I don’t believe I’ve ever had a beer from Norway before, and I have only had a few ‘smoked’ brews and none of them had even close to the level of smokiness that this beer had.

Poured into a tulip glass at a friends house, and with my nose a two feet away from the pour, I could smell a strong smokey flavor already. Once I put my nose close to the glass, I could smell smoked hickory, like frickin’ Hostess Hickory Sticks, which actually has some maple/bacon kind of flavor too. Super weird. I am intrigued but also kind of confused.

I couldn’t really get a whole lot of flavors out of the beer besides a little caramel sweetness and maybe a hint of berries (the beer is brewed with Juniper berries). The smokiness was really strong in the aftertaste, like crazy strong.

Overall this beer was pretty cool, I’ve never had such crazy smoked flavors in a beer and it was a pretty interesting beer to drink and share. Personally however, I would prefer the smokiness to be a little more mellow.

7/10