On November 1st Vinmonopolet released this year’s selection of 201 different types of Christmas beer. With so much choice it can be difficult to decide on what to buy. We did the hard job for you and blind-tested eleven beers from a selection of microbreweries and larger brands.
A group of six highly trained feinschmeckers was selected to give this years verdict of the different brews. Amongst the professional jury-members we find names of experienced Christmas-beer drinkers such as Algot P and Morven M.
However, there were also some international jury-members with relatively little experience in the field of Norwegian Christmas traditions. To mention some of these upcoming tasting professionals, Anthony B and Augustine K have most of their tasting background from the French cheese world. Maribel G is a highly trained wine-taster from Spain that has recently decided to transition to a beer-career. Also new to the group was Taka T, a well-known feinschmecker mostly familiar with the Asian beer-tasting scenes. Omar admitted he had no tasting experience, but he made an amazing pizza. Thank you, Omar.
Unfortunately some of the tasters had to throw in the towel after a couple of beers, but the test was otherwise very successful.
Every jury-member was asked to describe and rank their 11 beers without knowing the brands.
This year’s winner was Haandbryggeriet with “Nissefar” which all members enjoyed alot. The second place was shared by Kinn’s “Tomasmesse” and Ringnes’s “Julebokk”. Congratulations!
Below you will find the scores of the different beers and some of the descriptive adjectives about each beer.
| Rank | Beer | Descriptions |
| 1. | Haandbryggeriet «Nissefar» | Spices. Smells like lakris and coffee. Ash. |
| 2. | Kinn «Tomasmesse» | Strong! Porto? Alot of spices. Morven says «good». |
| 2. | Ringnes «Julebokk» | Very sweet. Strongest taste. Bjørnebær and julebrus. |
| 3. | Aas «Juleøl» | Nellik. Toxic. Peach. Strawberries. Bubbles. Pesticides? |
| 4. | EGO «Fredfull jul» | Chocolate and coffee. Much coffee. Heavy and quite dark. Smells like a fart. |
| 5. | Nøgne Ø «Vintervarmer» | Sweet. Caramel. Smells like a barn. A lot of bubbles and coffee. |
| 6. | 7 fjell «Sinterklaas» | Hops and flowers. Like an IPa. Corn. Bitter but light and tasteful. Not that tasteful. Light but still heavy. |
| 7. | Voss «Jolebrygg» | Very light. Acid. Like an IPA. Nice aftertaste. No spices. |
| 8. | Fredrikstad «Juleøl» | Lemon. Too light. Not impressed. Deceiving. |
| 8. | Hansa «Julebrygg» | Wet dog smell. Factory beer for sure. Lots of CO2. Not eco-friendly? |
| 9. | Mikeller «Lovin Christmas» | Citrus. Hoppy. Light and sweet. A cute beer. Came in the wrong league. |
We would also like to highlight one of the (anonymous) tasting notes:
| Beer nr. | Description |
| 1 | Calming, relaxing |
| 2 | Harsh |
| 3 | Rough. Brings my mood up |
| 4. | Go go go! Weird. Spicy? |
| 5. | Quite strong! |
| 6. | No comment |
| 7. | What a life, I’m drunk! |
| 8 | … |
| 9. | … |
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