Mikkeller - Copenhagen - Beer Bar

I would leave all my possessions behind and move to Copenhagen if I only had the balls to do it.  Are there jobs for a guy like me in this absolute gem of a town?  What about the immigration policies?  Do they take rabble that cannot speak a word of Danish other than Øl?  

I may be outta luck, but at least I have the one weekend I spent there.  I would say that my favorite place in Copenhagen was the Mikkeller beer bar.  Beer-geek-a-licous. 

So I walked for what seemed like an hour from my hotel into the Vesterbro district.  This part of the city was originally a slum of sorts.  Prostitutes, poverty and violence; the Hamburg special.  These days Vesterbro is a hipster Mecca with lots of trendy hangouts and a somewhat unwashed (but in an intentional way) sort of vibe.  I secretly dig it.

The Mikkeller beer bar fits into this neighborhood perfectly.  Literally a hole in the wall.  I actually walked past it on my way there.  Below ground, very little signage.  If you are coming to this place you are coming with purpose.  No fucking pop-ins. 

Inside is like no other beer bar I have ever seen.  Where are the signs?  The derelict old couch?  The damn place looks like it was designed by Sara “lets use barn board” Richardson. OK.  I’m game.  Nice big chalkboard with all the on-tap offerings.  Very nice contraband; less than half Mikkeller beers and some really nice random stuff.  Even a couple DDC beers from Montreal.  Should I feel proud to be Canadian?

The bottle menu is simply ridiculous.  It’s not really a serious effort to make money.  Simply a “hey, can’t buy this hooch everywhere” selection.  It was my birthday so I went for what I would want to drink on my birthday as 30 is approaching way too quick.  

First up, I go for one of Mikkeller’s “yeast series”.  The concept is that the exactly same wort was fermented by several different yeast strains separately so that the effect of the particular yeast could be isolated and compared with the others.  I believe they did one with hefeweissen, Brettanomyces, US Ale, Belgian Ale and a lager yeast strains (correct me if I am wrong).  I’m into funk, so I hit the Brett.

Tastes / smells almost exactly the same as the It’s Alive I had a year or so ago.  Nice and funky but the malts are coming through on the nose.  Nice mix of funk and residual sweetness.  Could be drier but perhaps it’s a bit young still.  The beer looks, tastes and smells like a perfect all Brett beer.  I like this very much.  

           

Next up was a beer that is for all purposes impossible to get your hands on.  Cantillon’s Blåbær Lambik.  Basically, these crazy Danes send a truckload of blueberries to Brussels where Cantillon brew an authentic lambic fruit beer and then ship 100% of the bottles back to Copenhagen.  As far as I know, it is only sold at Ølbutikken  (a seriously kick-ass beer store just a block or two from Mikkeller) and at the Mikkeller beer bar.  

Wow.  Blueberries are really hard to pull off in a beer and I think this one does it.  Mad funk and sour citrus on the nose.  Not much blueberry.  The taste is tart and sour but the berry comes through quite strong.  Head is pretty good for a sour and the color is very deep.  I felt like I was betraying my girlfriend for drinking this without her but I have subsequently been assured that there is no resentment.

Lastly, I chose something that I would only really indulge in on my B-Day.  Dark Lord.  It is a bit weird drinking a beer from Indiana when in Copenhagen but the price was less than the black market price in my much closer home of Ontario.  WTF, EH?  

It poured black as night and quite thick.  Smell was very tar-like with a serious snap of vanilla.  Flavor is intense.  Dark fruits, light fruits, rum, whiskey, chocolate, coffee, molasses, marmite, oak and vanilla. Yeah, it’s pretty good.  Appearance was a little less fantastic but the head had a really nice color.  I shared the bottle with the two guys working the bar.  It was good consideration for the very excellent conversation about beer and the beer scene.  [For those of you who don't know, this is probably the most or second most hard to get beer in the world.  It sold for only one day of the year at the brewery and you must by a ticket to even have the chance to purchase a couple bottles.]

After consuming the above offerings I was pretty intoxicated.  So of course I asked to photograph the one remaining bottle of The End of History stashed behind the bar.  If you have a spare $3,000 you can drink this offering directly from the stuffed stoat it comes in.   Fair enough.  

I’m not sure the experience would be worth the money…but its cool.  If you don’t think it’s at least cool and peg it as a marketing ploy then you need to lighten-up.  55% beer that comes in a stuffed squirrel and is named after a Fukuyama book is at least cool….period.    Plus I like the tux.

After getting messed up at Mikkeller I met up with my better half for dinner at Kong Hans.  It has been awarded a Michelin Star for more than a decade.  The food was awesome.  I particularly enjoyed the cheese plate.   I have a thing for cheese plates and this one was really stellar.  Not just on an offering-by-offering basis.  The plate as a whole had a well thought out balance.  Unfortunately the beer sucked.  But hey, what can you expect from a Michelin Star rated restaurant?

Go to Mikkeller and drink beer.