Monks Porter House and a Dutch Porter

Today I visited Monks Café Porter House at Munkbron 11 in Stockholm. Thank you Linus and Emma for showing up, I had a great time!

The porterhouse is the third out of three different Monks Café in Stockholm, and being opened in august this year also the one of the more recent addition to the Stockholm pub scene. Eventually it will host not only a beer café restaurant but also a porter/stout brewery.

The entrance is a little odd and I get the feeling of having mistakenly ended up in the stockroom but after finding the staircase down to the basement from the 17'th century I feel a lot better. The brick walls with low vaults are combined with modern lightening and cool led screen menus promoting the current offers. That is actually an unnecessary convenience detail considering the quite impressive range of beers they have on both draught (56 to be exact) and bottles (according to the website the three restaurant together offer 1700 different beers).

The bar is nice but I will have to return at something of a more crowded night than a Monday to properly judge it. Anyhow my first impression is better than the other two Monks Café's (Wallingatan and Sveavägen). I will follow up later with a review and I will also follow with interest how the place settles.

Today, I had a De Molen Hammer & Sikkel from a 330 ml bottle after a great special offer for followers of the Monksevent twitter. 60 SEK for a bottle is a bargain since it usually goes for the double. The Hammer & Sikkel is a classic porter with 5.9 % abv and fairly dry.

The beer has a great head, which lasts for a while but after some five minutes fall down to eventually more or less disappear. The colour is intensely dark brown and opaque and the head has a white-coffee-tone.

On the nose it's a intensive smell of coffee and chocolate with a little bit of Chinese soy. It is highly malty and gives away a strong mineral scent.

The taste is a little off dry and has a little acidic twist. The aromas are mainly coffee, nuts, burnt malt, chocolate and earthy aromas with a little tone of ash in the long end. The nutty character makes the mouth feeling a little fatty.

It is a highly complex beer but I find the acidic twist a little too strong and I grade the the beer 6/10.

Best of regards
Lucas Spinnars

Reutberg Aegidus-Trunk Kellerbier

Tonight I had the opportunity to try a Reutberg Aegidus-Trunk Kellerbier. It's a seasonal beer from one of my absolute favourite breweries. It's not one of the top-modern experimental craft-brews that has turned increasingly popular during the last decades. This is rather the ultra traditional type of brewery, upholding the 350 year old traditions of the bavarian monestrary-brewcraft. That's half of the charm, but when it comes down to the liquid in the glass it's also downright top quality!

Aegidus-Trunk Kellerbier is a non filtered beer with 5,3 % abv. The colour is medium intense amber and slightly cloudy, with a nice off white head. The nose is malty and full with dried fruits, but not as intense as stronger beers usually possessing the same characteristics. The taste is at first intensely malty and medium sweet with a very low bitterness. Short after there is a full taste of, burned sugar, dried apricots, fudge and sweet rye-bread. In the after taste there is a little bitterness far back in the mouth and the bitter sensation has some similarities with that in coffee.

Over all it's a very good beer offering a little less alcoholic alternative to many of those beers that suit well with the autumn inspired stews. I could also see a potential good match with forest mushrooms! I rate this old-style october-fest beer 7,5/10.

The beer is named after the festivities in honour of the greek Saint Giles (originally Aegidius) who was made saint of the crippled. The story says that he was living as a hermit deep in the forest only in the company of a hind that actually fed him with her milk. He was eventually mistakenly shot by an arrow aimed at the deer.

Reutberg is situated just outside Bad-Tölz in Bavaria and the beer-garden is a must when visiting the area!

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Lucas Spinnars

Bona Sera - Fine Pizza Dining in Helsingborg

Today I was back to have the best pizza on offer in Helsingborg. Officially it's best in Scandinavia and i wouldn't be surprised if it was the best in the world. Last week I took takeaway from La Pizza (read my earlier post) but today i visited the high quality restaurant next doors, offering the same pizzas. Buona Sera is the name of the restaurant at Drottninggatan 124.

The wine list is excellent offering everything from simplier Italian table wines to vintage selections of Sassicaia and Masseto. The Italian selection is then topped up with some French spice such as Château Haut Brion 1990 at the moderate price of 14,995 SEK (approx. 1,600 €) or a bottle of Chateau d'Yquem for the same price... Maybe another day...

The waitress presented herself as new for today, and unfortunately I don't think she was only new to the restaurant. I think she might never have waited tables before. She was stumbling a bit but made it up with good attitude and a nice smile. As a little heads up I'm more concerned about things as some chipped plates.

Nevertheless, the atmosphere in the restaurant is nice and stylish, even though laid back. Today, Sunday it was not very crowded. Swedes have a tendency to stay home Sunday nights for Sunday dinner at home. Other nights of the week I recommend to reserve a table as it's usually packed.

Pizzas were just as delicious as last time and completely impossible to give any bad criticism what so ever!

Don't expect the highest of fine dining service but come here for a nice pizza or a good italian dinner accompanied by good wine. Apart from the interiour which is in a modern swedish-style rather than Italian, the feeling is very Italian; focus on the food and take the rest for what it is!

Don't miss out on trying the Italian microbrew beer Gradisca from the Italain craft brewery Birra Amarcord. It's a great company to most starters that would usually request white wine, or as a starter in itself. Tomorrow I'll post a note specifically on the Birra Amarcord Gradisca.

Best regards
Lucas Spinnars

Best pizza ever with a great beer

I occasionally like to publish restaurant reviews here and yesterday I had the best pizza of my life and felt that obliged to share it with the world. La Pizza in Helsingborg at Drottninggatan 124 sets as their goal to provide humanity with pizza that fills another purpose than merely being junk food.

If they succeed? I would definitely say so. They call all their pizzas gourmet-pizza and if gourmet food is available at the price of 85 SEK I'm all in!

My pizza with real Italian salsiccia, red onion, grilled artichoke and mushrooms was absolutely delicious. I've spent considerable time in Italy and as a big lover of pizza the number of pizzas I've eaten is remarkably high. This one beats 'em all!

La Pizza shows off with having won the Scandinavian championships in pizza-making. It is a title they well deserve!

The pizza-place is mainly for take-away and host only two small outside tables. There is though a really nice Italian restaurant next doors if one is in the mood for finer dining (read another of my posts). I brought my pizza a couple of hundred meters down to the esplanade by the shoreline. There I had one of the best spots for watching the sun-down in Helsingborg just opposing Hamlet's castle Kronborg in Helsingør.

The pizza was in good company with a Brewdog Zeitgeist. A good black lager made of organic goods by the controversial Scottish brewery Brewdog. Controversial in the sense that they recently brewed the strongest beer ever made and having as their marketing attitude to make beers that they don't care if anyone else like - as long as they like it themselves. The Zeitgeist is a very humanely priced beer, fairly full-bodied full with dark bread, chocolate and coffee flavours. The alcohol is quite low, measuring only 4,9% abv, and the sweetness goes hand in hand with that. The sweetness is thus not particularly high and gives a beer that can accompany a wide range of dishes without overpowering them.

All for now! Love pizza from La Pizza Helsingborg and enjoy it with a Zeitgeist Organic Black Lager from BrewDog!

Best regards

Lucas Spinnars

Helsingborg

Beer Tasting in Championship Mode

I'm back in Sweden and I am once again being spoiled with the selection of Systembolaget. Some people may argue about the taxes and the high prices of the lower end wines but I have to express my thankfulness towards the monopoly. Having a Norwegian friend here visiting who is not quite as used to the selection I took him to Systembolaget at Regeringsgatan in Stockholm and we got into a little beer shopping spree.

We bought 16 more or less randomly selected lager beers in order to do a semi-blind lager tasting in championship mode. Semi-blind in the sense that we knew what beers that were represented in the tasting but had no insight in what beer was served each time. Maybe inspired from the world championships in football we decided to have a championship mode of the tasting in order to have a clear winner. We tasted two beers at the time and the winner of each round moved on to the next round.

The matches went as follows, we were three tasters but I've marked my own succession:

Bitburger (winner)
Stella Artois

Breznak (winner)
Becks

Gösser (winner)
Jever

Carlsberg Hof
San Miguel (winner)

St Eriks Pilsner
Brewdog Lager 77 (winner)

Amstel
Staropramen (winner)

Mariestad Prima Lager (winner)
Spendrups Old Gold

Guldkällan Vit
Dugges No 1 Lager (winner)

Quarter finals:

Bitburger
Breznak (winner)

Gösser (winner)
San Miguel

Brewdog Lager 77 (winner)
Staropramen

Mariestad Prima Lager
Dugges Lager no 1 (winner)

Semi finals:

Breznak (winner)
Gösser

Brewdog Lager 77
Dugges Lager No 1 (winner)

The final was consequentiality between the Czech Breznak and the Swedish microbrew Lager No 1 from Dugges. In the final it was not a too difficult victory for Dugges Lager No 1 but the price difference between those is also remarkable. Breznak sells for 10,30 SEK per 330 ml bottle (31,21 SEK / litre) and Dugges Lager no. 1 sells for 24,90 SEK per 500 ml bottle (49,80 SEK / litre). One might argue for that Lager no 1 did have a more difficult way to the final than Breznak but it should anyhow state an example of the quality of the low price Czech lager.

Interesting is that my Norwegian friend ended up with exactly the same final as I did after having chosen partly different winners in the first round. He also chose Lager no 1 as winner.

My girlfriend also participated in the tasting and she ended up with partly different results and a final between St Eriks Pilsner and Breznak. She chose Breznak as winner and with all the three of us having the beer go all the way to the final we concluded it as a winner in our little championship.

The main point of this post is to inspire you readers to a fun evening and a very easy going tasting that leaves little room for nerdy thoughts and tasting notes. Rather it focuses on pure appreciation and what one actually likes the best!

Enjoy a good evening!

7-Stern a Microbrewey Vienna with some weird beer

Recently I visited the 7stern (siebenstern) brewery pub in Vienna. For beer interested people it is close to an institution in this city even though its commercial focus tend to overwhelm the brewart that obviously is possessed by the brewmaster. With selection of 7 regular beers they occasionally leave room also for seasonal specialities such as a Maibock during the spring.

The pub is way much bigger than it looks from the outside and with the big polished copper mash tuns behind the bar it is a charming place to hang out an evening or two. If you don't feel attracted by the place but are curious about their beers there is a vending machine by the entrance where you can by their beers freshly bottled.

The Märzen is in my opinon the best beer in the selection. In a traditional Märzen style, far from these blonde light lagerbeers that are today sold as märzen (note Zipfer, Murauer, Gösser etc), this is a brown-reddish, cloudy beer, close to opaque with powerful taste. With an alcohol strength of 5,1% it offers a lot of body and lot of taste without being to heavy. There is a hint of sweetness that does not feel caramelly or sticky and a fruity hoppiness reminding strongly of rose hip.

The second most interesting beer represents a category that makes me happy to see around. Rauchbeer (smoke-beer, or smoked beer) is a German forgotten art today being more or less only sold by under the label of Aecht Schenkerla wich is hardly a commercial brew but still widely available all over Europe (in Sweden found at SB with the number 1359). At 7stern they brew and sell a beer with a distinct smell of smoke, as the sort of tone you would get from smoked salmon. It's dry with a little acidic aftertaste and a hint of liquorice. It's without doubt a beer to be accompanied by food, smoked or grilled with quite a lot of fat is probably the best.

Apart from these two they make a lager and a Prager Dunkles (Prague Dark - Černé) of good but not remarkable quality. They also make two less appealing flavoured beers. One is being brewed with hemp giving the beer a greenish taste that appears a little fat and reminds of olive oil. The other one is a chilibeer with a spice that kills everything else. It's a light lager and the burn is overwhelming everything else. Along with a grilled chicken with a mango-lime salsa I could imagine it as a good pair though. These, close to weird and bordering to unserious beers, could in my eyes very well leave space for someting more interesting, maybe a wheat-beer or a Chech Granate.

I have not had time to try their Maibock yet but I will have to go by and taste it before it's out of season!

So long
Lucas Spinnars

Links:

7stern brewery pub (English and German)

Černé (Swedish)
Oktoberfest med hela historien om Märzen (Swedish)