From Father Christmas

It is New Year, but the various Christmas beers are still available here in Norway in shops, supermarkets and Vinmonopolet. One of the Christmas beers is Haandbryggeriet's Nissefar. Nissefar means Father Christmas in Norwegian, and Haandbryggeriet also sells Nissemor, which could be translated to English as Mary Christmas.


This beer builds a large head in the glass. It is almost black with some carbonation. The nose is exciting with several scents I can not pinpoint, but there is a prominent feeling of coffee and chocolate. In the mouth there are many tastes competing for the lead. The coffee and chocolate is there still, but they are supplemented by raisins and a solid dose of bitterness. The bitterness stays through the aftertaste, and in the end this beer gets too bitter for me.

Still, a nice Christmas beer from Haandbryggeriet, but this Christmas I would rather go for Nøgne Ø's Special Holiday Ale og Aass' Juleøl Premium.

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.

New kid on the block

A new Norwegian craft brewery has been started in Florø in western Norway. The little Kinn brewery had its first batches of beer ready for sale earlier this month. According to the brewery's website, the first beers are two Christmas beers (Julefred 4.7% and 6.5%) and Pilegrim, a pale ale with 4.7% alcohol.

As I visited Naboen during the Christmas days, the excellent Bergen pub had started selling draughted Pilegrim. It is available on the new handpump replacing the Haandbryggeriet beers that were available there earlier this year. Of course, I had to try out this new beer.

Pilegrim Pale Ale is a cloudy amber beer with a lasting, medium sized head. In the nose there are hints of hops, but otherwise very little aroma. The beer is medium bodied, and the hoppyness follows through in the mouth. The aftertaste is very bitter, and I feel it should have been more balanced. Still, it is the first attempt from Kinn brewery, and it is a qualified effort. I am looking forward to trying more of the brewery's beers, but right now Norwegian craft brewers like Nøgne Ø, Haandbryggeriet and Ægir have better offers than Pilegrim from Kinn. And of course: Kudos to Naboen for making a new beer from a new brewery available.

Best beer experience in 2009

This year has been a great year for beers. I have tasted many good brews, and I have been able to taste them in various European countries. There are several moments that stand out. Among others I had a very good time in Brno and Prague visiting many great pubs. The visit at Pegas in Brno was very special, and I also enjoyed spending a day with Pivní Filosof at U Medvidku in Prague trying great beers like X33 and OldGott Barique.

It was a hot summer in 2009, and drinking wheat beers and cold lager beers in France are good memories. Trying Haandbryggeriet's IPA from a hand pump at Naboen in Bergen, Norway was also a good experience. The same goes for the many visits I had at U Prince Miroslava in Prague tasting various excellent beers.

But in retrospect, I feel the best beer experience I had in 2009 was at my second visit to the Autumn Tasting (or Oktoberfest) in Prague. It was arranged in a beer tent near the Pankrac metro station.

The first visit was OK, although I did not like the way the band's music was played at high volume. The second time the band was replaced by a duo playing accordion and cornet. The atmosphere was much better, and it looked as if people really enjoyed themselves.

I had a couple of very good beers, but my main reason for feeling this was the best beer experience has to do with the people I were there with: Some nice Czech friends. We had a great evening together, and the social aspect with experiencing something with others, a nice ambience in the beer tent and good beer made it a great beer experience. I hope to repeat it next year at The Czech Beer Festival in May.

Best of 2009: Beer blogs

There are many beer blogs out there, and many of them gives me interesting reading. Week after week I find myself using some time reading what other beer bloggers have on their mind, and I really enjoy using this time.

Most beer blogs that I follow write about places and beers that I have possibilities to know better. Therefore there are a lot of good American beer blogs that I miss out on. But I read some of them now and then. But I like going to the Czech Republic, and bloggers like Velky Al and Evan Rail have given me information about beers and pubs that have made my Prague trips more interesting. Evan Rail's blog has been one of my favourites, as he is an knowledgable writer with interesting views. His blog has not been updated for nearly three months, and that unfortunately makes his blog slip out from my nominees.

Before I do the countdown, I would like to thank Knut Albert, Boak & Bailey, The Beer Nut, Velky Al and Seen Through A Glass for doing good work. I really like your blogs. I also send out a nod to Girl Likes Beer for her different form of blogging with videos.

Let's go to the nominees:

- Shut Up About Barclay Perkins
- Cooking Lager
- Pivní Filosof

Ronald Pattinson lives in Amsterdam and shares his knowledge about beers on Shut Up About Barclay Perkins by posting tasting notes, comments and most important of all: Extended tables with brewing records and recipes. His blog is a great source for such information, and it is also a great read.

Cooking Lager is the odd one out in the beer blogging community. This British based blogger shares his love for cheap brews while also sharing great knowledge in beers and beer styles. His blog can be read in many ways, and I see it as both a great parody of other beer blogs and as a salutation to beer as a drink. It is also something to drink while thirsty! Check out Cooking Lager's blog and get yourself some laughs.

Pivní Filosof posts from Prague, and he shares his love for Czech beers and food with beer reviews and the occational food recipe. He is also writing about various pubs and restaurants and pubs, and his website has become a major source on where to drink (and sometimes eat) while in Prague. This is an excellent blog, that also is available in Spanish.

And the winner is:

- Pivní Filosof

Best of 2009: Best Norwegian bar

This category will absolutely be based on the bars and restaurants I visited in 2009. Many Norwegian cities were not visited by me, so I will be very thankful for comments where I really should have gone. This especially goes for pubs in Oslo, as I only was in the Norwegian capital once in 2009.

But still it was not difficult finding three great places that ought to be able to compete for the best Norwegian bar in 2009. Let's have a drumroll for these three nominees:

- Bar Barista, Bergen
- Bryggerikaia, Bodø
- Naboen, Bergen

All places are great places to visit, but one place is really great and feels like an English local pub - but with a twist. The atmosphere was what hit me the first time I entered Bar Barista. It is a very enjoyable place to be, even though the place is small. At the first times, there were no draught beers at the pub, but Bar Barista offered various beers from the Bergen brewery Hansa in cans and bottles. These days Hansa is to be history at Bar Barista, and the bar sells the Spanish lager San Miguel from draught. There are also bottled beers from the Norwegian Ægir craft brewery. I would love to see some extra draught beers at Bar Barista, and it would be an even better place for beer interested people. The atmosphere is there, and I hope they will keep it.

It is not the atmosphere that is the big thing about Bryggerikaia in Bodø. The pub has its own microbrewery, and the beers brewed there are on the menu. I liked Bryggerikaia, and the location on the wharf was a big plus. This is a must for travellers to Bodø.

Naboen has been good at having a varied beer menu. This year they have installed more taps, and beers like Heineken and Newcastle Brown Ale have been replaced by interesting brews from Norwegian craft breweries like Haandbryggeriet, Nøgne Ø and Ægir. This is also a place with a nice atmosphere, and I enjoy visiting.

But which pub is my winner, then?

- Naboen

Best of 2009: Ales

There have been several ales on my menu both this year and earlier years. I went a lot to the UK in nineties, and have had my share of various bitters. I am also fond of stouts, and the occational pale ale also makes it way into my fridge at times.

Here in Norway it is easy to find Guinness, Kilkenny, Newcastle Brown Ale and Bombardier in ordinary supermarkets. Better stocked supermarkets and shops may also offer bottles of Brakspear, Spitfire, Old Speckeled Hen or Whitstable Bay. You can also find the occational bottle of Nøgne Ø's beers that have a alcohol content below 4.7%. At Vinomopolet the selection is better, and various ales from breweries like Nøgne Ø, Haandbryggeriet and Ægir is available. In my opinion, Vinmonopolet is the place to visit if you want to buy ales in Norway.

It was a difficult task choosing the three nominees in this category, but here goes:

- Primátor Stout
- Haandbryggeriet IPA
- Special Holiday Ale (Nøgne Ø)

The stout from the Czech Primátor brewery was a sensation when I first tried it on tap at the U Prince Miroslava pub in Prague. This is an excellent stout, and a great tasting beer that I hope will find its way out of the Czech Republic. I would really like to drink it here in Norway as well.

Haandbryggeriet's IPA was a great find when I tried it at Naboen in Bergen. It was draughted and served from a hand pump. The beer was delicious and had a fabulous taste with flavours of pears and apples.

Nøgne Ø's Special Holiday Ale was also a sensation. I have only tried it from bottles, and I liked the rich flavours, the balanced sweetness and fullbodiness of the beer. I hope I will find another bottle soon, as this was a beer I would love to try again.

But here is the winner:

- Haandbryggeriet IPA