So my first year at university is finally coming to an end. Exams and essays have taken all my time lately so the blog has been put on hold, but now it's time to kick start the blogging again for our upcoming road trip! On monday the adventure begins and hopefully you will be able to follow our adventure right here. For today I'm sampling a never tried before summer ale and an old favorite.
Brooklyn Summer Ale 4,5%
Earlier today while sorting last minute details for our trip I swung by Systembolaget(the only legal place to buy strong alcohol in Sweden)to pick up some wine for the weekend. I was pleasantly surprised to see a new product from the Brooklyn Brewery, the Brooklyn Summer Ale. Seeing that in the next week we will visit the brewery I thought it would be fitting to try it out. I really like some of their other products like the Brooklyn Lager and the Brooklyn East India Pale Ale so expectations were high. It has a nice pale amber color however the taste proves to be a big disappointment. It is really bland. I believe summer ales should have a nice hoppy bitterness to them but there's nothing here. I get a vague bready flavor that disappears before i can try to describe it, almost like someone took a good tasting beer and mixed it ot with water. I think the only nice thing I can say about this beer is that it comes in a neat bottle.
7 Giraffes Extraordinary Ale 5,1%
We sold this gem in the bar i work at awhile ago and we could hardly keep it in stock before it sold out. An exciting concoction of 7 types of malted barley, various hops, elderberry flowers and lemon zest brewed at Williams Bros Brewery in Scotland. I really like this beer even though i remembered it of packing more of a punch. Might be my taste buds aren't working as they should today and if so maybe I misjudged the earlier beer but even so the difference in taste between these two is astronomical. Rather low in alcohol it still carries the flavors and the elderberry flowers bring a wonderful subtle bitterness that stays for long in your mouth. Cant say that I can taste the lemon zest but there is a crispness in the taste that might derive from that. This is what you want in a summer ale. Refreshing and weak enough so you can drink a few without getting to round under your feet(my favorite swedish expression that translates really bad).
With that I leave you for now and hopefully some of you will follow our journey the next month. Our route can be found in an earlier entry in this blog.
“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” – Mark Jenkins
Safe journey!
ReplyDeletePa and Ma