Beer, beer and more beer

Having learned to like whisky and enjoing it very much, there is one more think I should learn to like becasue it goes with the whisky, and thats beer. there are two adult drinks I've never learned to like that you have to learn, something that nobody likes the first times they try it.

One is coffee and I have no planes on starting to drink that shit, but the second is beer.

In norway 99% of the beer you get in the store is pilsner exept for corona and the norwegian "juleøl" you get every chirstmas.



If you want to get propper beer you need to go to a beer pub or to the wine monopoly were you have to go to get vine, and spirits and beer over 4.5% abv. Also they have imports, knowing I didn't like pilsner(or just pils in norway) I started to read the online catalog from the wine monopoly, on most products they got a short and concise description of the product, be it whisky, brandy, wine, vodka or beer. The one thing I realy wanted to try becasue in my opinion is the most manly form of beer is british bitter, but they have some beers that are descripbed as bitter after taste but they don't have any classic bitter beers in norway, some pubs might have it, but I don't know of any propper beer pubs in Oslo, so I just tried diffrent stuff, I tried Guinness and was disapointed. I expected I either hated it or loved it, instead i just tasted like "beer" something I did not enjoy drinking but didn't gag from either, a kinda limbo, some one pointed out that it might be the hops I don't like and recomeded more malty beers. I have concentrated on English beers becasue I'm an anglofile and English are the second most manly race of people after Scotts in Kilts.



I love the aspect of a propper english pub, right now you can get a plane to london for 320kr or about £30 I'm almost tempted to spring for ticked just to go to a propper english pub and then go back, the total price would be £60 for plane and £50 for two nights at a hotel, and it is "høst ferie" the next week, that is a week of fall vacation, i think it goes back to when the kids in the city would leave school for a week and go to the country to harvest potatoes. those £170 would almost be worth it just to go to a pub, sit down and say " a pint of bitter and a glass of single malt" soak up the atmosfare, I might even take an hour train ride to a country pub instead of one in the city(tho it might take longer then an hour to get away from london)



Amyway I dream, right now I'm drinking a Propper job india pale ale, not to my taste, it's "powerfully hopped" and if it is the hops I don't like than natuarly this one isn't my kind of beer.

It's not horrible but it taste to much like pils, tho even this beer is quite fine when I drink it next to my HP 18(you thought I wasn't going to talk about whisky this time didn't you) They compliment each other qite well, the HP18 is quite sweet, and the beer is hopped and not sweet but neither is it bitter, it got a hint of grapefruit in the arma, but it dosn't show up that well in the taste, to much hops.



Beeing norwegian you are at a disatvantage when learing to enjor propper alcoholic bevreges and spirits, the norwegian mentaltiy is to get realy drunk, rave around town, getting into fights, the old orange juice and vodka is the staple of norwegian youth growing up, there is actualy a pledge for graduating highschoolers that they have to dring one case of 24 33cl beers in 3 hours, natuarly doing stuff like having a beer in a glass and sniffing it is out of the question, the only time Norwegians actualy enjor a propper beer is when it's summer and you are out Barbecueing or the very first summer beer, but thats for adults, youth drink to get drunk, and it takes quite an affort to actualy start to get the mantality to enjoy bevrages and spirits for their quality and not the alcohol.



I don't know of that many Norwegians that actualy sniff their beer to get the aroma and nose, that is ofcourse becasue pils don't realy smell much of anything, but when you get some quality beer it's almost like whisky, they got a distinct nose and taste, not as powerfull as whisky. In whisky you got years of maturation in oak, you got the stronger alcohol, but still it's some of the same aspects. Like that you get good whisky at 40% abv but you kinda like when it goes up to 46% or more not becasue more booze is good but becasue the nose and flavores get more notisble, in the same aspect I think a good propper beer should have atleast 5.5% over 6% is better.



The second beer I'm drinking today is Samuels Smth's Taddy Porter, with aberlour 10 on the side, it's my first porter it got alot less of what i suspect is the hops, which means It's more to my taste, it's dark but not strong in the taste it's all very subtile, it got a small hint of liqourice, but it dosn't have any after taste which is a shame, the propper job even with it's strong hops had a nice after taste that went well with the whisky, here the beer taste goes away and the beer and whisky are kinda separate, no actualy if you change the order, and drink the whisky first which does have an after taste, the beer and whisky goes very well together, the aberlour is by no means a heavy whisky, it got some hints of spice, but it's not peated at all, I wonder how the porter goes with a heavier whisky, hmmm, hold on while I get the Laphroaig.



The Laphroaig is very nice, I think I have to by another Lagavulin soon so I can compare these two peated monster whiskies, I'm just gonna let it breath a little before I try the beer/whisky combo..



Lets see, hmm that was quite the combo, the peaty aftertaste is so long you could take a sip of the whisky and not have a taste of the beer for an hour and still get the combo. I like the combo the porter is a heavy beer and Laphroaig is a heavy whisky, to you'd think it got to heavy but they work well togeather.

Well I'll stop writing now, because in the end I got just to much beer and whisky in me today, but it's the first day of vacation so I guess I can indulge my self. It's clare that hops is not my thing and any beer with more pronounced malt or other tastes is my kind of beer.

This is all for now, I'm watching Hard Bolied but I got to caught up in writing so I almost forgot to watch.

Bushmills 10 and HP12

Highland Park 12 Y.O

This I bought because I thought it would work as a present for my dad, and it sure was, this is in many ways like the archetype Scotch, lots of sweet malt, a little smoke, when people say they don't like Scotch it's becasue of this taste, of course that only means they should try other types, that taste completely different, I like the taste, not the most interesting whisky, very little nose, but a classic taste, well made well tasting.After having tasted the HP18, I kinda knew what I was gonna get, I was more interested in the Bushmills

Bushmills 10

I'm drinking this as I type, and WOW what a special thing this is, my first taste of Irish Whiskey, I let it it open up and breath for quite some time, and I started to sniff, I was listing to music as I did it, then suddenly a smell hit me, I recognized it, but were I had to find out, it was so familiar but distant, I had to turn off the music to really concentrate, where the hell had I smelled this before, it took a good minute to really think about it, then it hit me, Bourbon, Jim Beam Black to be precise, this sweet chemical smell, yes that was it, naturally not as strong, but there was no hiding it, this just got more more interested, a single malt that smells of bourbon, I know Single malts often are matured on Bourbon casks, but I never actually smelled or tasted any bourbon in them, this was the first, it wasn't a hint of it, it was a clear strong smell, it was the primary smell in fact, now this is not a bad thing at all, I like the smell, I liked the minute it took me to find remember the smell to it was fun, to really have to think about it dig down into the olfactory memory. I REALLY enjoy this nose, it's nice to have a bourbon smell with out having to battle with the taste of the rather strong and harsh taste of Jim Beam Black, not that there is anything wrong with it. This is the kid of Whiskey I could just sit at nose for hours,The nose is sweet, chemical, Lacquer.

The taste, oh shit I forgot to taste it.

There is no Bourbon taste to it, only a hint of the nose of it comes along with the taste. Actually the Jim beam comes back, after the first taste which is classic malt, the bourbon comes back in the after taste it coats the mouth with lacquer, I never expected a malt to be so dominated by the casks it was in.You get a bourbon but it's really a malt, you get the smoothness of malt, but with strong hints of bourbon, very nice, very drinkable, I must say this one out did my expectations.This one I'll be drinking and NOSING often in the weeks and months ahead.

Highland Park 18 Y.O

Well as you can see I've drunk allot of this one over the last week, to much as this is expensive stuff.At first I wasn't really sure about this one, it tasted allot like lagavulin 16, only less peat/smoke.But as I tried it sevral times and my dad did the same I've come to appreciate it.My dad and me had a whisky tasting evening on Friday, we tried the Bladnoch HP 18 and a Glen moray 8 yo. While I'm partial to the bladnoch, my dad did point out that HP18 taste like whisky it taste the way whisky should taste when you think of whisky. But at the same time, it's not in your face, none of the tastes overwhelm you. it had peat, but just a little, it has the classic whisky taste with it out being to strong, it's sweet(but I still can't taste the toffee) and has lots of malt taste.I can now see why allot of people think so highly of it.I'll defiantly buy more of this one.