Hanne på Høyden is a restaurant in
Bergen with a good reputation. The courses are made with local ingredients, and the restaurant specializes in slow food. This year Hanne på Høyden started a micro brewery inside the restaurant. As far as I know, four beers have been made at Hanne på Høyden so far.
Earlier this week I visited Hanne på Høyden for the first time. Inside I found a charming room with a bar as the central point. A tap promising Hansa draught beer was not what I expected. I would have thought that there would be a tap advertising Hanne på Høyden's own beers. The friendly and charming waitress told me that they did not sell their own beers from tap. Instead these beers were available in bottles, and that day a wit beer and a brown ale were for sale.
I chose the wit and was given a bottle of Den wite dame. This is a word play on a traditional Norwegian cream cake called Hvit dame (White lady in English). The beer was a little bit cloudy, but still paleish in colour. There was some carbonation and nearly no head. In the nose I felt yeast, apple and some sourness. In the mouth there was grains, bread, honey melon and some sweetness before a watery finish with a touch of strawberry. I would have preferred this beer with a fuller body and less watery, but it was still a fine wit beer. The alcohol content was 4.9%.
I will be back at Hanne på Høyden, and it will be interesting to see how new batches and other beer styles will turn out. But the beer is very expensive. I paid 119 NOK for a bottle of Den wite dame. That is nearly 13 GBP. Other bars in Bergen sell half litres of craft beer from breweries like Nøgne Ø, Kinn, Ægir and Haandbryggeriet at around 100 NOK or less.
During my stay in Bergen, I went back to Hanne på Høyden. The cozy restaurant can also be called a brewpub, as beers are being brewed on the premises. At the moment there are four beers available at Hanne på Høyden: A wheat beer, a brown ale, an IPA and a stout. All beers are brewed in cooperation with Kristiania Haandbryggerlaug in Oslo.
I tried the wit during my last stay, so this time around I chose the IPA. The Hanne på Høyden beers are served in 0.33 litre bottles with labels printed out on an inkjet printer. That is a charming touch, but I still prefer drinking draught beer on pub and restaurant visits.
The IPA is called Lehmkuhls last and has its name from Bergen's sailship, Statsraad Lehmkuhl. In the glass the Lehmkuhls last IPA had a copper colour. It was cloudy with some carbonation and a large head. In the nose I felt citrus scents dominated by grapefruit and some spices. The beer tasted bitter, but far from the fruity touch I felt in the nose. Actually, I found the taste rather boring. The finish had grapefruit and apricot. In all, Lehmkuhls last is an average IPA. There are better IPAs out there from Norwegian breweries, and the price tag of 119 NOK for 0.33 litre of beer is much too high. But still I am looking forward to trying more beers from Hanne på Høyden.
