Denne udgave af poesibogen er med Alex Rock, en herboende amerikaner, der har ølbloggen Rock on Beer. Jeg har ladet hans svare forblive på engelsk, så velkommen til poesibogens første internationale udgave.
I came to Odense from Michigan USA after following the siren call of a beautiful Danish woman. Web designer by day beer enthusiast and home brewer by night (and some days). Started taking notes on odd beers I would pick up in Netto, ended up with a giant website with hundreds of reviews and a kitchen full of brewing equipment.
Yndlingsøl/Favorite Beer
Like most beer geeks I have trouble narrowing it down to just one. There is however one beer that rises above all others in my mind. Bell’s Two hearted Ale, an IPA from my home state of Michigan, is in my opinion a perfect beer. I have great memories of drinking it at home and try to bring back a six pack every time I am back in Michigan. Special mention has to go to Breakfast Stout from Founders Brewing and Green Gold from Mikkeller.
Yndlingsøltype/Favorite Beer Type?
I am not even going to try and decide between IPA and stout. I embrace the ying and the yang of brewing and love both styles equally. In IPAs I like hop bombs. I want to be able to close my eyes and imagine the hops are a tiny jackhammer pounding my tongue into submission. In stouts I like them to be as black as a starless night and brimming with coffee and dark bitter chocolate like a thousand pound bomb made of espresso exploding in willy wonka’s chocolate factory. (Gene Wilder not Johnny Depp) I guess if I had to express my favorite beers in a word it would be “aggressive”.
Største Øloplevelse/Greatest Beer Experience?
I have had a lot of great beer experiences. The one that jumps to my mind first is an evening in beer city USA, Grand Rapids Michigan. I happened to be visiting Michigan at the same time as two of my best friends, and fellow beer geeks. So we began our evening at the mecca of Michigan beer, Founders Brewing. After taking many flights around their tap room we moved on to other altars of craft scattered about the city. It was an amazing night with good friends who love beer in a city that takes the love of beer to a whole new level. It not only really cemented my obsession with beer, but also ended with a marriage proposal to a stranger and a permanent ban from a hotdog establishment.
Hvor køber du dine øl/Where do you buy your beer?
In Odense I get all my pints at Christian Firtals. It was one of the first places I visited when my wife and I moved to Odense, and I instantly fell in love with the place. I can hardly let a week go by without going in to look at that big chalkboard and sitting down with a cold one. If I am buying by the bottle I always go to H.J Hansens in Odense. They have the nicest stock of craft beer and it rotates relatively frequently. Beyond that I have been known to place an order from Brewdog’s website or take the long ride to the promised land of Mikkeller & Friends and Ølbutikken in Copenhagen.
Hvad er det øl kan siden det er så godt/What makes beer so great?
For me personally it is the amazing versatility of beer itself, combined with the amazing community it tends to create. On the first point, the beer itself, it just never ceases to amaze me how one beverage can be so surprisingly different even within the same type. A handful of grain, a bit different hops, maybe an added yeast strain, can make radically different tasting beers. It is an absolute joy exploring the different styles, and the different takes each brewery brings to those styles.
Almost everyone loves beer. Where there is a beer culture, there is a craft beer culture, meaning there are beer nerds. Beer nerds are the best, and worst thing the craft beer revolution has produced, depending on who you ask. I love meeting other beer nerds and speaking the language of brew. From growing up in Michigan, where some of the oldest and most highly regarded craft brewers in America call home and the beer revolution has turned into more of a craft beer regime. Then to Denmark where the revolution is in full swing. Also to places I have visited like Hungary where it is still just a few geeks in basements trying to make something happen. I have had some of the best conversations, and met some of the most interesting people in my life thanks to beer.