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Our top 3 craft beer recommendations for April 2020 - To Øl - Hoppy People - Neon Raptor

A #Danish man, an #English man and a #Swiss man walk into a bar. Sounds like the start of a hilarious joke, right? But it is much better than that. Welcome to our newest blog series: Top 3 craft beer recommendations by #ZurichBeerTour. In this series we are going to introduce the 3 beers we liked the most in the past month. Each of our co-founders gets to pick one beer and a third one will be included as a common favorite.

 

Simona's pick: To Øl Yule Maelk barrel aged Imperial Stout

The Beer:


Simona's pick for April is this Bourbon #Barrel #aged Imperial Stout from To Øl. This 15% ABV dark beer comes with loads of complex flavors. Most of them are coming from barrel ageing. In the nose you can get #bourbon #whiskey, oak tannins and chocolate. As soon as you sip you can feel cacao, oak, whiskey and dark chocolate. The beer finishes with a pleasant sweetness. A perfect dessert beer.


The Brewery:


The History of To Øl starts in 2005 with a Homebrewing Project by Tore Gynther from Denmark. He established To Øl as a #GypsyBrewery in 2010. This means the brewery didn't own a brewhouse and brewed their own recipes at other breweries. In 2019 they took over a former food factory and built their own brewery.


Simona's food pairing recommendation:


Dark chocolate chip cookies

 

Sandros's pick: Hoppy People I Love Hops DDH DIPA #6



The Beer:


Sandro's pick is a real hop bomb from Switzerland. Hoppy People introduced number six of their I Love Hops series, for which they want to make beer as hoppy as possible by dry-hopping their beer with massive amounts of #hops. Dry-hopping means that the brewers put certain amounts of hops in the fermenter at the end of the brewing process, so the beer can soak up all the oils which give those beers their typical taste. The nose of this beer is really fruity, mango and pineapple, also some grassy and pine hop notes. The flavors in the mouth follow the nose, pineapple, mango, citrus notes and a small, almost burning hops on the finish.



Number 5,6 and 7 of the I Love Hops series


The Brewery:

#HoppyPeople brewery is located in Sierre, Valais, Switzerland and was established in 2016 by Olivier Brighenti and David Bonjour. They were inspired by the craft beer movement of the early 80's in the US and Scandinavia. After 5 years of homebrewing they made the next step and bought a 10 hl brewing line. Their brewery is powered completely by clean energy that they get from solar panels on the roof. How lucky their brewery is in the sunniest part of Switzerland. This year there was a fire right next to their brewery, you can read about it on Sandro/Wesley's Instagram Post.


Sandro's food pairing recommendation:

A double cheeseburger with bacon

 

Zurich Beer Tour's pick: Neon Raptor Passing Piranhas


The Beer:


Passing Piranhas from Neon Raptor is a #Gose, which an old German version of a sour beer brewed with salt. This particular one was brewed with blackberries and raspberries. It has a really thick, heavy body, which means it drinks like a berry smoothie and it actually tastes pretty similar. This happens because there is #lactose added to the brew which makes the beer sweeter and gives it this special mouthfeel. This beer has lots of berry flavors, raspberry being the strongest one. It might not be for everybody, but we definitely loved it.


The Brewery:

Neon Raptor is a small brewery from Nottingham, England. As homebrewers they entered a Brewdog Homebrew Contest and won it. Their official start as a gypsy brewery was in 2016 and they tried out brewing a few different styles of beer. They finally moved to their first very own brewery, which is located in Sneinton Market in Nottingham in the beginning of 2018. Later that year they also opened their brewery taproom.


Our food pairing recommendation:

Vanilla Ice Cream with lots of toppings

 

Theses are our three beers. Which ones were your favorite brews in April? Tell us in the comments!


Stay tuned for our May recommendations!


Cheers,

Your Zurich Beer Tour Guides

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