Anyone else suspect the team at Nøgne Ø is after Aussie citizenship? Perhaps they've grown tired of the endless winters and fancy a life in the sun. Either way, they seem to be gifting us an endless supply of collaborative beers, which to date already includes the India Saison, Aurora Borealis, Our Dark Secret and now this, with a collab with Moon Dog and another with Bridge Road already in tank (and barrel and fish bowl or whatever else they can find to use). This is the beer that came about through the brewer swap that took place between Holgate's Nick and Nøgne Ø's Ingrid: an imperial red ale that's all about the layers of malty goodness.
According to Nick: "Ingrid and I both approached our collaboration with the concept of a beer that would cellar and would be something of a special occasion beer. We are also both of the opinion that 'original' is getting out of hand in craft beer. We aimed to make a unique beer that showed creativity and originality, but without resorting to novel or non-traditional ingredients: no spices, fruit or exotic animal excrement in this beer!
"We ended up settling on an imperial red aleish type beer, the hefty use of various crystal malts gave this beer a complex aroma, a full body and a beautiful deep red colour. A whack of bittering hops balanced all that sweetness and some chinook at end of boil helped give the aroma some complexity. We like the idea that this beer showed off this group of malts and is truly unique in flavour; it's a beer thats hard to categorise and I think quite original using just malt, hops, water and yeast!"
Published April 11, 2013 2013-04-11 00:00:00