Christmas beer

DrIndy

Christmas beer is a scandinavian tradition, it is made with roasted hops (as opposed to guinness where the barley is roasted) and has a wonderful clear, dark brown colour. The flavour is unique, more bitter and an intangible subtle aroma and traditionally savoured with christmas dinners.

I have not seen it here, but if anyone has the opportunity to be over in scandinavia over the next few weeks, I would strongly recommend a tipple.

spunkymunky

Is that the samiclaus beer?
Ive drank it and I most certainly wouldnt recommend it!!
It's 14% firstly, way to heavy and disgusting to drink, literally has to be forced down.
I was drinking it in the Porterhouse North, couldnt finish the bottle. just to disgusting.

P.S. if this isnt the beer forget what i just said

DrIndy

Its not quite, its normal strength and not double brewed like belgian beers are. The difference is the malted hops, which gives it a unique, slightly more bitter flavour and a dark brown but clarified colour. The equivalent in germany would be a dunkel beer.

Thrasher

DrIndy wrote:

Christmas beer is a scandinavian tradition, it is made with roasted hops (as opposed to guinness where the barley is roasted) and has a wonderful clear, dark brown colour. The flavour is unique.....

Sorry, this is inaccurate. I hope you don't mind me jumping in here:

Hops is never roasted for any kind of beer. The raw flowers are added to the wort as part of the brewing process and are used for bittering, taste and aroma - but never roasted first.

Also, Christmas beers originate from the Christmas Ales & Winter Bocks from Belgium/Netherlands/Germany, not from Scandinavia. I live in Sweden and the Christmas beers that have become popular in Scandinavia during this time are all lagers, usually Vienna style, with some mild spices thrown in, because it's Christmas.

However, since Scandanavia has no beer culture whatsoever, these are generally only slight improvements on the countless "American Style pilsners" (i.e. p1ss in a bottle/can) that are sold here.

DrIndy

I stand corrected but would dispute that scandinavia doesn't have a beer culture, denmark had an extensive one until commercialisation and the growth of carlsberg closed the 300 breweries the little nation formerly contained. Sweden has a poor beer culture and norway is somewhat better.

Thrasher

You're right about Sweden and Norway. Sadly the big breweries bought up all the Swedish breweries in the sixties & seventies (and then the state bought up a 60% stake). The position has remained the same to this day. In Denmark, as you point out, the big players have also taken over. It's pretty much only Carlsberg or Turborg (also owned by Carlsberg, by the way...) that you can find anywhere.

I can recommend beers from the following "serious" Swedish breweries though: Jämtlands Bryggeri, Slottkällans Bryggeri and Nils Oscar Bryggeri.