Ole and Sven walk into a bar and they order some beers. After drinking his, Ole looks into his shirt pocket. They order another round and Ole looks into his shirt pocket again. This goes on for a few more rounds.
Sven is curious, “Ole, why do you look in your pocket after each beer? Whatcha got in der?"
Ole confesses, "I have a picture of my Lena in der, and when she starts ta look good, I go home."
When it comes to beer, Norway's is not exactly near the top of most people's lists. And I don't mean that their beer is regarded as being low quality; it's that people outside of Norway don't seem to know it exists.
"They brew beer in the land of the midnight sun? I didn't think you could grow barley on a glacier."
Norway is about a-ha and Ole and Sven/Lena jokes. Their culinary traditions consist of lefse and lutefisk, right? I suppose I can say that, when I think of Norway, I also think of the biathlon (I got pretty good at it playing Winter Games on my Commodore 64) and a bunch of guys on skis blowing up a heavy water factory.
People in the American Upper Midwest, such as myself, might throw in rosemaling and sandbakkels at Christmas but that exhausts most Americans' knowledge of Norwegian culture.
Actual Norwegians know a bit more, though, I suppose. But how much about their indigenous beer styles to they know?
One Norwegian who knows about the brews of his homeland is Lars Marius Garshol. He literally wrote the book as his tome Tradisjonsbrygging av øl goes in-depth into the farmhouse ales of his homeland. Unfortunately, it's in Norwegian. On the other hand, his Historical Brewing Techniques: The Lost Art of Farmhouse Brewing is in English and it covers the farmhouse brews of Norway, as well other Northern European countries. It sounds like an interesting book that would shed a lot of light on the beer at hand. But I wouldn't know since I've never read it.
At some point in the fall, I spied Kornøl by Giant Jones Brewing in a beer cooler and was intrigued. I searched my memories for a time when I'd sampled a Norwegian style of beer but found none and so I eagerly bought a bottle. While I haven't read Garshol's book, I have heard an interview with him. He notes that kornøl is a beer style associated with the northwestern part of the country and has the following characteristics:
- wort is not boiled
- pale grist is used
- a juniper infusion mash
- very little hops
- kveik for fermentation
- very low carbonation
Of course it has juniper in it. It's a standard ingredient in more boreal brews.
Was Giant Jones' Kornøl brewed to these standards? Will it taste like it's "supposed to"?
Since I'd never had kornøl previously, I found myself enchanted with novelty at every turn. I had no idea what it looked like and was pleasantly surprised at a lovely light yellow liquid which was in start contract to the dark lagers and bracketts I'd been consuming lately. There was a slight haze to it. Despite my best(?) efforts, my pour produced only a small head of lively foam. Like the stuff in soda. It didn't last. With that haze being on the light side, I was able to see some bubbles inside. I was surprised by a lemony smell, as if it was a kettle sour. Was it? For all I knew, it was a sour beer, laden with lactic. I also smelled grain - yeasty, crackery - and a hint of pine. The label did mention local spruce.
The label mentioned that it wasn't boiled and was fermented with kveik so, along with the juniper, pale color, and small head, it seemed we were more or less in the kornøl ball park here.
When I tipple a stronger beer, and this stuff is 7.4%, I tend to go in thinking that it's going to be thick and sweet and really provide sustenance for the Fimbulwinter. But I found Kornøl merely had a medium body. It was a bit on the sweet side with a kind of sprightly honey taste but there was enough fizz to keep it from being cloying. The spruce was definitely there but it was not taiga in a glass. You couldn't miss it but it didn't dominate. I think I also caught a smidge of herbal hops in addition to that airy cracker taste.
The sweetness faded on the swallow which allowed a combination of the spruce and some herbal-spicy hops to finish things off with a prominent dryness and a firm bitterness.
For about half a glass I found myself pondering the mysteries of this beer. What was I tasting that was the result of the wort not having been boiled? Was I able to truly discern the hops from the spruce?
In the end, I never found any answers and, instead, just enjoyed the ride. The spruce was just the right amount for me (and may have been bolstered - the aroma, anyway - by the fact that I had hung a wreath in the same room just the day before) and while the brew had a little heft, it was never cloying nor ever tasted like liquid bread. There was a smooth sweetness to it but it wasn't like drinking syrup. Whatever the ratio of spruce to hops was, their combination was bracing and a fine antidote to the sweetness.
I thoroughly enjoyed Kornøl and only wished that I'd had someone to share my bottle with. Even if Giant Jones and brewmaster Jessica Jones deviate from tradition,
they deserve a lot of credit, in my book, for brewing a plethora of more obscure styles, including this one. And this is just one of a couple
farmhouse ales of Northern Europe in their catalogue. There's also a Finnish sahti to be had which I hope to try soon.
Junk food pairing: Pair Kornøl with some of Norway's finest: Sørlandschips Havsalt og Eplekjekk Eddik potato chips - salt & vinegar!
No comments:
Post a Comment