Per Recommendation

The beer for today came from a random recommendation at the LHBS. Wasn't even there to get anything and spent like $40 on an assortment of brews. Go figure.


This one is a collaboration from two breweries in Denmark -- To Øl and Mikkeller. It's called Over All. I did some Excel work to figure out that Mikkeller has an average of 90.87 on Overall score on [ratebeer.com]. Impressive. But even more so when you consider that I averaged 234 beers.


The Over All [or possibly Overall] is an Imperial IPA done in the American IPA style as a tip o' the hat to the beers we put out on this side of the pond. I was really surprised blown away by this beer. I did not expect what I was tasting. This beer is freaking delicious. After doing some research I found a few websites in a language that my Google Chrome browser had to translate for me. This gave me the idea to actually use the text provided (translated version) for today's post. They do an awesome job of telling you about their breweries and this beer, so I want to use their somewhat choppily-translated words.



So here ya go:


About Mikkeller --
Mikkeller brewery's success is due to focus on creating boundaries beer where quality always comes before quantity. In short, uncompromising beer, where the borders of alcohol, hops and bitterness volumes do not exist. Some of them are made in collaboration with some of the world's best breweries. Mikkeller is possibly the most productive brewery in the world. Alone in 2010 launched Mikkeller 76 new beers.


About To Øl --
In 2005 Tobias Emil Jensen and Tore Gynther were sitting at their old college talking to their teacher Mikkel Borg Bjergsø (Mikkeller) about it being a shame, that most Danish breweries was scrambling to describe how their beers had been brewed for over 100 years, rather than focusing on the actual taste and content of the beer (as if a stale lager ever has become less nauseous by the fact that it has been brewed for over 100 years!?) The three of them agreed that the only way to ensure the quality was to brew the beers themselves. So they did. Soon they were allowed to borrow the schools' kitchen during the schools' closing hours and they began to brew. This meant however that most of the brews were made? between the hours of 10 pm and 6 am on weekdays, which resulted in some hard school days for both the two pupils and their teacher, but the hunt for quality and potent beers had begun and a concept of never making compromises with the quality was founded.


About Over All (the beer) --
Overall IIPA is - as the name denotes - an Imperial India Pale Ale created in close collaboration between To Øl and our good friends from Mikkeller. The mission was to create a hommage to the American beerculture, where beers needs to have flavour, taste and style, contrary to the urine-colored pseudo beer that we often drink in Denmark!
By first draught Overall IIPA has a sligthly caramelized malt profile, which gives you time to rest before your tastebuds are bombarded by a plethora of hop sensations, giving you hints of pines, citrus and grape. These are just barely harnessed by the sweetness of the alcohol. You suddenly realise that Overall IIPA is "overall" in your mouth and that drinking is living. For a short while you forget your tax-payments, work and the dishes. You relax and your shoulders drop down a couple of inches. You get carried away in a dream before you realise that your glass is empty and you need another one! Cheers!