Beery Christmas Jour 12 : Mikkeller Beer Hunter
The Danish reference brewery
Brewing is a family affair! Originally, there are two twin brothers, Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergso and Mikkel Borg Bjergso. While Jeppe preferred to leave for the United States to start his own business known as Evil Twin, Mikkel stayed in Denmark to focus on his brewery Mikkeller. In his early days, Mikkel was a student teacher and drank cheap beers, just enough to make it festive, with the quality down. In order to finance his school and to have some money, he joined a small local café which will train him to the knowledge of Belgian beers, like Chimay or Hoegaarden. He discovered a passion for beers from all over the world and formed a beer club with his friends, where they discussed and tasted suds around a table in the basement. Time goes by and Mikkel becomes a math and physics teacher. After a day of work, he goes to a local pub for a beer and tastes India Pale Ale from the Danish brewery Brøckhouse. He fell in love with it! However, he figured he could save a lot of money if he made his own beer and could even win competitions if he put his mind to it. Together with his friend Kristian Keller, they started experimenting with water, malt, hops and yeast in a small kitchen in Copenhagen.
As time went on, our two friends got up to speed, surrounding themselves with American brewing books that praised hops, even grinding malts in their basement. Their first brew was a clone of that famous beer tasted in the pub, entered in a home brewing competition, which won quite a few medals at the national Danish beer festival. With this success, they start to brew more, especially with the Danish microbrewery Ørbæk, by which they become gypsys brewers, which means that they don't have their own facilities but they collaborate with other establishments to brew their beers. Mikkeller became really famous when they brewed an oatmeal stout, simply adding coffee from the French press technique, which consists of brewing your coffee, filtering it by gently pressing the plunger down. This way, the water will pass through the plunger to leave the coffee grounds in the bottom of the coffee pot. The success is resounding, even ranking the beer in top 1 on the forum of the beer specialist Ratebeer.
After that, they continued to brew until early 2007, when Keller left Mikkeller to follow his own path and become editor-in-chief of a music magazine. Mikkel found himself alone with a mountain of work since he was managing the brewing, but also his classes and correction of copies. In 2010, he terminated his teaching contract to devote himself entirely to brewing. Shortly after, he opened "Mikkeller Bar," his first bar on Viktoriagade in the Vesterbro district of Copenhagen. Today, Mikkeller is an entity of the brewing world and it was unthinkable for us not to have it in our 10th edition of the Beery Christmas advent calendar!
Mikkeller's Beer Hunter Tasting
So what has the Danish brewery Mikkeller prepared for us? The Beer Hunter is named after our legendary beer hunter Oswin, who had big eyes when he went to discuss the style and beer that would be great to have in our Beery Christmas advent calendar. This can, which has a style closer to a berliner weisse than a sour, exudes freshness with its fruity side but also with its very light side. Once poured into a glass, we see a ruby red color with a fine pink foam. Brewed with wheat and barley, this will give it its rather opaque side, as well as body for a less watery texture. We find aromas of blueberry, forest fruits, strawberry yoghurt, rose water and lavender. The whole is very lactic with a low alcohol content of 3.7%.
On the palate, the salinity brings dry notes, which accompany the flavors of red fruits and blueberry. There is a resemblance with a jam without sugar. As mentioned above, we are more on a berliner weisse than a sour. This is the perfect beer to discover a little more about craft beer, both for the neophyte and the experienced, with flavors that are out of the ordinary. Mikkeller's Beer Hunter pairs well with chessecake or fresh cheese, and should be enjoyed at 6°C.
ALCOHOL ABUSE IS DANGEROUS FOR YOUR HEALTH! PLEASE CONSUME IN MODERATION.
