"Ironic is the fact that the more interested I get in beer, the less I drink of it. In my younger days I drank a lot, but was not ready to learn about good and great beer."
Are you a new reader, then Carlsberg can still surprise
Having just visited Carlsberg, i must admit that there was some surprises for me. The first surprise was that we were served really interesting beer.
We were shown around by Jens Eiken who is the brew master at Jacobsen Brewhouse. The group quickly found their way down in the cellars of Carlsberg. Here we tasted vintage beer. The first one was a vintage Påskebryg from 1964 that was quite yummy. It has a lot of the qualities of a god port wine. Surprisingly enough there was a fizzy sound when the bottle was opened. Small frothy white head that mostly diminished. Some strange stuff around the opening of the bottle. The aroma was light bread and nutty notes with a hint of caramel. Still very malty overall impression with just a hint of alcohol.
The cellars are in fact an entire underground city below the area where we find Carlsberg today. You can reach the entire Carlsberg facilities under grund.
The tasting later on included a couple of Black Label beers that were very interesting and good. Black Label means that they are somewhat experimental and therefore almost impossible to get hold of. Kudo to the brewers and developers at Jacobsen Brewhouse.
The black label both challenged and surprised me and that in it self was well worth the visit. The fact that it was Jens Eiken showing us around was also a great positive. Having a guide that both knows the how and why, with the guts to tell it like he sees it, was quite refreshing.
Off topic note: Still all the Carlsberg websites are totally crap - 100% flash and they take over your browser and makes new windows and re-sizes them. Stupid web developers (or is it the marketing guys?)!
