Amazing trip to the Mikkeller beer celebration at Copenhagen作者：koen kostermans浏览数:1098次
Once in a while, you decide to do something slightly crazy (well, a little). Given this year is my "turn of a decade" celebration, I did a small splurge and gave myself an early birthday gift: a trip to Copenhagen. Not to visit the beautiful city, Tivoli, the little mermaid (she's really small) or Christiana... (we did that adventure already in 2012!) But for beer. Lot's of it! Craft beer to be precise :) Many beer lovers and friends told me about one of the greatest craft beer events in Europe/world, maybe even the best: Mikkeller Beer Celebration Copenhagen, MBCC! I hopped on a cheap ass Ryanair flight to Copenhagen,to spend the next 72 hours with only 1 goal: to taste awesome craft beer! MBCC, what's in a name? Let's start with Mikkeller. Mikkel is the founder of, yes, Mikkeller. A Danish gypsy brewer (most of his beers are brewed in Belgium at de Proef brouwerij in Lochristi, ha!), feat. marketeer, feat. do-it-all who started with CBC (old name) some years ago. Started small, but now has Mikkeller bars around the world, the brewpub Warpigs in Copenhagen (cooperation with 3 Floyds) and lots of unique/interesting/crazy beer creations. Let's celebrate good beer! It's a beer celebration, that's for sure. It all started in 2012 by the man himself, but it kept on growing. Fast. Huge. There's now even an American version in Boston. So anno 2017, picture this: 4 sessions of each 4 hours spread over 2 days, 86 breweries (73 "big names", 13 upcoming talent), 2 beers per session (i.e. one keg of each beer), and loads of beer geeks. Big names?
There's merch and some limited beer bottles to go, Mikkeller tattoos (I was surprised how many people got one), food trucks outside and more hot dogs inside. But yes, just stick to the beer. There's plenty of it. Last C: Copenhagen. I will write a short piece (later) on beer travel in the capital of Denmark, since there are so many great places to visit. Copenhagenis/has truly become one of the craft beer capitals of Europe.
The location - Øksnehallen A stunning 5,000 square metre building in the heart of Copenhagen’s old meat packing district. Walking distance from the centre / train station and crawling distance from Warpigs brewpub and many other joints for some tasty(pub) grub. For 48 hours, I called this my new home. I've already been to many festivals, from small scale garden festivals to huge exhibition halls. To be honest: Øksnehallen had this majestically aura upon itself. It's not too huge, yet not too small. The brewery stands still had plenty of space, nicely put in different "islands". Lots of toilets and nice huge sitting area outside. And LOTS of seats inside. It's the perfect location to grab a table with some fellow beer geeks, go meet some brewers, maybe join another table, and so on. Hurray to the organisation, for filling the location in such an exquisite way! The sessions It's yellow, blue, green and red: the beer sessions ! Every session lasts 4 hours (well, normally, see financials below why not) which technically holds 180 beers for tasting (2 per brewer). One keg per beer. If it's done, it's over! But in reality, there were some brewers that even brought more stuff (e.g. Bokkereyder, with sometimes 7 different Lambics in one session!). 10AM-2PM, 4PM-8PM. Relax, sleep, rewind, and again. Tobe honest, I personally thought I would never survive this. It's 8 hours of delicious craft beer, which really takes a lot of the human body (and even mind:) ). For me, the first session was pretty much the hardest: you're really into kid-in-toy-store-mode, so you want to taste them all! So hour number 1 and 15-ish tasters later, you already feel it. Even though it's only a 5cl taster (heck, sometimes 7-9cl), after another BA stout or 14% mead... Well, you know what I mean. Hour 2-3, you're in sort of survival mode, while during hour 4, you regain spirit and go for that ultimate stretch! And then, they'll shove you out (gently). But,if you take into account the following tips, you'll manage (easier). I did, so... :
Yikes, financial info Scandinavia, thus also Copenhagen, is not the most budget-friendly place on earth. MBCC either. Yet, for a festival where the celebration of great beer is key, tickets go fast.
However,I decided somewhere in March to join the festival, and there were still Pink tickets left. Maybe I just got lucky, who knows. Included: Costs? Single sessions (green, red, blue, orange) = 500 DKK / 66 EUR / 76 USD All sessions (pink) = 1,875 DKK / 250 EUR / 287 USD VIP ticket (gold or silver if single session) = 2600 DKK (350 EUR / 400 USD) or 675 DKK per session: you may enter 20 minutes earlier and you will receive some goodies / specials and a free beer at 4 bars in Copenhagen. However, the price is much higher as well... If you're interested in going to MBCC, keep an eye on October 15th,2017 (more or less this date) for the release of 2018's edition. Best return on investment for beer I've ever made ha! You can stay a little before and after the festival, because there is now also the Mikkeller Beer week, with great tap takeovers (e.g. Tired Hands), tastings (e.g. Cantillon, Bokkereyder,...), limited can sales or other fun events (the Mikkeller beer run!). 100% fun guaranteed! Conclusion? Don't miss out on MBCC ! Of course, it's my personal opinion. There are great beers AND a superb atmosphere of beer sharing. People from all over the world gather for the joy of tasting very good beer. So I felt, and I think a lot of people agreed on this: MBCC is probably the best beer festival in the world! Why? I've had the chance to taste a huge amount of limited beers. I never had to queue more than 5-10 minutes (95% had no queues) and I only missed one " I really want to taste this beer". (i.e. 3 Floyds Dark Lord Bourbon Vanilla, by the time we reached the tap, it was already finished). I made a lot of new friends, shared beers with fellow fans and had some nice talks with the brewers. and finally... The beer count It's impossible to taste them all. Well, maybe if you have a Golden ticket, can move like The Flash and are considering an overnighter at the local hospital? Then still not :) MBCC provides a very nice app with all beers per session, search function, favourite button and tasting notes function. I did my homework, noting down some "must tries", but eventually, you just go with the flow. I mainly used the app to keep track (or try to keep track) of the beers I've tasted. Apparently, the list got quite long :) There were very few beers that were below average (or not really my thing). Choosing the "best" beer in this kind of selection is extremely hard: there were just so many. I've tried to name 3, the rest of the beers follow below (per session, alphabetical order): TOP 3: 1. Angry Chair - Barrel Aged Imperial German Chocolate Cupcake Stout. The only beer I've tasted twice. If you're not a sweet tooth, don't bother. This like liquid candy, but 10 times better. Pitch black, creamy, thick. Light boozy. Wonderful aroma, chocolate, cookie, nuts. Taste is full of chocolate, fudge and bourbon. BEAUTIFUL! 2. Voodoo Brewery - Grande Negro Voodoo Papi (Aged in Bourbon Barrels) There were of course loads of BA Imperial Stouts, could be a top 100. I've chosen this one of Voodoo Brewery, because of the delicate impact of the Bourbon barrel. Then there's lots of chocolate, coconut, caramel and light spices. Superb. 3. JesterKing - Atrial Rubicite I could be chauvinistic and choose one of themany Bokkereyder sours (their superb), but I've chosen one of Jester King. This American Wild Ale has a great complexity of acidity, barn and raspberry funk. Good stuff. Reference to: http://www.riceandfriesadventures.com/mbcc-mikkeller-beer-celebration-copenhagen/ Author introduction: koen kostermans, a friend of the Doctor Beer, also lived in china. Before and like to travel the world and search and taste very special beers.
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