CulturAle Press

Twelve Beers of Christmas #11: Bøgedal No. 136 Christmas Edition 2008 Dark Ale, Vejle, Denmark

Date:   January 4, 2019

The Story—  We’re presenting our list of 12 great beers for the season.   Some are relatively easy to find, others are from our archives and beer vault.   Follow these posts for other beers in the series:   first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth,

Bøgedal is an artisinal farmhouse brewery near Vejle in central Denmark on the less traveled peninsula  – about as far from the water as you can get in this aquatic Viking legacy   They poudly maintain that theirs is “is the only commercial brewery in the world that maintains the Old Danish tradition of brewing Godtoel or “the good beer” which predates the industrial age. This traditional beer is strong and very rich with many of the natural sugars still intact.  By restricting the reliance on technology and without temperature control Bøgedal tends to allow the beer to live its own life and develop naturally. The brews are never identical, even when the same recipe is followed.”

Since the beers are unique, they receive unique numbers.   You can’t find the #136 anymore–the brewery is well past batch 500 now– but you can find a newer Bøgedal that will be just as good.

The Beer—  Soft herbal deep roast, spices, anise, bakers’ chocolate,  It’s vinous, orange and musty late.  Nicely complex, it ranked among our top Christmas beers.

Value —  Good.  The 75 cl bottles don’t come cheap, but you won’t have to refinance your car either.

Values:  “fair” is a good beer at an above market price, “good” is worth the money, “very good” is a bargain, and “excellent” is a steal.

It’s The Season!!   Through January 6th (Twelfth Night) we’ll give your this year’s list of the Twelve Beers of Christmas.  We’ve tasted close to 200 beers brewed for the season; they’re not all good elves, but a great many are as talented as Rudolph for getting us through a foggy winter’s night.

We know, we promised a count down to the New Year with descriptions of some of our favorite beers from the last five years.   In those years we’ve published Drinking in the Culture, and gotten a good start on a drinking/sleeping guide to the Mid Atlantic and a guide to great beers is supposed “bad beer cities” — the tourist meccas of Europe. But goodness, Grinch, what about all the holiday beers??  So we’ll detour and pick up the top ten list in the new year.

We’re often asked to share our tasting notes on over 33,000 beers; this blog is iour response to those requests.   Not all our notes, though.  The great beer writer Michael Jackson admirably followed the Thumper Rule, and we’ll try to do the same.  (“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nuthin’ at all.”)   All the beers we post are from the top half of our ratings and most are from the top quarter.   Of greater value, we think, are the stories behind the beers,   and we try to give you enough about the brewery, the style and the places to find great beer to help you on your own beer journeys.   At CulturAle Press we try to write books and publish posts that will help you “Drink Well and Travel Safely.”