Ringnes Bryggerimester Spesial Julen 2005

Formerly brewed at Ringnes Bryggeri (Carlsberg)
Style: Spice/Herb/Vegetable
Oslo, Norway

Bottled. colour pale almost red. Aroma very licorice. reddish head.flavour water and anis. long unpleasent finish

330 ml bottle. Bright, clear light-brown colour. Almost red head. Aroma is heavily dominated by licorice and anis. The body is quite sweet and over dominated by the same ingredients as the aroma. This is a very different beer to the normally conservative Norwegian Christmas beer scene, but the result is an unbalanced watery beer with to much “non-beer” flavours. Less spices, more malt and some hops and maybe more alcohol could do the trick. The idea is good but the results missed totally this time. The colour is nice itself, but when they call it a Christmas beer in Norway I expect more colour. This is the reason for the low appearance point of my rating.

(Bottle 33 cl) Clear, dark cognac colour with a small, beige head. Lightly spicy aroma with traces of licorice. Presumably this has added bourbon vanilla and star aniseed - especially the latter shines through. Has some strange notes of rum and marzipan and some more common of caramel. I don’t really know what to mean about this. Definitely unusual and unlike anything else I’ve tried. Points for trying something different - very different. 090106

Bottled. Copper-colored with off-white head. Malty, grainy aroma. Some licorice or anise notes too. Thin and watery. Malt in flavor, and some anise, but quite one-dimensional. Some bitterness at the end. This beer is said to be developed by an expert team of brewmasters. Guess they had a bad day at work. (051215)

Offwhite head; red-brown body. Deep licorice aroma with notes of malts, corn and overwhelming anise. Aroma certainly is interesting, if not that good. Taste is initially only bitter, but quickly followed by a deep chocolate and anise flavour. Aftertaste is dry, followed by nothing. Well. A different beer, that’s for sure, but not that good, or even interesting. I see that this is Ringnes’s attempt to do something different, but they could have tried a lot of things more interesting (or better!) than this.

330 ml clear bottle. Ringnes intend to present a new recipe for their Bryggerimester Spesial each year, and the 2005 edition is definitely VERY different from the 2004 edition (each vintage is listed separately at RateBeer). Beautiful deep amber colour, decent head. Aroma is dominated by strong anise / cough medicine notes, not a perfect marriage with the weaker notes of caramel malts. Hints of thyme. Flavour is also dominated by anise, vanilla notes are much weaker. Fairly light bodied, malts do not come up front. Some faint hops and anise again in the aftertaste. The 2004 edition was quite good for its strength, the 2005 is not. Definitely not my cup of tea, sorry: beer. Experiments are okay in the world of beer, but there’s no guarantee that they will be successful. This one isn’t. To be avoided. Better luck next year.

First thing one notices about the aroma is the anise seed. Quite surprising as it is untraditional in a beer like this. The label also says that there is bourbon vanilla in there also, but that is not nearly as prominent as the anise. The body is rather thin and watery. There is no hops, and the beer could have gained from a little more bitterness. If the brewery could have made this beer in the traditional strength it’d probably be a great beer.