tirsdag den 13. juni 2017

Amager Bryghus: Nye øl til Amarikanerdag 2017 pt. I

Amager Bryghus holder vanen tro Amarikanerdag i starten af juli, og i år er begivenheden velsignet med hele otte nye øl. Stovt præsenterer her de første fire.
Bees For My Honey: Rye Braggot 9%
One great thing about the craft beer world is how erratic it can be. To be completely honest, until just recently we had never even heard of Hermit Thrush Brewery – simply pronouncing their name proved a major challenge for most of us! But one day – out of the blue – we received an email from Joan Bulzacchelli and Victoria Banerjee from the brewing crew at Hermit Thrush, asking if they could join in on a brewing day at Amager since they were travelling Europe – half in private, half to visit breweries. As we only have the deepest respect for Vermont breweries we suggested turning the brewing day into an actual collaboration day, and a recipe was developed via email with one of the brewery’s masterminds Christophe Gagne. Bees For My Honey is a tribute to a product that is local to both breweries, a wonderful product that we both hold in high regard: honey! And it’s also a tribute to those wonderful buzzing little aviators called the honey bees. A friendly lil creature we have been taking for granted for way too long, only to realize that they seem to be abandoning us in recent years. We can’t blame them, but when honey becomes a scarce product, it may be too late to invite them back, because they just may have found a safer haven without pesticides and pollution. Save the bees – we need ‘em!! This is a collaboration beer made with Hermit Thrush Brewery, Brattleboro VT, USA.
Going Old School: Dry-hopped West Coast IPA 7,5%
These days it appears that trends in the craft beer world come and go faster than ever before. Beer drinkers with a fresh Untappd account will claim to be experts in craft only two months after advocating to anybody, who’d care to listen, that PBR was the hottest thing since beer floats. And they WILL demand new stuff, will insist on the lazy and dried out brewers to get their act together. And so we do…. Let’s talk IPAs. We’ve had the red ones, the white ones and the black ones. And now we hardly remember those styles anymore. At the moment it’s all about the haze, that lovely juicy haze. It’s great, it’s amazing, it’s wonderful. And in spite of all the bitching above, it is truly inspiring to be challenged, to be kept sharp. But then again, sometimes it’s also such a relief to return to a beer that you really feel for, a beer that has dug its own cavity in your heart. To a true hophead’s brewery like Amager such a beer is a West Coast IPA – a style that was itself new and innovative quite some years ago. So juicy and hop forward, with hops that bite. And when Jeff Bagby came by our brewery for a collaboration, it was a no brainer that a West Coast IPA should be born. Jeff with a past at Stone and Pizza Port and a hand in some of the juiciest IPAs out of California. Bagby Beer Company and Amager share the love for those potent hop bombs, and we’re not even ashamed to admit it. This is a collaboration beer made with Bagby Beer Company, Oceanside CA, USA.
Bordello Bandits: Dry-hopped India Pale Strong Lager 6,3%
It’s been said that Kentucky is one of only two American states to contain no natural gold deposits. None at all. However, 200 years ago, the local folks didn’t know this or they simply disagreed. Gold or not, in the year if 1812 a regular gold rush hit the small settlement of Bellevue, right on the Ohio River in Northern Kentucky. Within a fortnight, Bellevue outgrew neighboring boomtown Cincinnati just across the river. And with the steady influx of prospectors and no real plan of where to settle them, the town turned into a Klondike-like mess with cheap entertainment and even cheaper bordellos. But in spite of being cheap, word of the actual high quality of these bordellos spread far and wide, soon attracting a much less desired customer group known as the Night Riders or the Bordello Bandits. Most came from as far as Mexico, in horse gangs as big as 30 riders. Within just a few hours such a gang of bandits could ravage a fully equipped bordello in the middle of the night, causing rack and ruin. These racketeers would enjoy the pleasures of the establishment, but leave without paying a penny. According to much later historians this is where and when the desperate call for “The Great Southern Wall” was first heard from the citizens of the young state. A call to keep the Bordello Bandits back in Mexico where they belonged. This is all a great story, but is it also true at all? Well, due to the most recent trends in American society fact or fiction seems to be in equal regard. So, to hell with it – drink up and be merry, before the Bordello Bandits return. This beer is a collaboration with Ei8ht Ball Brewing, Bellevue KY, USA.
Mandarina Man: Tropical IPA 8%
Peter Prescott was born the youngest of 7 boys, son of a fruit picker in an orchard not far from Asheville in 19th century North Carolina. Not only was he last in line when the one daily meal was served, he was also small and weak. Peter soon realized that in order to survive he had to find his calories elsewhere. Fallen mandarins and mangos from the thousands of orchard trees became his salvation – quite literally. Peter calculated that most days 95% of his nutrition came from those fruits. And luckily Peter liked fruits. However, in his puberty things started to change for Peter. While his peers developed acne, Peter also had excrescences growing on his skin. Those were not pimples though, but small branches that would set ripe fruit during the night. Most annoying were the ones that grew out of his ears. Medicinal experts found Peter’s case very interesting, but lost interest as soon as they realized that no money would cover their interest. So Peter continued to wake up with branches sticking out from his body, and every now and then the pattern would be broken with an additional mango taking two days to be ripened out of his belly button. Peter was not a good orchard worker, weak as he was and fighting his daily abnormities. So when P.T. Barnums travelling circus passed through Asheville in 1860, Peter’s dad said a quick goodbye and sold him to Barnum’s side show for as little as 50 dollars. Peter however didn’t really mind and became famous as the Mandarina Man in many US states. Some claim he was even more famous than fellow English freak The Elephant Man. Later Peter married his long time love ‘The bearded lady” but the couple never had any children. Which might also have proven complicated. This is a collaboration beer made with Wicked Weed Brewing, Asheville NC, USA.