Barbãr Winter Bok

A dark beer, for those cold and dark Swedish days. A bit sour (like that!) and a touch of honey. The sour part of the taste makes the honey even less distinct than it is in a ‘normal’ Barbãr and it also makes it almost taste refreshing! If you can call a Barbãr normal, that is. My partner in crime on this blog dislikes the honey taste of the normal barbãr (he dislikes rauchbier, he dislikes honeybeer, what’s left I would say?!) but this one he actually might enjoy. The bottle says it contains 2.5% of honey, but don’t expect to be overwhelmed by it.

It’s an easy to drink beer, not a very complex or heavy taste, but be aware: 8% alcohol. I couldn’t find it on the Systembolaget website, so you’ll have to hunt it down yourselves over here.

Other Barbãrs can be found at http://www.brasserielefebvre.be/

Stone Smoked Porter

Lately, Beerstation has been trying out several of the quality porters from Närke Kulturbryggeri and Dugges so this American porter had some milage to cover to reach the standard of those. Not that porter happen to be the topmost favourite kind of beer of any of us, but if it’s something Beerstation knows when we see it, it’s quality!

The commercial wording on the bottle talks about a “rich, dark and delicious porter with chocolate and coffee overtones“, and anyone familiar with porters know this comes as nothing surprising. But then it gets a bit more interesting as we read on to learn “accented by a subtle smokiness“. And yes, there we have it! Honestly, I can’t stand the german deviant known as rauchbier – the smoked beer. What twisted minds came up with this craptacular brew? Atrocious at best, this type of beer is best served: Never!

But Stones subtle smokiness in their porter brought no horror to the table. It was a very pleasant experience actually. Aromawize, this beer actually came out a bit slow out of its starting box as there was not much to inhale to be honest. But the taste for sure had its horses racing! We’re presented with a rich (but not overwhelmingly so) and sweet, roasty taste where the chocolate and coffee flavors dominate, but still allow for the subtle smokiness to present itself. This is a very nice beer, and I’d like to try it again with a chocolate dessert sometime.

3 Fonteinen Kriek van Schaerbeekse Krieken

Wow… that was a ride. Tender, full bodied, sour though still sweet, with a nice ‘old’ aftertaste. We tried to came up with a nice word for the aftertaste, but failed to do so. It’s ‘old’ in way.

I asked for a dark, though sour, kriek at Akkurat. Johan, one of the bartenders came up with this one. And spot-on it was. If you have some cash to spend (the bottle we ordered was 305 SEK for 75cl.), it’s well worth the effort. We’ve been pondering a bit on what kind of food you could drink this beer to and we came up with reindeer with some lingonberry sylt/marmelade. Try it… it’s mindblowing.

Unfortunately not available at Systembolaget, so you’ll have to head for Akkurat or any other beer specialized pub.

Rodenbach

It felt like jumping back in time when I drank this beer last week. I actually don’t really recall when I had it the last time, but it must have been around my 19th birthday. Double that and you know my age.The taste is soft sour with some fruity elements. It goes a bit towards Kriek, just not completely. Refreshing it is! I would say this is a good ’starter’ if you’re new to the world of special beers (that is, everything beyond plain old yellow lager)Location: Akkurat, Stockholm, draught Alcohol: 5.0% Sold at SystemBolaget for 13.90 SEK in a 250ml bottle.