With the Superbowl on the TV and friends and family over until at least halftime, I had to provide some liquid refreshments. For my brother, a six pack of Labatt’s would do. However, for some of the craftier members of the viewing audience, I selected two bombers from Mikkeller: the Invasion IPA and the Beer Hop Breakfast. Sadly, the Invasion IPA went down a little too fast for notes but I was able to keep my wits about me long enough to put together a few notes on the Beer Hop Breakfast. G-LO and I had split a bomber of the Mikkeller Draft Bear and I just had to go back for more when I saw the two bottles over at Roger Wilco.
Mikkeller is my new favorite brewer as they are a gypsy brewer and don’t actually have any facilities of their own and borrow capacity from brewers in Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the United States. I love that it is possible to operate a brewery without any actual plant. All you need are some great recipes and a relationship with a brewery with excess capacity, and you too could be in the beer business. The Beer Hop Breakfast is brewed at Amager Bryghus, a Danish microbrewer known for their Hr. Frederiksen (a Russian Imperial Stout), their Rugporter (an American Porter) and their Sundby Stout (an American Stout).
Here is what Mikkeller has to say about the Beer Hop Breakfast (at least I think this is what Mikkeller says as the Google translator has taken the Danish to English):
An Oatmeal Stout brewed with: water, malt, hops and yeast. Special version with extra hops and tørhumlet with Simcoe and Columbus. Coffee (Idido, lysristet) from Denmark’s coolest coffee guys Coffee Collective.
I found this beer to be…
- Appearance: Black, thick with lots of tan foam.
- Aroma: Cereal grains and coffee grounds with a light hoppy note.
- Taste: Sweet and creamy with a heavily roasted character and a bitter, coffee bite in the finish.
- ABV: 7.5%
This was a nice blend of an oatmeal stout, a breakfast stout, and a black IPA with just the right amount of oatmeal stout, hops, and coffee. Once again, I am left wanting and must go in search of more Mikkeller.