Category: mikkeller

legacy liquor store

from legacy liquor store in vancouver:

The season of the tallboy is in full swing with radlers, lagers, pale ales and more, all available to help you keep cool when you’re out enjoying the warm rays of the sun. To top it off, we’ve been seeing a lot more seasonal options roll through the doors, everything from rosés to hefeweizens and beyond. We’ll also be running tastings all weekend, so swing by the store and check out the Legacy Counter. You can see the full line-up down below.
Born in 1975, and brother to Mikkel Borg Bjergsø of Mikkeller, another great gypsy brewery, Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø kicked off his career not as a brewer, but as a physics and English teacher. It wasn’t until 2010 that Evil Twin Brewing was founded by Jeppe, but it didn’t take long before it took off in a big way, launching more than forty different brews in 2012 alone and brewing out of ten different breweries in six different countries around the world. It was also in 2012 that Jeppe relocated to Brooklyn with his wife and children in order to be closer to the brewing action and to eventually make New York the beer capital of the world. Some of Jeppe’s most popular brews include Imperial Biscotti Break and Even More Jesus, but one that’s desired by all is made in collaboration with Brussels-based Cantillon, a lambic by the name Blåbær Lambik, a beer so famous that you have to pay up to $300 for it on eBay. Although we don’t have those heavy hitters, we do have some impressive Evil Twins of our own, so check them out!

Evil Twin Brewing Yang Imperial IPA – $5.55
Though it’s one half of Evil Twin’s Black & Tan, don’t fret because this Imperial IPA is just as good on its own. Hazy copper in colour, the big citrusy, piney notes work in combination with the bready malts of the aroma. Pulling through on the palate in much the same way, with surprise guest appearances by melon and honey, are more pine, citrus and of course bready malt, all of which mask the heavy hitting ABV. Half the brew, but just as delicious.

Joel Wilson | Beer Team | Legacy Liquor Store

Evil Twin Brewing Lil’ B Imperial Porter – $5.55
Crack this beer and pour its jet black contents into a tulip glass and prepare yourself for an onslaught of chocolate, caramel and a bit of coffee on the nose. On the palate, more chocolate, caramel and again light coffee work into a mouth coating experience. A brilliant imperial porter.

Chris Bonnallie | Beer Supervisor | Legacy Liquor Store


LEGACY COUNTER

Thursday
TUSSOCK JUMPER WINES TASTING
4:00PM to 8:00PM May 8th, 2014

Thursday
CLOS DU SOLEIL WINERY TASTING
4:00PM to 8:00PM May 8th, 2014

Friday
VANCOUVER ISLAND BREWING CO. TASTING
4:00PM to 8:00PM May 9th, 2014

Saturday
ABSOLUT VODKA & LILLET COCKTAIL TASTING
2:00PM to 6:00PM May 10th, 2014

Sunday
KANAZAWA WINES TASTING
2:00PM to 6:00PM May 11th, 2014

legacy liquor store

freshly arrived at legacy liquor store in vancouver:

Mikkeller Citra Single Hop IPA – $5.65

Often pushing the boundaries of beer with unique brews, Mikkeller has decided to show off the characteristics of a single hop. Beautiful amber orange in colour with a pithy and fruity aroma, on the palate grapefruit, citrus and malt all play their role and showcase what Citra is all about. An excellent choice for any hop enthusiast.

Joel Wilson | Beer Team | Legacy Liquor Store

Dead Frog Brewery The Obsidian Dagger – $6.95

Reinvention isn’t easy, but Dead Frog Brewery makes it look like it is with another addition to their stellar line-up of 650ml bottles. Dark roasted malts and tropical hops work in harmony in this black IPA—with hops like centennial and galaxy, and malts including biscuit and chocolate, this is a true powerhouse. Enjoy before this limited batch beer is all gone.

Chris Bonnallie | Beer Supervisor | Legacy Liquor Store

Straffe Hendrik Brugs Quadrupel Bier – $10.95

From the fairy tale city of Bruges, Belgium, considered the Venice of the north, comes a little brewery producing some very big beers. Enjoyed in a Belgian chalice, this particular Quad is dark mahogany in colour with an enormous nose of dried figs and raisons, toffee and baking spices. Once you manage to get the glass to your lips, more toffee and dried fruit make themselves known on the palate in combination with a bit of warming alcohol. If you ever find yourself in Bruges, make sure you tour the brewery and taste the line-up, but in the meantime grab a bottle of this brew and let it whisk you off your feet.

Aaron Morten | Office Liaison | Legacy Liquor Store

Mikkeller Imperial Mosaic IPA – $6.25
Click Here to Purchase

This Mosaic IPA is dark, hazy and golden in colour with a punchy, citrusy, floral nose with plenty of tropical fruit to boot. Juicy tropical fruits with plenty of hops make an appearance on the palate with an almost honey-like backing. Effervescent, tropical, resin-y, and just plain tasty.

Joel Wilson | Beer Team | Legacy Liquor Store

Mikkeller Single Hop Sorachi Ace IPA – $5.65
Click Here to Purchase

Another showcase brew flaunting everything Sorachi Ace has to offer, amber and orange in colour with aromas of grass and lemon tart that pop from the glass. With a palate that is herbaceous from the get-go, but slowly moves into citrusy lemon flavours that work well with a light malt body, this little IPA hides its ABV well with a slightly dry finish and citrus bite.

Chris Bonnallie | Beer Supervisor | Legacy Liquor Store

Mikkeller x Anchorage Brewing Farmhouse Invasion – $25.05
Click Here to Purchase

A collaborative effort and fan favourite from Mikkeller and Alaska’s Anchorage Brewing. A tangerine-like orange in colour that’s grassy and musty at the same time, with a twist of orange citrus. More brettanomyces funk pulls through on the palate in perfect harmony with big citrusy flavours like tangerine and lemon. Complex and mature, don’t let this particular brew pass you by.

Aaron Morten | Office Liaison | Legacy Liquor Store

best beers

dying to know which beers mens journal thinks are the top 25?
can’t say that i consider them to be experts…
but you know what?  they seem to have done alright as far as i’m concerned:
russian river, dogfish head, sierra nevada, 21st amendment, dieu du ciel, hopworks, ninkasi, hitachino, mikkeller, nogne
(my list would have a couple more canadian brews on there though…)

firefly tasting

i attended the “evolution of the ipa” tasting at firefly last week
i was so excited that they were having a whole night of ipas!
and i wasn’t disappointed

there were only two ipas on the list that i hadn’t yet tried (one because its limited release and the other because it was only just released)
but that meant that i could focus more easily on comparing and contrasting the hops varieties, strengths and malt balances between the beers

we got lots of great hand-outs
a hops profile chart, a beer evaluation sheet, the history of ipas and a beer aroma wheel
not to mention all the great information our fearless leaders had to impart
i feel like i got a lot more than just a tasting

we began the night with samuel smith’s india ale (5%) from england
this is one that i had tried just the night before and not liked
i found it had a biscuity nose and felt kind of belgian
but the further i got down my taster glass of this semi-traditional british ipa, the more drinkable i found it

next up was brooklyn brewing’s east india pale al (6.8%) out of new york city
it poured with a great head, quite carbonated, lovely nose
this was more what i expect from an ipa – to be like a pacific northwest ipa
the brewers used a recipe from the victorian era, with some english hops (kent golding) and some pacific northwest hops (willamette, centennial and amarillo) which give it a nice citrusy, spicy, floral aroma
nicely balanced, could definitely drink this as a session beer

driftwood brewing’s sartori harvest ipa (7% 66 ibus) was up next
these bottles came from lundy’s private stash, and i’m thrilled that she sacrificed them to the cause
i love me a wet-hopped beer!
fresh hopped with centennial hops from sartori’s farm, this is a beer of great beauty
even if everyone who had it last year said that last year’s brew was better
driftwood is the only brewery doing a fresh hopped ipa
everyone else are making extra special bitters with the fresh hops (phillips, granville island)
fresh hops should be added within 24 hours of the harvest to get the full flavour, and added at several points during the brewing process
you don’t want to store this beer – the hops degrade over time and lose their great bite the longer you age the beer
look for this one again the last week of september next year
and find yourself lots of other great fresh hopped beers at hopfests all down the west coast

also from lundy’s personal stash was deschutes brewing’s hop in the dark (6.5%)
i love the hop in the dark and was very, very, very happy to see it in the line up
great to have a black ipa (cascadian brown ale) in the list, but especially this one that i just don’t get very often
cascade, centennial and chinook hops
(probably the best hop combination on earth!)
amazing head, lovely brown colour, great hop nose
i can taste the malt, but it doesn’t overwhelm the hops
wonderful balance and uber-drinkability
i could drink this beer alllllll night long!

from oregon to california, next up was lagunitas hop stoopid (7.5% 102 ibus)
not nearly as bitter tasting as you might expect 102 ibus to be
pale and clear, a good food pairing beer
grapefruity, very malty to balance all those hops, but definite hop nose and taste
i do enjoy this beer but wouldn’t want to drink more than the one big bottle of it
it just gets too bitter on the back of your tongue if you have enough of it

mikkeller’s stateside ipa (7%) was next
now here are guys from denmark who came to the u.s. to check out the ipa revolution and take that learning back home with them
this is denmark’s ode to the american ipa, and not just in name
cascade, centennial and chinook hops
they use lager malts (munich and pilsner) for balance
which give it some belgiany notes to my palate, which makes it not my favourite ipa around
it tastes like an ipa though, don’t get me wrong, and is quite drinkable
there are just so many other ipas around that get me more excited!

jumping from the upstart danes to the bad boys of brewing in scotland, brewdog’s hardcore ipa (9.2% 150 ibus) was up next
now these guys get blamed a lot for getting people drunk on their high alcohol volume beers
but that’s not their goal – in fact they’re lobbying to get smaller pour sizes legalized in britain to combat over-drinking of higher alcohol beers
they just want to brew punk rock beer
the hardcore is an imperial ipa using scottish malts with pacific northwest hops – centennial, columbus and simcoe initially, and then dry-hopping it again along the way
malty nose with caramel or biscuit (you know, the stuff i don’t like)
balanced between the high ibus and the malts
you can smell the alcohol a little bit on the nose
but overall quite drinkable if you can handle your higher alcohol volumes!

last up was the lighthouse brewing shipwrecked triple ipa (10%)
and i gotta say, i absolutely love the bottle design
only offered in 650ml size, this is a departure for lighthouse
and the highest volume beer of the night for us, hence its appearance at the end of the night
double the malts and triple the hops
amarillo, columbus, perle hops – 3 intense hops combined
maris otter malt
golden colour, i’m getting a slightly alcohol nose instead of hops
it tastes rather malty-fruity, with hops back
not as good as i was expecting it to be
a case of judging the beer by its great bottle design?

gypsy brewing

i stole this from craft beer locator
who stole it from npr

‘Gypsy Brewer’ Spreads Craft Beer Gospel
by Claire O’Neill

“At 7 on a recent summer morning, I pulled into a gravel parking lot in Westminster, Md. Despite the godforsaken hour, I was late. Brian Strumke of Stillwater Artisanal Ales had been awake for hours, his daylong brewing process well under way. The self-proclaimed “gypsy brewer” is always on the go, and this morning was no exception. As soon as I arrived at DOG Brewing Co., we hopped in his car and headed to Baltimore. He had left his secret weapon at home: white sage.

On the road we discussed how new things are afoot, literally, in beer land. “Gypsy brewing,” although by no means a trend, has been added to the lexicon. In oversimplified terms, it’s brewing on the go, a supersubculture of the craft beer industry. Strumke is one of about three people in the world who do it, Denmark’s Mikkeller brewers being another example.

Like an old-world itinerant preacher, Strumke travels from brewery to brewery — from Belgium to Baltimore — spreading the craft beer gospel. He finds breweries that jibe with his thinking; rents out their excess capacity; and uses his own recipes to create limited edition batches and a brand.

It’s a win-win model. As a craftsman, Strumke can experiment without the burden of roots. And the breweries benefit from his business. While he does have the advantage of a distributor’s financial backing, he also has the support of some key figures in the beer industry, who are excited about his concoctions. Like his latest, “Of Love And Regret” — a saison brewed in Beerzel, Belgium, seasoned with “botanicals” and grassy hops, and inspired by, well, a personal experience.

Greg Engert of D.C.’s Birch & Barley, a beer-centric restaurant with an upstairs bar, is one of Strumke’s most vocal advocates, and quite possibly the person to have dubbed him a gypsy brewer. “What’s special,” Engert explains, “is that … Brian is always trying to think about food when he’s brewing.” In one recent instance, Strumke was sniffing around the exotic spices at a local Hispanic market and, struck by the scent of white sage, decided to create a beer for it. It actually makes sense. Almost like baking, brewing beer is much more akin to cooking than is winemaking — which explains a real trend that has recently swept the beer world: the pairing of beer with food.

Restaurants around the country are hosting an increasing number of “beer dinners.” As Megan Krigbaum, an associate editor at Food and Wine put it, “finally people are coming around to this idea that beer has a place on the dining table.” This year, Krigbaum edited Food and Wine’s list of America’s top sommeliers — or wine experts. And Greg Engert, only 28, was on that list — the first person ever, in fact, to be included for beer.

Engert’s bar above Birch & Barley boasts a menu of more than 500 bottled beers, with 50 on draft from around the world. He has a refrigeration system of three different temperatures, and a whole host of proper glassware. Needless to say, he takes beer seriously — and wants the rest of the food world to take it seriously, too.

A few days after shadowing Strumke at DOG Brewing Co., I joined him and Engert at Birch & Barley for a grand finale: a five-course meal that had been crafted to complement the flavors of Strumke’s beers. The first course: yellow garden gazpacho with blue crab, washed down with Strumke’s “Cellar Door” on cask: French-oaked and dry-hopped. It was the perfect way to end — to witness Strumke’s wanderlust journey from tank to table.

By the end of this year, Strumke expects his output to quadruple, a microcosmic example of the booming American craft beer industry. In the land of Bud, according to the Brewers Association, craft brews accounted for almost 7 percent of beer sales last year. Even Congress recognized microbrews with an American Craft Beer Week this year. According to Food and Wine’s Krigbaum, everyone is drinking beer.

“At the end of the day,” she says, “all the sommeliers are drinking beer. Even winemakers, when they finish a day after harvest, they’re not reaching for a glass of cabernet — they’re having beer.” And that’s coming from a wine editor. Bacchus would roll in his cloud grave.

Cheers to that!”

mikkeller’s stateside ipa

in my glass today is mikkeller’s stateside ipa

pours with an insanely abundant head (on a vigourous pour), which remains all lacey and creamy on the sides of my glass as i prepare for the first sip
i dig the green striped label and the hoppy aromas wafting toward me
first sip is bitter
like a little too bitter
second sip is better, i’m adjusting to the bitter

7%, water, malt (pilsner, munich and caramunich), flaked oats, hops (chinook, cascade and centennial) and ale yeast
bet its the flaked oats that provided the creamy head!

the bottle says:  “Our love of American microbrews inspired us to make this IPA.  It’s brewed with generous amounts of aromatic American hops to provide significant freshness and bitterness with lot of citrus notes, which are nicely balanced by the sweetness of caramel malt.”

still tasting more bitter than i am sweetness of caramel malt
but finding it more drinkable the further down the glass i get!

the website is in danish, but a handy translator thinks it says this:
“Mikkellers success is the result of the brewerys focus on making boundary pushing beer, where quality always comes before quantity. In other words, uncompromising beer, where alcohol content, hop volumes and bitterness does not exist.
On this site you have a list of the beers released in bottles and kegs. Some of them are made in collaboration with some of the best breweries in the world.
Besides the ones on this side we have released a number of specialty beers and limited releases at beer festivals in Denmark etc.”

really, the further i get down the glass, the more i am loving this ipa
bitter, schmitter, its delightful!

these are the people who have teamed with brewdog to make the i hardcore you ipa, mixing mikkeller ipa with brewdog ipa – brilliant idea.  i’m hopeful one day i’ll get to try it!

mikkeller has this to say about the collaboration:  “Today it finally arrived – the long awaited I Hardcore You IPA, a collaboration-brew between Mikkeller and BrewDog. This beer is a blend of BrewDog’s Hardcore IPA and Mikkeller’s I Beat yoU. 
This is possibly one of the best IPA’s you ever get to taste. 
Cheers.”


and brewdog says: “Question: What do you get if you blend Hardcore IPA and I Beat You together and then add even more dry hops?




Answer: I Hardcore You. Introducing a new type of collaboration. Coming Soon from Mikkeller www.mikkeller.dk and BrewDog. Oh and a completely new type of collaboration too!
I Hardcore You is a 9.5% Imperial India Pale Ale, an international collaborative effort between 2 of Europe’s most rock ‘n roll brewers. This beer is a blend of BrewDog’s Hardcore IPA and Mikkeller’s I Beat You (2 of my favourite beers). After the blending, the beer was then dry hopped a further twice. Making I Hardcore You a beer which has been dry hopped four times, or maybe even six times. We kinda lost count.
As far as we are aware this is the first collaboration of this type anywhere in the world. The first time a collaboration beer has been made by blending beers from the respective brewers together.  This is a one off brew with a small amount available for a limited time only. You can buy yours here:http://www.brewdog.com/product.php?id=58