Hello again and a very happy new year. If you don't use the Gregorian calendar, then please continue to enjoy your current year until such times as "happy new year" becomes appropriate. I just had a very pleasant visit to England for Christmas and brought back eight different whiskys and seven beers. Plenty of content on the way. I've also got a fridge full from before Christmas and several whiskys in the cupboard. Also got a cheese to taste. I had an awesome brie with truffles in the UK, but didn't take notes. It was very ripe and very delicious and was my first ever experience of truffles. Very pleasant, but pretty much tasted of mushroom. Anyway, I had a bottle of Berentsen's Vamp so here's the details:
Bit of an intro
I have to say first off that I'm not really a lager drinker. I find it generally has too much gas and too little flavour. I'd rather have a rich, heavy, dark ale any day. According to the hobbit's song the man in the moon came down to the merry old inn beneath the old grey hill for brown ale. That's a journey of anything between 225,623 and 252,088 miles, depending on where the moon is in its orbit.. I wouldn't travel that far for lager, even if I was the imaginary subject of a song in a fantasy world. Even so, I have attempted to approach this beer in as objective a fashion as I would any other. It's probably worth explaining what lager is now.
This particular lager is from Brentsen's in Egersund. That shouldn't surprise you since you've been following the series on Berentsen's beers with such diligence. It's a "premium" lager, apparently. I don't need to tell you what lager is again, but I just looked up the word "premium" to find out what makes it a premium lager. It could mean that it's particularly good, or that it's particularly expensive. It wasn't very expensive, so we can assume the brewers think it's particularly good.
Have you heard of the band Vamp? Neither had I until I moved to Norway. They gave their name to this lager, and seem to have had some role in its brewing. It was brewed to commemorate Berentsen's 120th anniversary. Congratulations to Berentsen's, they must be doing something right to keep going that long. Probably including alcohol in their products. It has three kind of malt and three kinds of hops according to the label. I got this one from Vaaland the beer supermarket, and it cost me 32.9 kr for a 330ml bottle. (That's £2.51, $3.71, €3.42 or 83,552.01 Sao Tomean Dobra.) It's bottled at 4.7% abv like all the other Berentsen's beers I've tried so far. I had assumed they just used the same strain of yeast for everything, but my research suggests that you have to use a different one to make lager, so now I'm not sure. Maybe they do something else to make sure their beers are all the same strength, or maybe they just got lucky. Someone out there probably knows.
There's another cryptic message on the back of the bottle. I'll have a crack at translating it:
"Vamp ølet er en premium lager, brygget for folk flest. Vi har brukt tre typer malt, og tre typer humle for å lage det optimal øl i anledning Berentsen's 120 års jubileum.
Hilsen Bryggermesteren og gutter i Vamp."
"Vamp beer is a premium lager, brewed for people most. We have used three types of malt and three types of hops to make the optimal beer on the occasion of Berentsen's 120 year anniversary.
Greetings from the brewmaster and the boys in Vamp."
I'm not certain if it was "brewed for people most" or "brewed for most people" and google translate wasn't as helpful as I would have liked. If any Norwegian natives would like to help out in the comments they'd be most welcome.
I have to say first off that I'm not really a lager drinker. I find it generally has too much gas and too little flavour. I'd rather have a rich, heavy, dark ale any day. According to the hobbit's song the man in the moon came down to the merry old inn beneath the old grey hill for brown ale. That's a journey of anything between 225,623 and 252,088 miles, depending on where the moon is in its orbit.. I wouldn't travel that far for lager, even if I was the imaginary subject of a song in a fantasy world. Even so, I have attempted to approach this beer in as objective a fashion as I would any other. It's probably worth explaining what lager is now.
Lager means to store something in Norwegian and various other Germanic languages, and that's what it means in the context of brewing. The beer has a period of storage at a a temperature just above freezing point. This has the affect of removing any cloudiness from the beer. I think it's got something to do with proteins kind of congealing and settling out, but I can't be much more specific than that about the chemistry of it. A lot of protein does come out, and lagers typically have a light body and mild flavours as a result which is why they don't appeal to my taste so much. Storage also give time for weird sulphury smells from the yeast to dissipate out. The yeast used is different to the yeast used in ales. In ales the fermentation happens near the top of the liquid, but lager yeast ferments at the bottom. For some reason it produces sulphur compounds that smell a bit funny. It ferments a bit colder than ales too. Ales are usually fermented at around twenty degrees centigrade while lagers are usually between seven and thirteen degrees. The beer is removed from the "yeast cake", (the sediment of dead and dormant yeast that sinks to the bottom during fermentation) before it's cooled to near freezing and stored. What a palava. Incidentally, a pilsner is a pale lager with a fair bit of hop influence. Two thirds of the worlds beer production is pilsner which is a shame, and pilsner is what I usually picture when someone says lager although lagers can also be dark. I had a dark lager a couple of months ago. It wasn't great, but that could have been more to do with the pub.
This particular lager is from Brentsen's in Egersund. That shouldn't surprise you since you've been following the series on Berentsen's beers with such diligence. It's a "premium" lager, apparently. I don't need to tell you what lager is again, but I just looked up the word "premium" to find out what makes it a premium lager. It could mean that it's particularly good, or that it's particularly expensive. It wasn't very expensive, so we can assume the brewers think it's particularly good.
Have you heard of the band Vamp? Neither had I until I moved to Norway. They gave their name to this lager, and seem to have had some role in its brewing. It was brewed to commemorate Berentsen's 120th anniversary. Congratulations to Berentsen's, they must be doing something right to keep going that long. Probably including alcohol in their products. It has three kind of malt and three kinds of hops according to the label. I got this one from Vaaland the beer supermarket, and it cost me 32.9 kr for a 330ml bottle. (That's £2.51, $3.71, €3.42 or 83,552.01 Sao Tomean Dobra.) It's bottled at 4.7% abv like all the other Berentsen's beers I've tried so far. I had assumed they just used the same strain of yeast for everything, but my research suggests that you have to use a different one to make lager, so now I'm not sure. Maybe they do something else to make sure their beers are all the same strength, or maybe they just got lucky. Someone out there probably knows.
Packaging
It's in the same kind of bottle as all the others, which makes a lot of sense from a business point of view. Why go to the effort and expense of getting different bottles in for a special anniversary brew when you've got millions of perfectly adequate bottles kicking around the place already? Sensible thinking from the chief executive of bottles at Berentsen's brewery.
Yup
Most notable about this bottle is its label, which doesn't follow the same style as the four I've already reviewed. It makes a bigger deal of being endorsed by Vamp than it does of being the 120 year anniversary lager, which I assume means they felt that having Vamp involved was a bigger selling point than nostalgia, but since Vamp is the name of the beer they can be forgiven for writing it in such big letters. I quite like the violin behind the writing. The tailpiece of the violin (the bit that holds the bottom end of the strings in place) is vaguely lager glass shaped, which I'm assuming is deliberate and therefore a nice touch.
More subtle than their other designs.
There's another cryptic message on the back of the bottle. I'll have a crack at translating it:
"Vamp ølet er en premium lager, brygget for folk flest. Vi har brukt tre typer malt, og tre typer humle for å lage det optimal øl i anledning Berentsen's 120 års jubileum.
Hilsen Bryggermesteren og gutter i Vamp."
"Vamp beer is a premium lager, brewed for people most. We have used three types of malt and three types of hops to make the optimal beer on the occasion of Berentsen's 120 year anniversary.
Greetings from the brewmaster and the boys in Vamp."
I'm not certain if it was "brewed for people most" or "brewed for most people" and google translate wasn't as helpful as I would have liked. If any Norwegian natives would like to help out in the comments they'd be most welcome.
Appearance
We've opened the bottle at last. Thanks for waiting, unless you scrolled down. I don't blame you if you did. It's a very clear, golden amber. It actually looks quite tempting despite being a lager. Not as yellow as they can be. Lots of bubbles rising very quickly, which is to be expected. All in all it looks a lot like a premium lager. I was wondering if the bubbles are able to rise so quickly because the liquid is not so viscous, which would suggest it has light body, although it could be that the bubbles are getting big quickly because of the amount of gas dissolved in the beer and the bubbles are rising quickly because of their size, which would tell me nothing about the body and would just mean it's gassy. Light body and gassy is pretty typical of a lager in my experience, so either way it makes sense to me. The clarity of it is slightly interesting, although not very. It's caused by the lagering where all the protein that causes cloudiness settles out. Have a butcher's...
Like crystal, just not very much.
The head isn't very dense, but it keeps coming because there are so many bubbles. I can't say I was impressed by it, but then I don't really see the point in having a lot of foam on beer. I was in Austria years ago and ordered a beer. It came in a vase eighteen inches high and the top third was foam. Not how we do things in England.
Aroma
Mainly hops at first, with a bit of malt int he background.
Not much by way of yeast aromas.
The hoppy aromas are pretty nice. I can't tell what kind are used, but I'm not getting any citrus smells so I don't think it was cascade hops. Cascade are the only ones I would have any hope of recognizing.
Boiled cabbage, not boiled to death but boiled enough so that it's cooked and takes on that slightly sweetish flavour. A bit like a good brussels sprout.
A hint of nice fertile organic type earth.
Slightly soapy coriander.
A little bit of sweetish yeasty smell.
Taste
Not a great deal.
Faintly biscuity maybe, but most of the experience is aroma and aftertaste.
A touch of bitterness came in when I was about halfway down the glass. Maybe like grapefruit or other citrus rind.
Aftertaste
A lot more going on here than in the mouth.
Malty at first.
Bitter hop taste comes in after a couple of seconds, which also has a bit of fruitiness with it.
Becomes a bit like strong English tea after a bit, with bitterness and a drying sensation int he mouth.
In my honest opinion the after taste was quite a lot like a cheap lager, which wasn't a great surprise since this is a cheap lager.
Balance
The bitterness in the aftertaste and general lack of sweetness suggests that the balance is leaning towards the bitter side the same as with most of the Berentsen's beers I've tried so far. If a beer is going to lean more to one side of the sitter-sweet balance, I'd prefer it to lean towards bitter. The beers I've tasted that I really haven't enjoyed have usually been sickly sweet and treacley. I don't recall having a beer I couldn't finish
A few extra comments
I think the light body rather removes from the satisfaction of the beer experience with lagers, which is why I'm not that keen on them. They're ok on a hot day when refreshment is the name of the game, but on a standard English or indeed Norwegian day when keeping warm is a higher priority, lager's not really what you need. Kind of like a speedo at the beach. Acceptable under certain circumstances, but very much not appropriate for the English.
Conclusion
I'm still not a great fan of lager. This one wasn't bad, it had some interesting aromas and a decent after taste, just not much going on in terms of actual flavour while it's in the mouth. I was reminded of slogan of one of my favourite British ales: "What's the matter lager boys? Scared you might taste something?" That says it all really. A refreshing, light, aromatic beer with little actual flavour. You can't blame them, it's a lager and that's what most lagers I've tasted have been like. Light and not particularly interesting. Would I buy it again? No, I don't think so. It was interesting to try it and to learn about lager, but there are much more interesting beers to try, and I wouldn't buy it for pleasure. I'd certainly appreciate it if I was offered one by a friend, but if I was spending the money I'd choose something else. On the standard one to ten scale I give it a score of ok for lager, but still lager.
I fancy a bit of a break from beers, so next up will be Glen Glassaugh New Make Spirit. Hopefully it'll be up fairly soon, and then I'll do another beer or two. They're quicker to write and I need to make some space in the fridge. Why not invite some introverted friends round and enjoy a drink while you read my reviews in silence and wait for the next one to come out? They'd love it.
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