Buying from Mikkeller online

try maybe on www.demolenbeershop.com

 

As much as I love Mikkeller beers as well as the brand itself, I'm loathe to admit that I had a pretty mediocre experience ordering online from them. In short, the selection was amazing, I was able to choose some great beers, and they shipped fairly promptly......However, part of my shipment included hoppy beers from America (Three Floyds Alpha King, to be specific), and despite ordering them straight away when they went online (before they sold out relatively quickly), when they arrived me to a couple weeks later, they were definitely not fresh. The bottled on date was December 2014, which I thought was slightly suspect, but I pressed on and drank one after it spent a night in my fridge. For a pretty hoppy beer (68 IBU), all I tasted was straight malts. As a Chicagoan living in London who was looking forward to sharing this great beer with his Brit buddies here, I wasn't about to let this slide.

To give you an idea just what I'm up against, below is the response I received after emailing the webshop:

Hi Patrick,
Glad to hear that you enjoyed the rest if your order, but very unfortunate with the FFF.
We can't really get it from three Floyds any faster.. I Think that we are going to make the bottling available on the website, so the hardcore fans maybe Can pass the opportunity.

Kind regards


(......because its only the hardcore fans who care about freshness and a beer tasting as its intended to....WOW.)

 

Some American beers just seem to deteriorate somewhat during transportation, which is why I gave up pursuing them. I remember I had some Rogue beers once, Chocolate Stout, Oatmeal Stout, the brown ale whatever it's called and some others. They were just watery and tasteless, which I assume wasn't how they were when made, given their good ratings, so I assumed the shipping over took something out of them. That or Rogue were sending over duds they knew the US customers would go apeshit over.

They're probably getting better now that the export market is growing, but I still don't want to risk it given the prices. Not with so many great fresh and local-ish beers around at least.

 

Having booked a holiday to Copenhagen I am firmly intent on hitting up the Mikkeller/3 Floyds brew pub The War Pigs to get some stuff on tap and buy to bring home. Probably more expensive than buying online, but hey I get a holiday into the bargain.