Mikkeller: Drink In The Snow (Denmark: Low Alcohol: 0.3% ABV)
Visual: Dark reddened brown. Coffee froth brown head.
Nose: Roasted. Bitter chocolate. Bitter coffee. Nuts.
Body: Slight chalk. Tannins. Treacle. Sweet chocolate. Syrup. Coffee.
Finish: Chocolate liquore. Treacle. Tannins. Coffee. Greenery. Slightly roasted.
Conclusion: This is possibly the greatest low abv beer I have ever tried. That may seem like it is being damned by faint praise, but considering there has been quite some competition of the position recently it is intended as praise indeed.
The aroma is pure porter, roasted elements, coffee, chocolate, it delivers exactly what you would expect from that style. I would defy most people to be able to pick it from a range of standard quality porters by aroma alone, it is spot on.
The body is not quite so awesome, mainly because there is a limit on how thick you can get the body at this abv, or so it seems. However within those limits you get a slightly syrupy chocolate, bitter coffee, treacle and even a slight chalkiness. I have seen many a full abv porter that have delivered less. It isn’t perfect, a touch too syrupy and a few tannins notes that are out of place, but basically it is a very serviceable dark beer with great porter notes.
As a normal beer I would be calling this good, but without any qualities that make it stand out above the herd. At this abv? Wow, I take my hat off to the brewers. This just blew my mind and my expectations of what can be done with beer.
I have a dozen of these yet to get through this winter and I am looking forwards to them. This is the perfect beer for when you can’t have a beer. The bar for low abv beers has been raised and everyone else must play catch up.
Background: I have been enjoying sampling a few low abv beers recently, and Mikkellers drink in the sun range have been near the top of the heap. So when I saw this, the dark winter version, in Brewdog’s guest beer section I grabbed a bunch. Mikkeller turn out a vast number of beers each year, and don’t even have a brewery, instead hiring time at different breweries to produce their beers.
