery beers (all nice) we ended up back at Brill where we met some interesting people…
We walked around for a while and sampled some lighter beers. But it didn’t take long until we ended up at Brill & Co. Our expectations where very high considering how many fantastic beers we tried at their booth at SBWF. When we got their we where greeted by Marc Schuterman, a really friendly guy who served us some really interesting beers and also gave us a couple of tips for testing later on. They had an barrel aged Mikkeller Black that sounded really tastey. But trying something that heavy would completely ruin our palletes for the evening. So we decided to try some lighter stuff first:
Mikkeller The American Dream (bottle) 4,6%
This one was brewed at de Proefbrouwerij in Belgium. We got recomended to try this one first and I understand why. A hopped up lager that was really nice. Smells and taste of fruity hops, peaches and passion fruit. I could definitely imagine drinking more of this and I don’t say that very often about lagers.
Total: 3,4/5
Beer Here Hopfix (Bottle) 6,5%
Now this was allot better. Lots of fruity hops just the way I like it. Also a nice smooth mouthfeel. Beer Here delivers again.
Total: 3,9/5
AleSmith IPA (Bottle) 7,25%
This is a beer I’ve been wanting to try for a while. It’s ranked as the nr 1 IPA at Ratebeer and our expectations where quite high. It had allot of fruity hops flavours but also some dried fruit. However I felt a bit like I wanted more everything from this beer. It did deliver but I think our expectations where a bit to high. I would love to try this again under better conditions though.
Total: 3,8/5
We still had allot more beers that we wanted to try at Brills but we felt that it was time to move on and see what the other booths had to offer. We did find what must be one of the newest breweries in Europe and some other interesting beers. But more about that tomorrow.
Me and Per where pretty excited to finally be inside and sampling beer. Chrille took this picture of us as we had our first beer. Here are some reviews of the beer we had at Närke:
Närke The New InternationAle (Tap) 5,4%
No what did you do? I absolutely loved the original InternationAle but this one was not even close. It had both a smell and taste of caramell and something burned. But it also had a funky smell that I didnt appreciate. It also didn’t have that nice bitterness that I enjoyed so much in the original.
Hmm maybe I’m being a bit to harsh now since I loved the first one. But until I try it again this will be the total score:
Total: 2,3/5
Närke Anders Göranssons Bästa Rököl (Tap) 6,1%
I’m not a huge fan of smoked beers but this one was very drinkable. It had allot of smoke flavour but it didn’t feel like it had been filtered through an old hunting cabin. Felt more like it had been poured along the side of some smoked ham. Nice smokebeer, can imagine smoke-lovers would like it even more.
Total: 3,3/5
Närke Slättöl (Tap) 4,4%
A very drinkable beer that was fresh with tastes of fruity hops and malt. Can imagine drinking more of this on a hot summers day.
Total: 3,4/5
We also had some samples of Kaggen 2007 and 2008 before we decided it was time to try some of the new version: Pure Swedish Oak. They had a keg standing at Thorslundskaggen, a company that makes wodden barrels. This version of Kaggen has been stored in barrels made from swedish oak from the island Visingsö in lake Vättern.
Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter Pure Swedish Oak 2008 (tap) 9,5%
It looked the same as any other version of Kaggen. The only difference was in the smell and taste. This version was milder then the others and not as complex. Still a very nice beer with a great smooth mouthfeel. Taste and smell of chocolate, coffee and wood.
Total: 4,2/5
The festival didn’t open until 13:00 which meant we could sleep a bit longer then usual before jumping on the train to Örebro. The train ride is very comfortable in fairly new trains and it only takes about 12 minutes to get there from Frövi. Unfortunately the trains don’t run that often so we arrived in Örebro about an hour before the festival opened. But it was a sunny day and we took our time walking through Örebro. Eventually ending up at the pub Lilla Örebro where we had a glass of Närke Örebro Bitter. Here are some pictures from a sunny Örebro:
We came to the festival a few minutes after 13:00 and the first booth we went to was Närke Kulturbryggeri. We chatted a bit with Chrille and tried some of their beer. I had to try their Pannknektarnas Porter and I took this picture of the two brewers, or Pannknektar if you will. Can you see the resemblance from the sticker?
I thought the porter was better as a real ale but it was still pretty good. I gave the real ale version 3,4 and this one would get a 3,3. Apparently the beer got very popular and people came up and asked about the coffee porter. Good job Chrille and Pyrre! Chrille also tipped me off that they had a hop filter connected to their cAmarillo. It looked really interesting and the beer was full of fresh hoppy flavour. Here are some pictures of it…
… and a close-up of the actual filter. I really want to see more stuff like this. Please make a DIPA and connect one of these bad boys to it. 
Närke cAmarillo (Tap) 5%
The smell was filled with very fresh hops. It had an extremly smooth mouthfeel. Tasted of fruity hops, but despite all the hops it had a fairly low bitterness.
Total: 3,5/5
Tomorrow I will post some short reviews of the beers we tried at Närkes booth.
On friday I went to Frövi with the goal to visit ÖBWF and as usual these days I brought my beer loving sidekick Per with me. He really seems to love Frövi and my parents keep joking about when he will be moving there. Seeing what we where greeted by in the kitchen I think you understand why he keeps coming back:
The big keg has Blues Bitter and the small one is Death By Hops 2. Just look how happy he is:
My father, and Kalle ‘the tractor guy’ was away on a dinner with work so they didn’t show up until 22:30. Me and Per spent that time trying out some of the christmas beer together with mom. I’ll post some reviews later on. When my father and Kalle showed up we tried some of the news from this month. Started out with La Trappe Isid’or and then tried the two Bush beers. All three where really nice and specially Bush Prestige which I tried for the second time. I’ll put some reviews up later.
After sampling these beers we filled up on some Blues Bitter and DBH2 and jumped in the jacuzzi. Since I had managed to fill my glass up with a mix of the two beers I felt it was time to call it a night fairly soon. I also felt that I needed to be fresh and ready for the festival the next day.
Next weekend I’m going to Örebro to visit the Beer and Whisky Festival. I’ll be there on saturday together with Per, my father and some other people that usually show up on this blog. Ölkultur med David och Fredrik recently published the beer list and here it is again. Looks like allot of promising brewers and importers are coming. Chrille is officially releasing his Pannknektarnas Kaffeporter, even though it had a sneak premier at Bishops a while back. I also hope to meet some fellow beer bloggers.
Brill hasn’t released what beers they are bringing but if it’s anything like what they had at SBWF 2009 I will be very happy. I tried some fantastic beers at their booth and hope to try some more this time.
Närke has a fairly big selection of beers and I hope to try their Närke Kaggen 2008 Pure Swedish Oak. I have already tried their 2007 and 2008 versions twice and they where both great but 2008 was slightly better. I like their InternationAle so I also hope to try the New InternationAle.
Galatea is bringing a couple of belgian beers I haven’t tried before so might be able to fill in some holes. I’ve tried most of the beers from Hantverksbryggeriet and Nynäshamn, but I have a couple that I haven’t rated yet.
Great Brands is bringing a bunch of beers that I want to try, will probably stand at their booth for a while. The first four breweries on their list is very interesting and Harviestoun brews one of the best lagers I have ever tried, so hopefully I can try some more beers from that brewery.
There are also allot of other breweries and importers that I haven’t mentioned but something that seems worth mentioning are the producers displayed under “ÖVRIGA”. There are some cheese and chocolate companies and also Torslundskagge who makes wooden barrels, one beer that use them is Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter.
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