An Authentic Viking Beer Experience –Minus the Mushrooms

Once upon a time when the Vikings ruled the seas, the phrase “berserk” was coined. Why you ask, well to describe the behavior of the Vikings when faced with a battle. In order to have acquired a strength and pain threshold that was beyond that of the Vikings’ enemies, Vikings created a magic elixir. A beer brewed from a mushroom, a beer that would cause one to go “berserk”. A beer (and a mushroom) that was so powerful that the Vikings were feared by all. A power like no other!

Since the origin of tales, Danes have had a knack for brewing beer, and anyone who has been to Denmark will tell you that it is not the fizzy colored water that most of us grew up knowing as beer. For the Danes, brewing beer is an art form, something that is measured by quality not quantity.

This past Saturday Ole, Birgitte and I went to Valhal in Frederikssund for a beer tasting festival from local microbreweries. Valhal, where the tasting festival was located, is home to plays of Viking tales during the summer. With the Viking inspired buildings, a Viking-age opening of the festival, the highly coveted Danish beer and the 529 Danish guests, it was an amazing cultural experience for me.

The main building of Valhal gives one a sense of ...vikings. This is a picture from when they were announcing the opening of the ticket sales, with three Danes dressed head to toe in viking garb playing traditional horns.

Down to their boots, they were dressed as traditional vikings.

 
 
 
 

There were no modern glasses for this trio, they carried their drinking horns on their belts.

 As you can see the Vikings enjoyed their beer. And by the way, the name of the beer they were drinking was...Hornbeer. Thus it was chosen as the first hornful of beer,  maybe the second and third hornful as well.

As you can see there was quite a turn out!

And thus ends a modern day viking beer tasting, minus the use of mushrooms in the beer (though one brewer did use chili) and the subsequent battle.

Vi Ses!