Haandbryggeriet Nissefar

Brewed by Haandbryggeriet (Norway)
Style: Old Ale
Drammen, Norway

Bottle from Knightly Spirits. Pours an opaque black color and a tan rim. Lacing is loose and spotty. A full aroma envelops with notes of dark fruits, subtle hops and coffee, chocolate, and soy sauce. Flavors are rich with toffee and coffee, more chocolate, subtle hints of cherry, plums, and other dark fruits. Superbly balanced malt presence here. Soft carbonation and full body. This beer achieves a refreshing quality despite the darkness in color and flavor; not an easy feat to do. An excellent all-around brew.

The champion of my holiday beer tasting. Pours and tastes like an imperial porter. Brimming with dark fruit, milk cocoa, dry roast, and maple syrup with an awesome label to boot. This beer is magic.

A werry good sweet /bitter Christmas beer from Hanndbryggeriet. One of the best Christmas beer this season in Norway. It have it all, for a tratinal Norwegian Christmas beer. Malty, sweet,and a light bitterness in the end.

Black color with a frothy brown head. Oak and dark pitted fruits and a faint spice meadly in the aroma. Smooth roasted and caramel malt body with faint chocolate and a dominant woody character.

500 ml. Batch 98, bottled Okt 07, best for Okt 10. Opaque black with a lasting quarter-inch of frothy cappuccino bubbles with a hard pour. Aroma of coffee, funky leather and cherry, light cocoa and charred wood. Flavor is a good blend of the same, with some sweet licorice and cured tobacco, and a smooth roast and oak finish. Medium-heavy body is smooth, lightly carbonated and roasty dry.

This beer is delicious I don’t know what the gripe is. Excellent example of an Old Ale. Bottle from winter 2007. Pours an opaque dark dull brown with a fine beige small dense froth. Slight aroma of hard roasted malt, coffee, and lacto. Flavor is quite mellowed, a bit woody, dark hard roasted malts, coffee, dark bitter chocolate, very similar to a porter, a tad smokey, then comes sweet and sour lactic acid. The acidity sticks around your lips ones you’ve swallowed the bitterness from the hard roast. Touch of hops and dried dark fruit in the finish as well, quite woody seemingly. Medium/full bodied with a creamy oily mouthful and basically no carbonation, just a very faint fine sizzle to keep it from being completely flat. Aftertaste is dry of roasted coffee malt. A lovely beer and perfect example of the style, should definitely be allowed to age a bit. [This beer fits right in-between Black Jack Porter and De Dolle’s new Cosmos]

Bottle shared by nbutler11 at his raging Christmas bash. Beautiful fig-filled nose reminiscent of the best bottle of St Bernardus 12 you ever had. Flavor for some reason is much different. Pine buried in a heap of dark fruit, roast, caramel and dark chocolate. A very unnerving brew for its quality. My favorite Old Ale ever.

Bottle conditioned, 500 ml. Very dark colour, nearly black. Large brown head. Delightful aroma of roasted malts, dark chocolate, coffee, prunes, caramel and oak. Flavour is not quite as complex but still good, bitter roasty and coffee notes combined with bittering hops dominate, on a background of dark bitter sweet chocolate, hints of English liquorice. Roasty bitter aftertaste. I’d say Imperial Stout is the closest style here - but maybe it’s not extreme enough. Anyway, this is a very fine effort from Haandbryggeriet. Not a beer for the traditional Scandinavian Christmas dinner, but try it if you have chocolate pudding for dessert - or simply enjoy it on its own!