I visited Irving Wines & Spirits recently on my daily walk, and the owner Jesse was in the middle of receiving some new stock of beer. I immediately recoginzed the black and gold cans as beer from Elder Pine Brewing & Blending Co. out of Gaithersburg, MD. Aside from their cool can art, they're known for Nordic-influenced beer styles and hops.
Always one for checking out some new fresh drops, I inquired about it. One of the four-packs on the counter was "Gjærkauk", a 7.20% smoked amber ale aged in bourbon barrels for a full year. Nice! I'm a big fan of smoked beers (and even visited the ancestral home of smokebeer in Germany back in May) so I had to pick it up. One more thing about this - it was canned the day before. Less than 24 hours old, this literally some of the freshest beer you can possibly get. Sold.
Deep amber in the glass, and generates a heavy layer of roasted and smoky notes: tracks for a smoked amber ale. No surprises here!
Where I AM surprised about is the flavor - it's not smoky at all, but sweet. There are some roasted notes there, but it lacks any true smoke flavor. Instead, there's a bready sweetness, something I'd expect more from a Belgian dubbel than a smoked amber ale. It's quite sticky, too, with lots of lacing on the glass.
A nice fall beverage! Super fresh, a little sweet, and a nice weight - great for fans of lighter "dark" beers, if that makes sense. Fun fact about the name: in Norwegian, it means "yeast scream", referring to a tradition of Nordic brewers screaming various magic phrases / complaints into the yeast. You can read more about this here.
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