A premium lager
From Backyard Brewery (Carlsberg Sweden) 4.8% ABV. Being launched at Systembolaget Oct 1st. 330ml can. 10.90SEK
I don't want to give the game away but the best thing about this beer is the look of the can. It would look right at home in the fridges of a trendy US craft beer bar and triggers happy thoughts of Oskar Blues. The marketing team at Carlsberg Sweden have obviously done their research well. Once out of the can the beer pours the promised amber, intensely bright with a foamy bleached white head.
Any hope that the beer would live up to the packaging disappears when you smell it. Like a thousand other non-nondescript industrial lagers. Dusty stench of boxes of old comics you find in the attic. Faint waft of malt loaf. The ingredient list features two of the stinkiest aroma hops from the USA (Cascade and Amarillo) but I struggle to place them. This lawn mower's running on empty.
Grainy. watery malt solution with a splash of caramel plus yesterday's newspaper. Dead in the mid palate and ends with an odd and creepy bitter sensation - not refreshing, more disturbing, like drinking a Tim Burton film.
Hot dogs with extra hot mustard. Chilli. Something with lots of compensating flavour.
Nerd note
This is the first beer out from Carlsberg's answer to Brutal Brewing. It's certainly got the look of a craft beer but this lawn mower fails to cut it where it really matters - the taste. The 'other' BB launched its psychedelic Beervana in a can earlier this summer and it's 1-0 to the hippy beer in my book. Maybe, just maybe in the heat of a summer's day as an ice cold thirst quencher but in October? Did somebody get the dates wrong?
Rating
1.8 of 5
If i read your notes I would have thought you’d give it a maximum of 1,0?? But I guess you have to be nice and sweet sometimes………;-D.
Reg the Beervana…………..have you tried it now when Systembolaget have it on sale??
Bought a couple for last weekends fishing trip but ”what the hell” happened to that beer?????
We’re talking about extremly short shelflife. There where nothing of the hops left at all…………..the taste was all ”sharp bitterness” and it was really unpleasant.
Have a killer day my friend…..!!!
Hi Gonzo – as always I find it hard to score a beer. I think my words sum it up better!
I drank a few cans of Beervana over the summer and they tasted OK. A faint lemony hoppiness and for the money an OK summer drinking beer. If the hops were gone in yours though I can imagine there was very little left!