Drink With The Wench

Featured Beer Blogger: PELLE STRIDH

DRINK WITH THE WENCH PRESENTS:

The Beer Blogger Interview Series

Curious what goes on in the minds of your favorite beer bloggers? Well, The Beer Wench is and she has embarked upon a mission to interview as many beer bloggers that she can — from all over the world. Are you a beer blogger? Do you want to share your story? Send me an email!

INTRODUCING: PELLE STRIDH

AUTHOR OF: ALL ABOUT BEER

Beer Blogger Interview

Full name: Pelle Stridh (Pelle is pronounced like pellets without the –ts)
Internet nickname (if applicable): Not really!
Twitter handle: @pellestridh or @alltomol
Name of blogs:

• All about Beer – US
• All about Beer – UK
• Allt om Öl
• Humulus Lupulus

Current location: Eskilstuna, Sweden

Background “Snapshot”

1. Where did you grow up?

I was born in Uppsala, Sweden (one of the oldest cities in Sweden) but I grew up in Eskilstuna 100 km southwest of Stockholm.

2. What sports if any did you play growing up, through college and beyond?

Even though I tried al kinds of sports I never got stuck with any besides skateboarding in the late 70s.

3. How old were you when you had your first beer?

Hmm. Perhaps my parents will read this so I better say 18!

4. If you can recall, what is the story of your first beer? Where did you have it? What style and brand was it?

If I go back to the time when I tried my first beer and liked it, it must have been in London in 1983. I remember that we visited a pub called “Hand in Hand” in Wimbledon; a pub voted “The pub of the year” that year. I had my first Bitter and I thought it tasted really different and it was so low carbonated and not very cold. I also recall that I liked the smell but that’s about it. For the rest of the week I stuck to “a pint of lager” every time I ordered a beer.

5. Where, if applicable, did you go to college? What did you study? What additional activities, organizations, sports did you partake in during college.

Craft Beer Epiphany

Every craft beer enthusiast has at least one pinnacle craft beer experience that completely changes ones perspective on beer. I refer to this mind-blowing moment as a “craft beer epiphany.”

1. What was your first craft beer epiphany? Recall as many details about it as you can:

When we visited Kungsholmens Kvarterbryggeri in Stockholm (now known as Nils Oscars Bryggeri) in 1996 and tried their Lundgrens Lager and a few others it was a truly changed my perspectives because at that time it was just huge that a new brewery started…and their beer definitely didn’t taste like everything else in Sweden – the land of lager (at that time).

2. Have you have additional craft beer epiphanies since the first? Detail as many of them as you wish:

• Another great experience was when we visited Gamla Stans Bryggeri in Stockholm in 1995 and I tried unfiltered and unpasteurized beer for the first time.
• Last year, in December, I arranged a blind folded beer-tasting event and I took my oldest beers I had been saving for a good occasion. One of them was Nils Oscar Imperial Stout from the year 2000. That was one of the most complex beers I have ever tried. The moment you got the beer in your mouth your hole body and mind was filled with so many impressions you could have written a book about it.
• My most recent mind-blowing moment was this spring when I first laid hand on Oppigårds Amarillo Spring (from Oppigårds Brewery)….I can just say that I liked it truly, madly deeply…

Beer Blog Background

1. How long have you been writing your beer blog?

I started writing on the web in the early 90s but started blogging about beer in 2009

2. What inspired you to start writing your blog?

I guess that spreading “the quality beer culture” and inspiring others to take the leap from international lager to good hand crafted beer is my inspiration. On my Swedish blogs I also wanted to publish my beer reviews, having done about 1700 blind folded reviews over the years.

3. Why did you choose the name of your blog?

Simply because that the blog really is ALL about Beer!

4. What are you personal goals for your blog? What do you hope to achieve with it?

It would be very satisfying just to see that a lot of people use it as their starting point for their daily beer reading. Another personal goal is to establish a network across borders where hand crafted beer is the common interest.

5. What is one of the coolest things that happened to you as a result of being a beer blogger?

The feeling it gave me when, all of a sudden, thousands of people read what I was writing and that I felt I could make a difference.

6. What are you top 3 favorite beer blogs/beer websites?

Craftbeer.com

Pencil & Spoon

Andy Crouch’s BeerScribe

Beer Talk

1. What are your top 3 favorite beer styles?

• American IPA, for the flowers, citrus, apricot and passion fruit smell and taste
• Imperial Stout, for the great body and complex characteristics
• American Pale Ale, because of its drinkability, yet with a complex smell and taste.

2. What are your top 3 favorite breweries?

• Oppigårds Bryggeri (the best brewery in Sweden)
• Eskilstuna Ölkultur (my local brew-pub)
• Mikkeller (Denmark)

3. If you could work with or for any one brewery, which one would it be and why?

Mikkeller or someone like him, because of his talents in creating unique beers.

4. Are you a homebrewer? If yes, what is the most unique and interesting beer recipes you’ve brewed as a homebrewer?

No, I’m not a homebrewer…yet anyway!

5. Do you have any beer certifications (BJCP, Cicerone, Siebel, American Brewers Guild)?? If so, what are they?

No, not any I would rate as an official one.

6. What is your favorite beer and food pairing?

The best pairing that comes to mind is a great “pub-burger” with an extremely good IPA or thai-chicken with mango and mango-salsa and a really good mango-flavored IPA.

The Personal Side

1. What is your current day job?

I’m the owner of my one-man company Infostructure, working as a consultant in the IT-area, mainly as a Business Architect.

2. If you could change your career at this very moment, without any restrictions on what you could do, what would you want to do and why?

I would start my own “All about Beer” company making hand crafted beer in my own pub, arranging various beer events like blind tasting sessions and educations. I would also have guest brewers and visit other breweries.

3. Are you married? Children?

Well, it’s sure about time that we were married…probably soon! And Yes! We have 4 kids, all boys from 7 to 19 years old.

4. Outside of beer and writing, what are some of your other hobbies?

My family, I would say is number one. Besides that I like to cook a lot, especially pizza (I’ve been refining my pizza recipes for the last 10 years). I also try to stay fit by running about 20 kilometers a week.

Off The Beaten Path

1. If you were a style of beer, what style would be an why?

I would definitely be an American IPA because they never let you down, they make you happy, they are flowery like the summer, complex and in my opinion very well balanced. Very experienced but young in mind, if you get my point?

2. You were caught smuggling beer illegally, which has now been made punishable by death. Right before you are sent to the executioner, you are offered one last beer. What beer would you chose and why?

Mikkeller Nelson Sauvin Single Hop because that beer always makes me happy.

3. If I contracted you to brew a beer (or design a beer recipe) called “The Beer Wench” — what style would you chose and what, if any, extra ingredients would you add?

I think I would brew Pale Ale with a lot of aroma hops like Tomahawk, Amarillo and Cascade but not that bitter in taste. Perhaps I would finnish it of hop-bursting with Amarillo as well. As an extra ingredient I would add mandarin peal. With the right carbonation, a well-balanced bitterness and all those lovely, hoppy tastes and smells I think it could be called “The Beer Wench”.

4. If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?

I already am a Superhero! I’m “the Man who talks with Beers”

5. What is one of the craziest things you have ever done and lived to tell the story?

Once, in biology class at college, we where supposed to do our own “specimen of urin”  (do you say that in English?) instead of the school nurse doing it. I and two other guys prepared our test-tube with water and c-vitamin pills instead. Then, in class, the three of us suddenly stood up, said “Cheers” and drank it. The expression in everyone’s faces was a memory for life.

6. What are your thoughts on bacon?

Tastes great on my BLT sandwich…