The world had not heard the word “microbrewery” until a couple of dozen years ago. Then, all of a sudden, there were thirteen to the dozen of these things. Nowadays, even obscure villages that nobody’s ever heard of, including the people living there, are sporting microbreweries. What the heck happened?
There was a time when big breweries thought they could rule the world – in particular, there was one very evil, big brewery – let's call it SauronBrew – that kept buying out all the other ones, using the One Recipe (crap lager) to bind them all into the idea that mediocre beers that could be brewed cheaply but sold reassuringly expensively was all you needed in order to be successful.
Then, just as it looked as if SauronBrew would indeed
conquer the entire brewing world, one or two enterprising individuals – let’s for
simplicity’s sake call them FrodoBeer and SamAle – came along and started to
brew on an experimental basis, creating new (or re-creating old) brews that
actually tasted like proper beer, or at least tasted like something other than
branded industrial crap lager. Scholars disagree exactly where FrodoBeer and
SamAle started their fight against SauronBrew, but what is quite clear is that
their fight has been crowned by some success, even though the One Recipe has
still not been destroyed, but continues to cast its spell over way too many
Gollum-ible individuals throughout the drinking world.
OK, enough references to that famous trilogy. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, please use either Google
or (preferably) your local pub to seek wisdom. An undisputable fact is
that during the last 20 or 30 years, several thousand microbreweries have
sprung up in most countries in this world, including Iceland, and in the last
couple of months I have had the pleasure of tasting the brews from no less than
five of these countries: Poland, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
It started off with Poland. A country I have written about before, more known for its particularly terrible history than for its brewing
heritage, but nevertheless able to brew some decent beers. A good friend of
mine, who happens to come from this place, brought back no fewer than four
lovely bottles of absolutely superb beer from his latest trip back to his
homeland. These were all from breweries I had never heard of or had any chance
of pronouncing correctly, yet they had everything a beer lover loves: plenty of
taste, a refined balance and a lingering aftertaste – without losing the
ability to be refreshing. Poland, be warned: I am coming to visit again – my
last visit was almost 10 years ago and I’ve clearly missed some important
events in my absence.
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| Great Polish beer, but try to order it at the bar and see what you get... |
Next my lovely wife and I flew to Canada to see the family.
Canada is a country more known for its massive size and its abundance of
tundra, nothingness and arctic cold than for its brewing heritage. Nevertheless,
the revolution that has spawned the creation of several thousand breweries
south of the world’s longest unguarded border has also spilled across the very
same border, perhaps due to it not being guarded. Microbreweries are popping up
everywhere, and nowhere is this more visible than in one of the cutest towns in
Canada – Niagara on the Lake – which happens to be my favourite place in Canada
because it has no less than 3 breweries and because I got married there (in no
particular order).
My mother-in-law does not conform to the stereotypical one
that would hate my guts – on the contrary she clearly thinks very highly of my
liver since she bought me a brewery tour for Christmas. So we packed into the
car (this is, after all, Canada, so there are no buses or trains), and headed
off to the Oast Brewery in Niagara-on-the-Lake. This brewery resides in an old
barn or something, and despite opening only 18 months ago is
astonishingly well run. A knowledgeable and pleasant young lady gave us plenty
of samples and showed us the bowels of the brewery where we also got to chat to
the Brewmaster, who despite (or perhaps because of) his young age had conjured
up a few memorable brews, including a Belgian-inspired Saison and a very nice
Pale Ale. Needless to say, we bought both souvebeers and souvenirs.
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| My Christmas present! |
The next brewery was called Silversmith, located in an old
church just down the road from Oast. Although the beers were also very
drinkable, they lacked some of the subtlety of the Oast ones, and the reception
at the brewery was also much less friendly – no brewery tour, only tasting – so
it wasn’t quite the same. Still, if you have a few hours to spare in the
Niagara region, and you’re not desperate for a wine tour, you could do much
worse than coming to Niagara-on-the-Lake to check out its various breweries.
There is a third bonus one too.
Later during Christmas I made my way to Norway, a country
more known for its fjords, northern lights and astronomical prices than for its
brewing heritage. As I have repeatedly commented on this blog, the politicians
in this country have done their utmost to eradicate what little brewing
heritage there is, but despite this there are a dozen or so microbreweries
operating around the country, One of them, Haandbryggeriet, is located in my
home town, and I take no small amount of pride in declaring that this is also
Norway’s best micro. I had the pleasure of tasting their full range of
Christmas beers as well as their “Dark Force”, which is no less than a Russian Imperial Wheat Stout packed with an
unbelievable amount of taste, and their “Dobbel Dose”, which is a seriously
hoppy beer designed to make you outrageously happy.
The only problem with these lovely beers is that they are very
expensive, which means that a lot of bars don’t actually stock them because
there are cheaper alternatives from abroad. And so it came to pass that when I
went skiing in a fashionable ski resort, I was forced to order brews from Sweden
in my own native land. The only alternative was industrial pilsner, and since
the actual brews were in fact quite good, I didn’t mind so much – though I
forget exactly what I drank. The point is... when a local Norwegian
microbrewery is rejected in favour of a Swedish microbrewery situated several hundred
kilometres away because the Norwegian one is simply too expensive (this was
what the bartender told me), there’s something seriously wrong. I can solve
this problem, but I am sadly lacking in dictatorial powers.
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| Happy blogger with hoppy beer |
Finally I was in Denmark, a country known for its brewing heritage, and could once again confirm that the Danes,
as with most things, are way ahead of their Scandinavian brethren, both in
terms of making their industrial lagers taste of nothing and in terms of making
their microbrews taste amazing. I happened to be in Odense, the biggest city on a small island called Fyn, but regardless of where you are in this small, flat country you'll find yourself fairly close to good beers, despite the terrible things the best-known Danish brand has done to the world.
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| Amazing Danish beer number six-and-half-five-score |
In conclusion: I love microbreweries. I love what they’ve
done to increase the choices I have, I love the fact that they’re not afraid of
experimenting with new recipes, and I love the fact that they're making their brews taste like real beer. Not all of them are equally good, and eventually the lesser ones will disappear, but as long as the good ones keep supplying my fridge and the bars I go to when I travel, I don't mind. So let's all adopt the following new year's resolution in time for the Chinese New Year: next time you're in a fancy restaurant or bar and have the choice of a hundred fantastic wines and one crappy beer, demand justice and a microbrew. On this challenging note I shall say farewell and wish you all a very beery 2014. Sjabbeduings!
