Mikkeller Rauchstar

Origin: Denmark

Type: Rauchbier

Color: Dark brown

Alcohol content: 5.4%

Recommended serving temperature: 7ºC/45ºF

Brewery: Mikkeller ApS

Webpage: http://mikkeller.dk/

It is time once again to expand the borders of this blog. Today it is Denmark's time to make an appearance.

What better way to do that than by writing about a beer brewed by one of their best-known breweries. No, I am not going to write about Carlsberg. I am talking about Mikkeller, a brewery which in just eight short years has been able to make a name for itself in the craft beer sector worldwide, by brewing incredibly innovative and delicious beers.

One of these delicious beers is the one I am going to post about today, the Mikkeller Rauchstar, a collaboration between Mikkeller and Stillwater Artisanal Ales.

This beer is the color of black coffee, that is very dark, almost black, brown. Its foam, the little it develops is of a cream color.

In terms of smell, it is surprisingly sweet. It binds together milk chocolate and molasses and the roastiness of coffee beans, giving it a toasted sweetness which was not really what I had expected from a smoked beer. However, this beers aroma does not stop with sweetness. It also has something resinyy and herby that, weirdly, kind of reminds me of olives. It sounds like a strange mix, olives and chocolate, but the truth is it is actually the smell of roastiness and coffee which meshes with the resiny herbiness, balancing out the sweetness.

I guess the smell of olives is probably my own personal imagination, or more accurately what my brain identifies as that smell but the truth is, it is not there, the identification, in the taste.

The Rauchstar has a taste of smoked wood, a pretty resiny smoked wood. It does not taste very much though, as for example the Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier Marzen does, like smoked bacon. Instead it adds another, sweeter, taste to the smokiness of the wood, kind of like chocolate. With this chocolate taste and the roastiness, reminiscent of coffee, it's almost like this is the desert to the entree that is the Aecht Schlenkerla.

The end is round, sweet and thick, in keeping with such feeling, leaving you with a slightly smoked aftertaste, in no way bitter or rough.

Despite what I said, I must admit I don't have the courage to pair this beer with a dessert, as I am not sure that the smokiness will not eat through it. Instead I would pair it with some barbecue ribs, whose subdued sweetness and dense strong taste will surely be a great match for it.