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Alengrin updated a beer: Marshmallow Mountain brewed by Siren Craft Brew
3 weeks ago


7.1/10 — Appearance 7 Aroma 7 Flavor 7 Texture 8 Overall 7
Omnipollo will probably be best remembered for their adventurous flavour combinations especially with sweet ingredients - a 'specialty' even reflected in the pizzas at Omnipollos Hatt - but they have produced many a fine 'classic' beer too, including several Pilseners, such as this 'generically German' example. From tap at Bishop's Arms in Stockholm's old town. The bartender did his best to tap it with a head so fluffy it resembled vanilla soft ice in a cone - a clear nod to how Omnipollo serves some of his beers as virtual 'desserts'; it gradually reduced to a still thick, egg-white, stable layer of foam atop a misty (!) yellow golden robe with vague greenish tinge, reminiscent of a Kellerbier perhaps more than a Pilsener sensu stricto. Aroma of fresh white bread, freshly cut grass, field flowers, green cereals, dry straw, raw Chinese cabbage (no DMS or anything like that though). Very lightly green-fruity in the onset because of the airy but clearly present yeast suspension, not going any further than just a hint of unripe pear though, not sweet and not tasting actually yeasty at this stage; fizzy carb, very minerally, but the mouthfeel remains smooth and soft. Cereally core with dried white-bready edges, acquiring a floral and grassy hop bitterness in the end, providing a good finishing dryness; some light yeasty breadiness does peep through in the very end. Clean, smooth, slender, balanced Kellerbier-like Lager - in a beer like this subtle finetuning is everything, and I think Omnipollo did a remarkably good job at it, in spite of their reputation being much more based on beers that display anything but subtlety. This shows how accomplished a brewery Omnipollo really is, I think.
Tried on 31 Aug 2026 at 18:29

Alengrin updated a beer: Pilsner brewed by Omnipollo
3 weeks ago


7.1/10 — Appearance 7 Aroma 7 Flavor 7 Texture 8 Overall 7
Hefeweizen from a still fairly young craft brewery in the west of Sweden, from tap at Akkurat - thanks Goedele for sharing! Snow white, plaster-like lacing, irregularly shaped, fluffy head on a misty pale yellow blonde robe with greenish tinge. Aroma of cinnamon, banana peel rather than actual banana, clove, fresh parsley, white bread dough, brioche, freshly cut green pear, apple peel, rainwater. Fruity onset, banana as expected but somehow restrained for the intended style, 'greenish' rather than ripe if you get my drift; also green pear and apple peel, sweetish but not too much so (as compared with e.g. the 'macro-brewed' Dutch examples of the style); fizzy carb but small-bubbled, smooth (banana-)bready middle with brioche-like edges but again not too sweet, with a slight wheat sourishness running underneath. Retronasal clove and vague cinnamon but also that parsley-like phenolic element again, alongside a touch of mild grassy hop bitterness; some wheat soapiness lingers. Quite credible for what it wants to be, but clearly not a true Bavarian Weissbier either, lacking the yeasty subtleties those typically exhibit. A smoothened and restrained 'Nordic' form of Weissbier, I guess one could say...
Tried on 31 Aug 2026 at 18:16

Alengrin has a new beer style achievement
Level 4 for Stout - Smoked ticks with a total of 25 ticks of this sub style.
Thurbo Stout from Oppigårds Bryggeri was the one that did it!
3 weeks ago


7.6/10 — Appearance 6 Aroma 7.5 Flavor 8.5 Texture 8 Overall 7.5
Robust oatmeal stout also containing smoked malts, a creation by Oppigårds, founded in 2003 in the first wave of postmodern Scandinavian craft breweries (though in Sweden preceded by pioneers like Nils Oscar or Nynäshamns). Vintage bottle at Akkurat. Pale yellowish beige, lightly lacing, open and thin head, quickly dissolving completely over a jet black robe with thin mahogany edges. Aroma of cold black coffee and coffee grounds, burnt toast, roasted walnuts, coffee cream, gin, wood glue, charcoal rather than the bacon-like smokiness I was expecting, whisky, black olives. Dried-fruity onset, lightly sweet with dried medlar and old raisin next to equally subtle umami (black olive), medium carbonated with oily, full mouthfeel. Roasted-nutty, hard-caramelly core with flashes of bitter chocolate and liquorice quickly moving to potent 'oldskool' roasted bitterness (black coffee), mouth-filling and accentuated by the smoky element, which again remains fairly restrained and more ashy than smoked meat-like. Roasty bitterness, leafy hops and whisky-like alcohol dominate the finish. Feels old-fashioned, especially because the smoky aspect has been kept subtle - perhaps even a tad too subtle... Very solidly made, though, firmly structured and bold in its personality, so nothing to dislike here if sturdy stouts and porters are your thing.
Tried on 31 Aug 2026 at 18:08

7.4/10 — Appearance 7 Aroma 7.5 Flavor 7.5 Texture 8 Overall 7
IPA by a well-established brewery in Trieste, enjoyed from a longneck bottle at an Italian restaurant in the old city centre of Stockholm. Medium thick, stable, eggshell-white, plastery lacing head over a hazy to eventually clouded, orange blonde beer with amberish tinge. Aroma of fresh orange peel, pink grapefruit, moist white pepper, dry biscuit, fresh wormwood leaf, vague mandarin, hints of baker's yeast and a bit of 'putteke' as they say in Flemish (stinky plughole). Clean onset, smooth and quite crisp with lively yet appropriately fine-bubbled effervescence, subtle fruity notes of green pear and unripe peach mingling with the early citric effects from the hops; slick but full, slenderly biscuity middle gently bittered by growing orange pith- and wormwood-like hops, a bit zesty and peppery and medium long but adequate in bitterness. Accessible for restraining its hop bitterness somewhat - like a West Coast IPA toned down for a larger audience, as we have seen many pass by in Europe in the past two decades. Too shy and modest to truly shine, but very easily drinkable and carefully balanced - in itself a very pleasant beer, in all, with the additional plus (for me) being the total absence of hazy NEIPA influences; I guess the recipe has not changed much in all the time it has been in existence...
Tried on 31 Aug 2026 at 18:00

8.1/10 — Appearance 8 Aroma 8 Flavor 8 Texture 8 Overall 8.5
Special and very limited fruit lambic created at Hanssens with equal parts raspberries, strawberries and cloudberries on the initiative of Jens Skrubbe, whom I have known for two decades - and whom I have to thank for reserving at bottle to pair with the köttbullar at Pressklubben. Eggwhite, moussey, thick and firm, frothy head slowly receding over an initially clear, warm orangey golden beer, shifting to a misty peach further on. Radiantly fruity aroma of pronounced strawberry and bursting ripe yellow raspberries, cloudberries being related to raspberries are a bit lost in this but there is a wild blackberry juice-like effect I think can be ascribed to them, preserved lemon, unripe nectarine, stewed rhubarb, wet wood, sour cream, pickled apricot, barnyard, dry earth, wild apple. Tart, juicy, utterly fruity onset radiating with ripe yellow raspberry - and I guess cloudberry, very hard to identify against the raspberry especially when aromatically speaking, both are also dominated by the strawberry, which (as usual) provides little colour or body but lots of (sweet-fruity) aroma; side notes of rhubarb, green apple and unripe nectarine position this stream of almost sweet, ripe berry fruitiness through a minerally sparkling, smooth-bready and sour-creamy lactic middle, as in sour fruit yoghurt, in the end backed by woody tannins and light but noble 'wild' Brett elements (damp hay, sweaty funk). A lemony sour streak lingers in the finish but nothing of the sometimes dreaded sharp acidity often associated with Hanssens, at least in recent years, is to be found; instead, the lemony, sour-creamy and sweaty-funky character brings me back to the Hanssens lambics I remember fondly from two and a half decades ago - when Cantillon or De Cam were actually sharper and more acrid than Hanssens... Granted, using equal parts of three fruits which are not equal in aromatic strength was probably not the best idea: both orthonasally and retronasally the strawberries are quite dominant, albeit in a very elegant and bright way, while the raspberries are less obvious and the rare, delicate and expensive cloudberry, the one actually justifying the 'Nordic' moniker, remains largely eclipsed. That said, though, cloudberries are probably difficult to distinguish from raspberries in a fruit lambic anyway - for all I know, the 'raspberry part' of the aroma here could be half due to those cloudberries too. In the end and seen as a whole, this to me was an absolutely stunning, bright, almost 'summery' fruit lambic and one I enjoyed very much as an apéritif even if it was at an hour when the Swedish apparently deem it inappropriate to order alcohol with your food... In all, a true gem, and one of the best Hanssens lambics I had in a long time.
Tried on 31 Aug 2026 at 17:50

7.6/10 — Appearance 7 Aroma 7.5 Flavor 8 Texture 7 Overall 8
Blend of Iris and regular Cantillon lambic made back in 2015 for the twentieth anniversary of the legendary Swedish beer restaurant Akkurat - tasted there from a 75 cl bottle picked from their extensive vintage list. Tiny snow white ring of foam taking some forcing to develop and dissolving again quickly after that, hazy ochre-tinged peach blonde robe. Aroma of haybarn, very old leather, dried mushrooms, old furniture, sourdough, wakame, sulfur (freshly struck matches - could be yeast autolysis here), raw seafood (mussels), hard green plum (strong!), horseblanket, damp cellar, old dry sherry, mugwort, pickled cucumber, egg yolk, dried old lemon rind, bitter weeds. Tart, dry, estery, somewhat 'dirty' onset, unripe plum, some hard nectarine and then this odd 'side' saltiness of raw seafood; close to flat carb, slightly astringent, vinous mouthfeel. Sourdoughy core with this seafood element continuing, very 'hard' lactic and leathery effects, pickled gherkin and preserved lemon but without harsh acidity. Old woody tannins in the end - very strongly so - almost like chewing on old furniture, with retronasal horseblanket, grapefruit rind and old hop bitterness to finish everything off. Has some of Iris' breadiness so this element is recognisable, but otherwise quite 'contrarian', bone dry, funky and 'hard', peeking into Cantillon's past, bringing me back to the old days - in that sense far removed from the refined, elegant grape and other fruit lambics they produced in the past years. Not very accessible and not Cantillon's greatest, but very complex and interesting nonetheless.
Tried on 29 Aug 2026 at 23:46

Alengrin updated a beer: Akkurat 30 Years - Arctic Bramble brewed by Lambiek Fabriek
4 weeks ago