I think I am having some withdrawel from the great beer options I had in England. There were so many choices -- and almost all of them were reasonably priced. I developed a liking for the heavy, stronger-flavors of some of the real ales (unfiltered, unpasteurized). Even worse, I started drinking my dark beers right out of the pantry. That's right: warm beer. Then we moved to Denmark where most everything I have tried so far is a lighter, crisper lager. Not necessarily a bad thing but a bit of an adjustment from England.
In Denmark, the prominent beers are Carlsberg and Tuborg. These two beers seem to mimic some of the marketshare rivalry of Bud and Miller in the USA -- with the notable difference that both Carlsberg and Tuborg come from the same brewery. Huh. Carlsberg bought Tuborg in 1970. After some reading, I found that some of the rivlary's roots are forgotten: Carlsberg supported the arts and Tuborg supported scientific research. Artsy types drank Carlsberg, and men of science drank Tuborg. Therefore, I shall now drink Tuborg.
Beer is a huge industry in Denmark with exports of something around 100 million gallons of beer per year. It's also important culturally and drinking beer is widely accepted at just about any time of day (or so I read -- I haven't seen anybody tipping one back at breakfast but I eat breakfast alone in this small apartment and Boo doesn't drink beer...) There is even a holiday of sorts that I am soooo looking forward to. It is the day they release the Christmas beers and is known as J-Day (after Juleøl meaning Christmas Beer.) It normally is the first Friday in November. I've read stories of Christmas-decorated wagons rolling through town with Santa-capped staff giving out free samples of the new, typically potent, Christmas brew. Just wonderful.
Anyway -- In the last post I mentioned we stumbled on the Ribe Bryghus, a small brewery right in the heart of Ribe, Denmark. I've tried three of their beers now and I am becoming a fan. These beers are much more like what I knew in England. We sampled the Black at the brewery -- a flavorful stout with sweet coffee overtone. Back home, we tried the Blond (a lighter, citrusy Belgian style golden ale).
They don't sell the brew here in Varde, but there is one place in Esbjerg to get it. We haven't figured out where we will live yet so maybe that was the final straw.
Skål!
"An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools."
-For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemmingway
No comments:
Post a Comment