Style: Lager with lime
Brewery: Bryggverket
Origin: Sweden
Size: 33cl
Alcohol: %
Price: -kr
Systembolaget: – (35224 regular lager)
The nice thing about doing tastings with the brewers is that sometimes they make up limited edition beers just for the tasting. This is the 3rd tasting that Bryggverket has been a part of, and I was lucky enough that they agreed to make two beers exclusively for the night, based upon beers they already produced. Only 4 litres of this was made and will probably never be made again, so if you missed out, I feel sorry for you! We tried two versions of L Som I Lager at the same time for comparison: the original version and the small batch lime variant.
Shiny pale golden in colour, these beers had a big frothy white head that formed rapidly but disappeared quite quickly. The aroma was quite light in the original, with some subtle easy malts noticeable. In the lime variant though, it was a bomb of lime zest going up the nose! Upon tasting the normal version, again the light malts appeared cleanly along with small hints of citrus and fresh grass. The citrus is of course cranked up to 11 in the special edition, with the lime pushing most everything else to one side, except a small perceptible hay and cream (from the key lime pie essence used). The original sample was quite dry in the mouth, leaving the palate invigorated and ready for another mouthful. Once again though the lime variant was overpowering, leaving a bitter citrus peel in the taste that wasn’t actually unpleasant.
Both samples were nice, but the public were pretty evenly split on which one they preferred. Some liked the clean, easy drinking regular lager and some really liked the fruity “corona on steroids” lime variant. I enjoyed both it must be said, but if I’m looking to drink one of these over a session I think it has to be the regular version as it’s just simply easier to drink. It was really nice to try them both together though, and I’m glad they bought the special edition with them!