Sample at ACBF 2017. Hazy deep golden amber color, white head. Nice floral aroma. Taste is vinous, floral, rich. Very tasty.

At ACBF. New Närke product with a name drawing from Scandinavian mythology and described by the brewer as a ’braggot’, i.e. an intermediate of beer and mead (usually containing 1/3 to 1/2 barley malt, the rest honey), looking back at ancient Celtic traditions - the original honey beer style, so to speak. Medium thick snow white and moussy rim on top of a beautiful, lightly hazy, copper-hued pure amber coloured liquid. Aroma near identital to the old (matured), very artisanal, deep brown honey of the kind I remember from childhood, next to hints of chestnut, dried orange peel, glue, hay, melting white sugar and ’wet dog’. Sweet onset with souring edges, orange, gooseberry, dried apricot, very slick and lean mouthfeel, caramelly and cereally background under a wealth of actual brown honey as expected, yet still not too cloying thanks to a dryish effect in the finish and a faint touch of herbal hop bitterness. The honey flavor goes on and on - this is the first ’authentically’ made braggot I ever taste and clearly a very different concept from the old Belgian honey beers, in which honey is merely an addition, which is sometimes completely fermented away, leaving nothing but vague honeyish accents in the aroma; this, however, is clearly actual honey for more than half of its content, with a completely different, overpoweringly honeyish flavor. You’re really going to have to love artisanal honey in order to appreciate this, but the beer factor is still robust enough to back this up and the whole works magically for me. I need to find more of these braggots!