The Session: Label, Coaster and Cap Art

The first Friday each month is the day for The Session. The Session is the beer writing project where beer writers and bloggers from around the globe write on a single beer-related topic on the same day. This month the topic is "Label, Coaster and Cap Art", and it is hosted by Curtis Taylor at Hop Head Said. Thanks for hosting, Curtis! And also thanks for finding a beer related topic that is both imaginative and nice to write about.

Coasters or beer mats are a kind of merchandise I find interesting. I fancy drinking beer out of original branded glasses, and I try to buy some of the beer glasses I really like. Coasters are also of interest. Especially because pubs and bars rarely offer them here in Norway. Therefore I often ask waiters and bartenders abroad if I can take coasters home from the bar. They add to the enjoyment of having a beer at home, and they are also excellent souvenirs after a great vacation.

My beer travels have usually been to the Czech Republic. Therefore most of my coasters are Czech. Here is a collection of some of my favourites:

Pilsner Urquell is one of my favourite beers. This beer mat has a simple, but striking design focusing on a beer bottle label. The coaster from Pivovarský Klub in Prague uses the pub's logo. It is effective, and it is a fine coaster. The little brewpub Pražský most u Valšů in Prague shows hops, grains and beer in something I feel is a nice and nearly epic design. Svijany's beer mat is also visually striking combining a keg and the beautiful Svijany logo.

But my favourite? I like this coaster from the Ježek brewery quite a lot. It has a simple but enjoyable design. And it is difficult not liking the cute hedgehog.

The Session: Sour beer

It has been a while since I have contributed to The Session. This month I am back, and this time the topic is "Sour beer" and it is hosted by Jon Abernathy at The Brew Site. Thanks for hosting, Jon!

The Session is the beer writing project where beer writers and bloggers from around the globe write on a single beer-related topic on the same day.

I have never tried a sour beer before, so this month's The Session was a great starting point. My local supermarkets do not sell sour beers, so I had to check out the nearest Vinmonopolet outlet.

There were not that many beers to be found there. I found some Belgian triples and several IPAs and porters together with the occational pale lagers that are too strong to be found in Norwegian supermarkets. But there were no sour beers in the beer section.

By chance I went to the shelf with the newest products from Vinmonopolet. Among wine bottles and liquor I found one beer bottle. And guess what! It was a sour beer. I had hoped to find a Belgian lambic or gueuze. Instead I found Mikkeler Spontanale. The Danish brewery calls it a geubic, by the way.

Mikkeler Spontanale was a fizzy, pale beer with a tiny head. In the nose I found some fruit and a touch of yeast. The taste was very different to what I expected. I felt lemon, some spices and a touch of vinegar. It was not a favourite, and I believe this beer to be an acquired taste.

I will try other sour beers in the future, but there are other beers that suits my palate better at the moment. For instance is a can of Pilsner Urquell waiting for me in the refridgerator right now.

The Session: New Beer's Resolution

I would like to wish all readers of this blog a Happy New Year. And this time around it is great to combine the new year's wishes with this month's edition of The Session.

The Session is of course the beer writing project where beer writers and bloggers from around the globe write on a single beer-related topic on the same day. This month the topic is "New Beer's Resolutions" and it is hosted by Beer For Chicks.

Beer For Chicks have chosen to make this month's edition of The Session a kind of beer enquete. And here are the questions and answers, and they are a great follow up to the Best of 2009 posts here on Beer Sagas last month.

So we want to know what was your best and worst of beer for 2009?
Best beer was the Kout na Šumavě 12° unfiltered lager. An excellent beer - and a delight to taste. I had mine at the U Slovanské Lípi pub in Prague, and I recommend this beer from all of my heart. The worst was Grans Bare Jul - a terrible Norwegian Christmas beer with metallic tones that drowned all taste that might have been in the beer.

What beer mistakes did you make?
The biggest beer mistake I did in 2009 was not stocking up on Nøgne Ø's Christmas beer Special Holiday Ale. This was a truly great beer, and I had two bottles that I enjoyed thoroughly, but I would love to have had more of it.

What beer resolutions do you have for 2010?
Drink more beer! I also hope to visit the Oktoberfest in Munich and get to the Czech Beer Festival in Prague.

What are your beer regrets and embarrassing moments?
Thankfully they are not to be remembered. Nuff said! :-)

What are you hoping to change about your beer experience in 2010?
Actually, I do not know what to change right now. I just want to go on enjoying beer.

The Session: Summer Beers

Once again this blog is happy to join this month's edition of The Session. This time The Session is hosted by BetterBeerBlog, and the topic is "Summer beers". In my opinion this is a great topic, and I would like to quote from the announcement: "With the summer coming to a close, what was your favorite beer of the summer? It doesn’t even have to be from this summer. Is it a lager or maybe a light bodied wheat ale? Maybe you’re drinking anti-seasonally and are having a barleywine or Russian Imperial Stout. Why is this beer your favorite? Is there a particular memory associated with this beer? How about a city? Maybe there was a particular dish that made this beer memorable? Spare no detail."

Well, this summer has really been a beer summer for me. I tried some new beers, and many of them were drunk under hot temperatures in France. France is in my opinion not the typical beer country, and I had many great afternoons and evenings trying the local wines. I was not impressed by the French beers, as they were generally sweet eurolagers and are not among my favourite beers.

Lots of lagers in a French supermarket.

Instead I would like to go back in time to the last few years and my summer visits to the Czech Republic. As the readers of this blog already know, I am very fond of the Czech Republic and the beers brewed there. I have spent several weeks the last few years visiting Prague and enjoying the local beers. In lagerland lager is of course king, and in summertime I usually prefer lagers to other beers. A nice, cold lager is perfect in hot Summer temperatures, and the Czech ones are of very high quality.

Pilsner Urquell, here as served at U Sadu in Prague.

I have brought home some of my Czech likings. Pilsner Urquell is one of my favourite lager beers, and as it is widely available here in Norway it has been a regular summer beer for me also this year. Of course, Pilsner Urquell is best from tap in the tankova restaurants and hospodas in the Czech Republic, but it tastes very good from can here in Norway when you compare it to the local efforts of Norwegian macro breweries like Ringnes, Grans or Hansa.

Erdinger weissbier

The last few years wheat beers have also been a favourite for me. Here in Norway it is easy to get hold of several German weissbeers at Vinmonopolet. While I more or less only drank lager beer before, wheat beers are now a common sight in our fridge.

Primator Weizen served at Prvni Pivni Tramway in Prague.

Here in Norway Erdinger and Paulaner weizen is easy to find, and in my opinion Paulaner is a real gem and the best of the two. I tasted Primator weizen in Prague and I liked it a lot, and it might even be better than the Paulaner effort.

A Norwegian weizen from Aass brewery. It is
unfortunately inferior to the German weissbiers.

In France I also drank some Hoegaarden witbiers. That was a great wheat beer with lots of citrus notes in it. It was one of my summer favourites this year, and it was a great thirst quencher in 30+ Centigrades heat. When I came home to Bergen, I ordered it at the local Henrik bar. The waitress asked me why I liked it, as it was not one of her favourites. I told her that it was great in summertime. She said that a lot of the bar's costumers told her the same, but she would not agree.

Hoegaarden at Henrik in Bergen.

In the meantime Autumn is here, and soon there will be a new Summer!

The Session: Will travel for beer

This month's edition of The Session has "Will travel for beer" as its topic. For myself the journey itself is more important than the beer, but if I have travelled somewhere I need to taste the local beer. I always read about my destinations in guide books and on the internet. It is very important knowing in advance what to expect. Wikitravel and Wikipedia are good sources for basic facts, and now and then some very good tips are found there. For instance I found the excellent U Sadu pub in Prague after reading about in on Wikitravel, and I visited three great gyro stands in Athens from information on the same website.

Nowadays Prague has become a favourite destination of mine. The city offers interesting sights, exciting architechture and good activities and playgrounds for my children. And there are also good opportunities to find good beer in the Czech capital. I have found many gems by reading Pivni Filosof's blog. He has been writing about nice pubs and hospodas, interesting beers and good food. For Prague I can also recommend Evan Rail's book The Good Beer Guide to Prague and the Czech Republic.

Evan Rail's blog, Beer Culture, is also a worthwhile read. You can also find interesting entries about Prague in Velky Al's blog Fuggled. For expats (and also visitors) the expats.cz website has tons of information about Prague and the Czech Republic. There is also a good forum there. I have also liked reading Brewsta's blog Czech Please, where he writes about food in Prague. He visits both small stands, fast food joints and finer restaurants, and his texts are both informative and entertaining. In addition to these websites, you should also take a look at Prague BeerGardens. Here you can find information about many pubs and beer gardens in Prague together with maps. There are also presentations of different Czech beers.

I also liked the book Me, Myself and Prague: An Unbelievable Guide to Bohemia by Rachael Weiss. The Australian author tells about a year living in Prague, and it is very interesting seeing how she evaluates her Czech experiences with both seriousness and some humour.

I have written some short guides about Prague on this blog earlier. Part 1 can be found here, and part 2 is here. Perhaps you would also like to try my take on a Prague pub crawl?

In addition to the pub crawl I have a real beer gem to tell you about: U Slovanske Lipy.

U Slovanske Lipy is found at Tachovske namesti.

Interior at U Slovanske Lipy.

This is a nice taproom in the Zizkov part of Prague. U Slovanske Lipy is not a fancy place, but it has very nice waiters and fabulous beers. The beers come from the Kout na Šumavě brewery, and this pub was the first one in Prague to offer this beer in Prague.


When I visited the hospoda for the first time, it was in December together with Pivni Filosof. I am thankful and happy for him to introduce me to this great taproom. We had a really good time tasting the different beers. They have two golden lagers and two darker beers.


All four beers are excellent, and they are available at great prices. In January a half litre of their lezak costed 25 CZK.

Kout na Šumavě's 12° lager beer

That is a bargain for a really delicious lager beer, which I feel is one of the best I have ever tasted. Their vycepni is lighter in alcohol, but it is also a great tasting beer.

Kout na Šumavě's 10° lager beer

There are also two darker beers. Both are stronger than the lager beers in alcohol, and they taste very good. The 18° dark beer was my favourite among them, but the strong beer is not recommended as a session beer. Have a glass, and come back later for some more.

Kout na Šumavě's 14° dark lager beer

Kout na Šumavě's 18° dark beer

Or perhaps you should try a Czech tradition, the dzban. A dzban is a jug you bring along to the taproom to take home beer to drink. I do not use a dzban, but a water bottle can be used instead. So every time I have visited U Slovanske Lipy I have taken some 12° lager beer to my hotel room. It is so much better than the Gambrinus usually found in the minibar!

Hmm. Good beer. Perhaps I should return to Prague soon?

The Session: Smoked beers

It is time for another edition of The Session, and this time the theme is smoked beers. I have very little experience in smoked beers, so I took a visit to the nearest Vinomopolet outlet. There I found Ächt Schlenkerla Rauchbier Märzen - a German smoked beer from Bamberg.

Poured into the glass, the Schlenkerla märzen is dark brown with no visible carbonation. It has a solid, large head, and it smells like smoke with distinct notes of smoked mackerel.

The first taste tells me that the smoked fish is still there, but now it is accompanied with smoked bacon. Afterwards the smoky feeling stays in the mouth. The crisps on my plate taste less, and the Danish gräddost cheese is more or less tasteless.

I feel that this smoked beer is an acquired taste. I will not say no if I am offered it by a friend, but I will not actively seek it out. But I will absolutely have a lager beer or two and some smoked ham later tonight.

The Session: Love Lager

For the first time, this blog is a part of The Session, where beer bloggers from around the world write from their own unique perspective on a single topic. This time the topic is "Love Lager", and here are my thoughts.

For most people here in Norway beer is the same as lager. Most beers sold in this country are lagers, and when travelling abroad the Norwegian continues his search for lagers in bars, restaurants or tax free outlets. The Heinekens, Tuborgs, Stellas or Carlsbergs of the world are his goal.

Do lagers taste good? If you ask me, the answer is yes. But there is quite a difference between the excellent lagers and the more mediocre ones. The largest breweries known all over the world such as Heineken, Carlsberg and Foster make drinkable beers. Sure, I prefer other brands than these, but if I am thirsty a pint of Heineken is better than no beer.

This pint of Heineken was like reaching an oasis in the desert. After a long flight, Heineken from draft (in a plastic cup) at Schiphol airport was a sensation.

Most of the beers I drink at home are lagers. My first lager was a Norwegian one, Hansa Pils. Hansa's Pils has been a stable among my beer buys ever since. OK, there are better lagers than Hansa, but Hansa is more or less my first beer love. I have had it many times. These days it is not my number one beer, but it will always be there for me. Just like the sweetheart from high school. You know, the cute one you like to remember like she was way back then.

Tasty: Also a Heineken. This time from draft in Greece on a very hot day.

Nowadays my love for lagers continue. After some visits to the Czech Republic, I have found that our Norwegian lagers can not compare. Give me your Pilsner Urquells, your Svijanys, your Cerna Horas or your Klasters. Bring on your Kozels or Bernards. They have an excellent taste, and they make our own lagers tasteless or much too sweet when compared. But also those more tasteless brews are lagers. And I like lagers!

The top of the crop. The lager I yearn for: Kout na Sumave. Thanks to Pivni Filosof for introducing me to this excellent lager and the U Slovanské Lípi hospoda while visiting Prague last December. That was a treat!