Well, I haven’t posted in a while, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been drinking beer. Lots of beer. Scandinavia turned out be quite a good place for beer if you knew where to look. The lagers which were available everywhere weren’t stellar, but the beer bars ended up being great (especially in Stockholm and Copenhagen).
I’ll try to dump as much as I can, but there’s a lot to write about and it’s a little daunting.
First off was Oslo, which wasn’t too terribly great in terms of beer. Granted, we weren’t there for very long at all, so I probably can’t really rate it — really all I had there was Ringnes, which is apparently now a Carlsberg brand (as of 2004). It was nothing to write home about, but the wife and I drank it on a nice covered stone porch with heated lamps, which was nice. For lagers and light lagers, I’m a terrible judge. Honestly, they all taste the same to me, which is refreshing, but bland. There are no standout hop, alcohol, or malt notes — it really just has the stereotypical beer flavor for me. Meh.
I guess since I’m starting off with lagers, I should mention that we also drank Viking, Tuborg, Mariestad’s, Abro, and lots of Carlsberg (Elephant, regular, and 3.5%) while traveling. Again, I don’t have much to say about them. They served their purpose well of being available and refreshing, so I can’t fault them too much. Thankfully, variety came from a number of other beers.
