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Probably the best beer review in the worldJul 02 '03 (Updated Aug 04 '04) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line If I could think of anything amusing to write here, don't you think I would?
Picture the scene, it's Saturday afternoon and I'm helping a friend who's building a fence in his garden. When I say helping, I mean supervising in a know-it-all sort of way. It was fairly warm and it came to the point when his partner asked if I'd like a drink. Now, I really didn't want to interrupt her labours - concrete won't mix itself, you know - but on the other hand, I was a tad thirsty. "Tea or coffee?" she asked. What a sense of humour...laugh? I nearly started. She disappeared for a few minutes (I've no idea how she does it...perhaps she's a witch) and when she returned, she presented me with a nicely chilled can of Carlsberg Premium Lager. I dispatched her forthwith for a clean glass - only philistines, wee boys and jakeys drink out of a can (or gourmetical connoisseurs like myself when they find themselves embarrassed, glassware-wise). I prefer my beer to taste of beer, not aluminum. So, while I'm pouring this little refreshment, why don't you have a read about some of Carlsberg's history. • The Brewery • Carlsberg first set sail in 1847 when it was launched by Captain J.C.Jacobsen, who declared that it was his aim "to develop the art of making beer to the greatest possible degree of perfection". It was the first brewery in Northern Europe to produce lager. Yeast selection in the Carlsberg laboratory led to the isolation of the world's first single-cell culture in 1883. Since then, lager yeasts have been known as 'Carlsbergensis'. In the UK, visiting Danish sea captains shared their personal supplies with the locals and soon it became so popular, that from 1868 supplies were regularly imported to Edinburgh's port of Leith. In 1970 Denmark's largest breweries, Carlsberg and Tuborg merge to form United Breweries Ltd, the group which is now known as Carlsberg AS. In 1974 the Carlsberg Brewery in Northampton was opened, providing all the Carlsberg needed for UK consumption (1.6 million barrels annually or the equivalent of 55,000 pints an hour!) In 1992 Carlsberg UK merged with Allied Breweries, to become Carlsberg Tetley, but since 1998 Carlsberg has taken complete control of Carlsberg-Tetley. Carlsberg is available in over 140 countries and Carlsberg is one of the world's largest international brewing groups. Abridged from: http://www.carlsberg.co.uk/ -----------------------------INTERLUDE---------------------- A guy goes into a bar and orders a beer. While he's enjoying his drink, he notices a little old man with a peg-leg and a head the size of a tennis ball. Curious, he asks the man, "How in the world did your napper get to be so tiny?" The old man replies "I used to be a sailor, but I was shipwrecked on a remote island and lived there for about three years. One day a beautiful mermaid came up on shore. She gave me three wishes. For the first wish, I asked to be rescued and for the second I wished for £25 million. For the third wish I told her that I wanted to have sex with a mermaid. She told me "sorry, but mermaids don't have the right equipment to have sex with humans." So I said "How about a little head then?" ------------------------------------------------------------ Back to the beer.... Carlberg pours to a bright and bubbly, pale golden-yellow colour with lots of carbonation forming a modest white head which dies fairly quickly and only leaves the patchiest of lace. The aroma is mainly of sweet malt and some grainy notes combined with spicy, herbal hops, and some traces of cooked vegetables. On tasting, I find it's relatively thin bodied with a crisp, but smooth, mouthfeel. There's a pronounced earthy grain flavour with a sharp, metallic hop bite which fades to a more peppery spiciness. It's slightly sweet though the hops and malt are reasonably well balanced. It finishes clean and crisp, slightly dry with a faint, husky aftertaste. • The Verdict • At 4.6% ABV, if served ice-cold it's a decent, refreshing thirst-quencher, but premium? Carlsberg is such a famous name with an illustrious history to match, you'd expect their premium lager to be a little bit special. Alas, no such luck. It's no more than an everyday, run of the mill, Euro-lager - albeit slightly above average. You could be drinking any one of a number of lagers from Amstel to Zwiek but it doesn't even warrant comparison with the likes of Pilsner Urquell...so I won't. It's available in bottles and cans almost everywhere for just under a quid for 500ml and, more expensively on draught in most pubs. Would I drink it again? - Probably. Thanks for reading, Sláinte ©proxam2003  |
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