Against The Grain/Mikkeller announce a collaboration.

Good stuff from Against the Grain.

12/19/2011

Against The Grain Brewery, located in Louisville KY, and Danish brewer Mikkeller will collaborate on a experimental beer, emphasizing the brewers' love of brewing innovative and unique beers.

Against The Grain (AtG), founded in Oct. 2011, is Louisville's newest brewery and maintains a diverse array of beers covering all of the major categories of beer flavor while generating an endless stream of innovative new brews. In short, everything is "specialty". AtG's brewers (formerly of Bluegrass Brewing) have a notable history with Mikkeller. Brewers Jerry Gnagy and Sam Cruz have sent a number of brands to the Mikkeller Bar during 2009-2010.

Mikkeller, known as the 'Gypsy Brewer' from Copenhagen Denmark, is noted for creating challenging beers that test the boundaries of beer and where quality always comes before quantity. In other words, uncompromising beer.

The Mikkeller brand, producing over one hundred different styles of beer, has grown into one of the most sought after in the world.
“Mikkeller has been very pleased to collaborate with brewers Sam Cruz and Jerry Gnagy during the time they were working for Bluegrass Brewing.

This cooperation builds on mutual respect, friendship and interest in beers of the highest possible quality.”

The collaboration brew... 'A Bloody Show' will be available in the first quarter of 2012. Stay tuned.

In addition to the release of the AtG/ Mikkeller collaboration brew, AtG will also contract brew a 'draft only' version Mikkeller's Invasion IPA for distribution in the U.S. Mikkeller Invasion will also be available in the first quarter of 2012.

Devine Rebel, from Mikkeller and BrewDog.

The label asserts that the pairing of Mikkeller (Denmark and the known world at large) and Brew Dog (bricks and mortar in Scotland, thank you much) is tantamount to two rock stars coming together.

I'm for it, but wary. Pop and rock is littered with the corpses of ill-conceived super groups and one-off video abominations like Mick Jagger and David Bowie imagining they might improve on the divinely rebellious sass of Martha and the Vandellas. They didn't.

Providentially, Devine Rebel avoids this jinx, sticks to the strengths of its collaborators, and offers an excellent libation best sampled at room temp on a chilly night. This one's a finisher.

The liquid is brewed to post-Barley Wine strength (circa 12% abv), and pours mildly carbonated, a bit on the murky side of amber/brown, and with a nose that promises the contemplative.

Devine Rebel was brewed at Brew Dog, partially aged in Speyside Scotch barrels and blended into final form, and indeed, there is a sufficient whisky component fighting for a peek above the glass’s rim with the fully expected Mikkeller hop backbone.

Though not a spirits aficionado, it’s a trend of which I’ve approved for longer than you might imagine.

When I was a freshman in high school, I aspired to be as cool as the upper classmen. In practice, this meant finding a way to artfully pilfer liquor from my father’s bar to lubricate shadowy sessions in the gloaming prior to football games.

One time, I judged it unsafe to bleed off any more bourbon from a fast depleting bottle that the old man seldom touched, anyway, and I turned instead to a quart of Scotch. Later, in our usual hiding place, I proffered my take to my co-conspirators and was surprised to find the reaction universally negative.

I rather liked it. As I proceeded to learn, bourbon was sweeter and easier to swallow uncut, and of course when added to coke, became a taste sensation that approximated the sugar-laden dietary habits that would render future generations crazily obese.

Don’t even ask about the time I brought gin to the meeting.

Save Devine Rebel for a nightcap, and you’ll not be disappointed.

Photo/label credit

That's not your Danish grandfather's lager, is it?

Yesterday I braved the snarling backhoes that are preparing the foundation for the gleaming new Keg Liquors and shopped for a couple of bottles of beer of the sort that owner Todd Antz stocks, but we don’t carry at the Public House. Rest assured, there are plenty. Todd’s been doing a better job of staying abreast of bottled beer, while my focus has been on draft for dispensing on premise.

One of my two final choices was North Bridge Extreme by the Norrebro Bryghus in Copenhagen, Denmark, a city that once was a frequent haunt of mine back in the day when the only beers available were narrow product lines of (mostly) lagers produced by the combined might of Carlsberg and Tuborg, and a few others from other Danish locales. My, how things have changed …

In fact, my old friend Kim Andersen has long urged me to make a return visit to Copenhagen (I’ve failed to do so since 1999), and as much as there’d be no reason whatsoever to doubt the sagacity of Kim’s intimate knowledge of the explosion of craft beer and brewing in his hometown, there simply hasn’t been the chance to go back. This oversight may soon have to be rectified.

Allowing for my small overall sampling, surely Norrebro’s version of a California-style Double IPA is the best I’ve tasted from a European brewery. At 9.5%, it hovers on the edge of barley wine. English malt gives it the richness that I believe is necessary in such a well-hopped beer. Delicious, complex and damned near thirst quenching … and mind blowing to contemplate it being brewed in Copenhagen.

If my recollection of the city is correct, Norrebro means “North Bridge,” presumably in reference to the moats and waterways once ringing the center of town, and if my fuzzy math is right, the brewery is producing about 2050 barrels a year in the American sense. To compare, NABC will brew roughly 500 barrels in 2008, and BBC (Main & Clay) I’d guess to be above 5,000 (corrections appreciated).

Now I’m researching Mikkeller, a roving duo of former homebrewing Danes turned professional, who brew American styles at various places in Denmark, Belgium and perhaps elsewhere. Both Mikkeller and Norrebro come to you courtesy of Shelton Brothers Importers, and the available styles are rare, indeed, so be sure and make friends with Todd.