I was invited to my friends in Denmark over the New Year, Aarhus to be precise, and decided to go for it – I’m growing a bit tired of the Edinburgh Hogmanay, anyway. Thanks to our Irish friends I managed to get there quite cheaply, which is always a bonus. That said, I think I’ll stay away from Ryan Air from now on – but don’t worry, I won’t bore you with the details of my travel arrangements.
There is, to my knowledge, only one Danish distillery, and unfortunately I did not have the opportunity to visit it nor try their produce while I was there. My hosts are not the biggest of whisky drinkers – I don’t hold this against them, though, as they make up for it with a passion for beer. I’ve always been under the impression that not too many breweries existed in Scandinavia, and that the ones they do have largely produce standard lager (bleh!). Obviously there are some well known and noteworthy exceptions to this rule such as Nils Oscar, Mikkeller and Haandbryggeriet, to name one from each country, but on large… Well, I didn’t think they had much to offer.
As it turns out, though, I was wrong. Beer is apparently a growing trend in Scandinavia, and microbreweries are – or so I’ve been told – thriving. During my visit I had the opportunity to try several Danish beers, and I may come to write reviews of them all, but the most noteworthy experience was our visit to Sct. Clemens brewery. Sct. Clemens in situated right in the middle of Aarhus and offers a selection of 4 beers at any given time, all of which are brewed in the very room you drink them in. Seeing the massive mash tuns, coppers, and fermenters that your beer has been brewed in as you drink it adds a fantastic atmospheric quality to the experience, I loved it.
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And so, once more, we return to the fantastic world of historic Scottish ale, courtesy of the Williams Brothers. I’ve already reviewed Fraoch, Kelpie, Ebulum and Alba, and the only remaining beer in their historical collection is Grozet. As I don’t want Grozet to feel too lonely, though, I’m also going to review Roisin in this post – while it’s not historical ale, it is a Williams Brothers expression.
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Having reviewed Alba and Fraoch already, I couldn’t resist reviewing their other “Historic Ales” as well. After all, they’ve got that authentically Scottish feel to them and that, in many ways, is what this blog is about. The historic range includes another three ales, but I had my heart set on reviewing them in pairs – and so I ruddy well shall. The solution is simple; I’m going to review one of their non-historic ales as well.
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The Williams Bros is a Scottish micro brewery that has been around since 1988, famed for their outstanding Heather Ale. While they are mainly known for Fraoch, which is their heather ale, they’ve got several other brews under their belt as well, most of them fantastic. In this post, I thought I’d take a look at two of their expressions; Fraoch itself, and Alba.
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It was Tuesday, and I was going out to see a show. Environmentally conscious as I am, and a decent enough evening as it was, I decided to cycle to the pub where I was meeting my dear friend before going to a comedy show (the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is the world’s biggest comedy/arts festival, is on at the moment). Inevitably, I ended up having just one or two more pints than I probably ought to, and decided it would perhaps be a bad idea to cycle home. What I didn’t think was that someone would spot my lonely bicycle and go “hey, wouldn’t it be super-fun to kick this to bits?”, but of course they ruddy did.
Hence I wonder: who are these absolute mongrels anyway? Walking home after dropping my bike off to be fixed (which will cost at least £50, apparently) I actually spotted 3 (THREE) other bikes that had endured similar treatments. Who? Why?
Anyway, enough moaning. The show I went to see was Pappy’s All Business and it was actually hilarious – perhaps not worth the extra £50 on top of the £12 ticket, but definitely worth seeing. The only negative was that the beer on offer at the bar outside the venue wasn’t great… I had to drink Heineken! The pub we went to beforehand did have a pleasant surprise in stock though, namely the new-ish Pilsen from the Scottish Stewart brewery. I’m not normally a massive fan of theirs; I quite like Edinburgh Gold but their 80/- is about as boring as beer gets.
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This isn’t the first time that I’ve mentioned BrewDog on the blog – they’re a Scottish brewery of modern, bold ales. While they’ve only been around since 2007, they’ve already made quite the name for themselves on a global scale; partly due to the high quality of their products, but partly due to releases such as their Tokyo stout (18.2% abv) which was banned in the UK due to a combination of its high alcohol content and the provocative label which “encouraged excess”, or indeed Sink the Bismarck (41% abv), released 2010, which is the world’s strongest beer*.
Controversy aside, if you look past their cocky labels (“This is an aggressive beer. We don’t care if you don’t like it” and “it is quite doubtful that you have the taste or sophistication to appreciate the depth, character and quality of this premium craft brewed beer” are excerpts from the Punk Dog IPA label, for example) and the tough-guy image, their beers are generally of exceptional quality, and Paradox Isle of Arran did not disappoint!
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