What do you get when you cross lutefisk with a hit of LSD?
A trip to Stoughton.
Hopefully a local reads that.
I've had Norway/Norwegians on the brain for a little while now. Next week I am off to Gamehole Con to spend a few days drowning in Lovecraftian chaos as I play Karsten Ekelöf, a Norwegian bacteriologist and physician who goes Beyond the Mountains of Madness. BtMoM is a Call of Cthulhu adventure that takes place in the Antarctic. Here's a bit of his backstory:
Karsten would join the Bratvaag Expedition led by Dr. Gunnar Horn.
Ostensibly an expedition to hunt seals and study glaciers and the Arctic seas, its secret mission was to claim Victoria Island for Norway.
The expedition first stopped at White Island where they improbably discovered the remains of Swedish explorer S.A. Andrée's Arctic balloon expedition. The official story is that only skeletal remains were found but Karsten and company stumbled upon corpses that still had flesh attached to the bones. Karsten examined the corpses and was horrified to discover that it appeared as if much of the adventurers' flesh had been eaten away as if by necrotizing bacteria.
The remains were stowed aboard their ship and Karsten examined tissue samples from them in transit to Victoria Island. Although he was not surprised to find that they were awash with foreign bacteria, he was shocked to discover that the invaders were unlike anything he'd seen previously.
They had strange tentacle-like protrusions and organelles unknown to science...
So there I was contemplating this Norwegian brew and what to do for a picture for this review and my mind started wandering. I thought about Nordic Noir TV shows but discovered that the ones I've watched are mainly Swedish and Danish with the odd one from Finland and Iceland thrown in. Where are the Norwegian TV producers?! Surely Oslo is as crime ridden as Stockholm. You can't tell me that there aren't maniacs living in the fjords or that the Norwegian forests are bereft of fae.
Then it occurred to me that I've been listening to a lot of Wobbler, a progressive rock band from Norway, lately and I have dragged them into this. Heck, they're probably the kind of guys who would drink this variety of beer anyway.
The brew at hand is Of Wood and Smoke by Haandbryggeriet located in Drammen which appears to be an exurb of Oslo. Thankfully some of it made its way to Madison at some point. The date on the bottom of the can was "12-7-202~~~" - the last digit was all smooshed so I guess its date of origin shall forever be a mystery. But, given that December was noted, I take it that this is a winter release.
This jibes with the beer, a hearty brew that was aged in akvavit barrels giving it a potency of 8% A.B.V. Of Wood and Smoke is an amped up version of Haandbryggeriet's Norwegian Wood, a smoked lager with juniper. This stouter iteration is apparently smokier and juniperer, in addition to having a higher alcohol content due to the spiritual comingling.
With the temperatures around here finally providing some much-needed relief from summer, I figured it was time to put this beer to the test.
My pour produced a big tan head which had shrunk a bit before I could take a decent photograph. Holding my glass at just the right angle, I could see that the beer had a deep ruby hue. I didn't notice any bubbles because I just couldn't see that far into the liquid. There was just blackness. Taking a whiff, I first caught booziness, that sharp alcohol smell. Apparently they weren't playing around with the akvavit. Luscious smoke then wafted into my nose and I attempted to discern what variety it was. Ultimately I failed but suspect it was from a fruit tree like apple or cherry. However, that impression may have been influenced by the inviting plum scent from some of the non-smoked malts.
My initial sip revealed a smooth booziness, as if the surely rather large malt bill was able to add enough sweetness to take the edge off of the akvavit. (I'd say the brew had a medium-heavy body.) Just as with the aroma, smoke came next followed by a moderate malty, caramel sweetness. I also tasted some milk chocolate. There was a mild fizz which struggled to penetrate the Maginot Line of malt.
On the finish I tasted a boozy heat which was joined by some lingering smokiness as well as bit of that caramel sweetness and a dash of the juniper. Everything resolved into a mild, slowly fading akvavit burn.
This is a really nice beer. I suspect it was past its prime but I liked it anyway. The smoke was just delicious and the sweetness wasn't anywhere near cloying. The hops and juniper were very much in the background keeping things from becoming a treacly mess and adding only piney/spicy accents. The akvavit I've had was flavored with caraway but I didn't detect any here.
Of Wood and Smoke is surely amongst the most boreal brews I've encountered. The smokiness was wonderful and it kept me warm on a chill autumn evening.
Junk food pairing: Until I can find some locally-produced lefse chips, I will recommend you pair your Of Wood and Smoke with a bag of Sørlandschips Original Spansk Paprika potato chips. The earthy paprika will go well with all of the malt flavors here and the oil will be swiftly cut by all that akvavit.
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