[BW] Beer Blog

Brewery: Nøgne Ø
Style: Winter Warmer
BeerAdvocate.com Rating: B+
RateBeer.com Rating: 3.79 (96th percentile)
Serving: Imperial Pint-sized Bottle

On my latest trip to the Belmont Beer Station I picked this brew up for two main reasons. One is that I love winter ales and the other being that I’ve never tried Norwegian beer before. I’m all about killing two birds with one stone, so I didn’t think twice about picking this one up.

I’ll admit I don’t know a whole lot about Norwegian culture, however I do know that their relatively-close neighbors to the east, Finland, drink beer like it’s going out of style. However, what I’ve heard from my Finnish friend is that they drink crap beer. Is Norway trying to start a Scandinavian beer renaissance? I have no idea, but Nøgne Ø seems to be making an impact if their brews made it all the way to Portland, Oregon.

From their site - Nøgne Ø was created by two home brewers. Unable to stay at home we started Norway’s first microbrewery for creative brewing. Some times, when we get a momentary glimpse of sanity, we ask ourselves what we have achieved. We think we can say that we have achieved some level of fame, at least locally and among dedicated beer geeks around the world. But more important - before we started Nøgne Ø most Norwegians did not know much about beer styles like IPA, Porter or Amber. This has for sure started to change, and we do feel that we have contributed to what you can call a renaissance of Norwegian beer-culture.

I SWEAR I wrote about the possible renaissance before I read that on their site. Turns out these are my kind of brewers. Let’s drink!

Appearance - About as dark as mahogany can be without being black. Tad more on the red side than brown with a very thin lace of a head that dissipated almost immediately. Only a very slight amount of light shines though.

Smell - Malty with hues of spice coming through. Compared to other winter ales, this one has one of the mellowest aromas I’ve experienced.

Taste - First thing I noticed immediately was hues of coffee. The coffee taste suddenly disappeared, however, and toffee/caramel took over. As with most winter ales the alcohol comes through as well, but not too overwhelming as it’s at a safe 8.5%. The oddest and most unique aspect of this brew’s taste is the alcohol is just high enough to where it gives the same sensation (not taste) as a barley wine as the very last 1% of it dissipates off my palate.

Overall this is a very good brew and I can definitely see myself picking up some more before the winter is over. I am incredibly impressed and it has its own unique complexities to make its own segment of fans in what has become a huge selection of winter seasonal ales. This has also been an incredible introduction to Norwegian ales for me. Expect more reviews from this brewery in the future.

On an unrelated note, I propose that the US ditches the 12oz bottle and embraces the imperial pint-sized bottles. They’re the perfect size for pouring into a pint glass and just large enough to feel bad ass drinking out of, but not large enough to look like a total alcoholic.

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