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Since I recently was a week in beautiful Slovakia the first beers we tried this sunny summer night were all Slovakian and all of them were of high quality. All the Slovakian beer I ran into is either light Bohemian style pils or dark sweet lagers. The darker ones is considered to be a drink for women. Ofthe beers we rated this night the brews from Pivovar Gemer in Eastern Slovakia scored the highest points, best was the darkZuzana Original. Also the beers from Pivovar Tatran in the Northern part of the country scored good points.
The nest round of beers originated from a beer store i Vienna I passed by on my way home from Slovakia. The only interesting aspect about the beers in this round was the geographical one. They came from Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Ghana, Bolivia, Palestine West Bank, South Korea and Tahiti and the quality ranged from awful to very bad. Never before has we given out 11 zeroes in one round. If some beer should be mentioned as our favourite among these the Zimbabwean Zambezi from National Breweries recieved the highest score with 1.71, marginally ahead of the completely tasteless Korean Hite, and the Tahitian Hinano, which I personally found to be the most drinkable of these. On the lower end we'll find the Ghanese Club Mini Lager Beer produced (I dare not say brewed) by Accra Breweries which recieved 5(!) zeroes. A new record. It barely avoided the last position in the total listing. Personally I found both the Bolivian Paceña and especially Nigeria Pal Lager Beer to be even more awful. The smell from Nigeria Pal still haunts me...
Round 3: A schizophrene round. Three more new countries: Latvia, Iceland and Cyprus that presented some fairly boring lagers and the four last remainders from the Fling Spring shipment we got as a gift from the U.S.. The tasty Alaskan Frontier Amber Ale ended up as the groups oveall favourite, ahead of Dick Danger Ale. However my favourites here was Bridgeports barleywine, Old Knucklehead that tasted like liquid butterscotch, and also Full Sail Imperial Porter, a strong and rich Porter.
To get the number up to 999 three more beers were rated: Eder's Pilsener, a German pils, Okocim Premium Pils, a Polish lager and Leffe Bruin, a Belgian brown ale. I found none of these to be spectacular, but pretty OK.
So... Finally: Beer number 1000. The beer that had been chosen for this occassion was the French Bière de Garde, Ch'ti Blonde, mostly due to it's chamapgne-like fancy bottle. The beer itself was mild but a bit alcoholic, lively, rather complex and well worthy of the honour it's been given.
As people started dropping off from the party a few more beers were rated by he toughest amongst us. Those who went missed the fabulous Eggenberg Urbock 23o, an Austrian bock clocking in at 9.6% ABV, the tasty Austrian Trumer Pils from Privatbrauerei Josef Sigl and some other good stuff.
| Beers rated at the celebration rating the 18th of July 1997 | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PLACE | BEER | SCORE | JZ | ML | PS | LS | CG | FH | AH | STYLE | COUNTRY |
| 145 | Eggenberg Urbock 23o | 3.48 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 3 | Lager, Bock | Austria | |||
| 163 | Alaskan Frontier Amber Ale | 3.45 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | Ale, Brittish style | USA |
| 190 | Ch'ti Blonde | 3.38 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 4 | Ale, Belgian style | France |
| 206 | Zuzana Original | 3.34 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Lager, Dark | Slovakia |
| 210 | Popper Fórum | 3.32 | 3 | 4 | 3 | Lager, Light | Slovakia | ||||
| 230 | Goral Svertlé 10% | 3.29 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 4 | Lager, Light | Slovakia |
| 237 | Gemer Original | 3.28 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 4 | Lager, Light | Slovakia |
| 255 | MacQueens Nessie | 3.24 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 2 | Special | Austria | |||
| 276 | Trumer Pils | 3.20 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | Lager, Light | Austria | |||
| 284 | Dick Danger Ale | 3.18 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | Ale, Brittish style | USA |
| 297 | Tatran Svetlé 12% | 3.15 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 3 | Lager, Light | Slovakia |
| 306 | Eder's Pilsner | 3.13 | 4 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | Lager, Light | Germany |
| 316 | Leffe Vieille Cuvée | 3.10 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 3 | Ale, Belgian style | Belgium | |||
| 334 | Leffe Bruin | 3.08 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 4 | 4 | Ale, Belgian style | Belgium |
| 350 | Kamzik Svetlé 11% | 3.06 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 4 | Lager, Light | Slovakia |
| 371 | Kamzik Tmavé 11% | 3.03 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Lager, Dark | Slovakia |
| 407 | Martinský Zdroj | 2.98 | 3 | 3 | 3 | Lager, Light | Slovakia | ||||
| 420 | Okocim Premium Pils | 2.96 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 | Lager, Light | Poland |
| 437 | Saris Tmavé | 2.95 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | Lager, Dark | Slovakia |
| 598 | Popper Tmavý | 2.64 | 2 | 3 | 3 | Lager, Dark | Slovakia | ||||
| 644 | Keo Beer | 2.57 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 2 | Lager, Light | Cyprus |
| 665 | Egils Gull | 2.51 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 3 | Lager, Light | Iceland |
| 751 | Full Sail Imperial Porter | 2.30 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | Porter/Stout | USA |
| 836 | Bridgeport Old Knucklehead | 2.06 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | Ale, Brittish style | USA |
| 926 | Zambezi | 1.71 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Lager, Light | Zimbabwe |
| 929 | Hite | 1.69 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Lager, Light | South Korea |
| 955 | Hinano | 1.56 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 | Lager, Light | Tahiti |
| 969 | Nigeria Pal Lager Beer | 1.45 | 2 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Lager, Light | Nigeria |
| 970 | Taybeh Golden Beer | 1.45 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | Lager, Light | Palestine West Bank |
| 983 | Rigas Alus Pils | 1.36 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | Lager, Light | Latvia |
| 1003 | Paceña | 0.98 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Lager, Light | Bolivia |
| 1008 | Club Mini Lager Beer | 0.42 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Lager, Light | Ghana |
| Rated by: Johan Zetterlund, Mattias Leidebjer, Per Samuelsson, Lars Samuelsson, Cecilia Gårdebäck, Anna Hultén and Fredrik Huldt | |||||||||||
Updated 97-07-30 Per Samuelsson