[BEER REVIEW] Have you ever had a beer spiced with myrrh before? 🍺

In northwestern Italy, just south of Turin, you can find one of the nation's leading and most famous breweries - Le Baladin, renowned worldwide for their artisanal and high quality beers. It started in 1986 as a pub, and a decade later began brewing its own beer, only available on draft in the brewpub. The first bottle reached the stores in 1997.

Italy is hardly known for its rich beer culture. The fact is that Italians drink the least amount of beer in Europe, per capita. But perhaps it's precisely the lack of domestic traditions that led Teo Musso to go his own way and try things that other beer producers could only dream of. He's somewhat of a madman with an extraordinary lust for experimentation. The founder of Baladin for example allows the beer to ferment to the sound of classical music, and in several beers he has chosen to exclude hops to instead season them with everything from myrrh and ginger to pumpkin and cinnamon. As a son of a famous winemaker, he met a lot of resistance from his father. That the son didn't want to produce Barolo wines was something of an insult to the father. Today, Teo Musso stands firmly as a central figure among a passionate crowd of Italian brewers who just started to show the world what they can do.

Baladin beers are usually less bitter than their competitors, which makes them perfect to combine with food. But handcrafted beer in limited editions tend to be expensive: it's not unusual that you have to pay 15-17 USD for a bottle of Baladin.

The beer we'll taste today was dedicated to Teo's mother, Nora, and is modeled off of an ancient Egyptian beer spiced with ginger, myrrh (a fragrant resin from trees of the genus Commiphora), as well as orange peel. It's also brewed with an ancient wheat variety from Egypt called Kamut.

Baladin Nora, Birra Egizia

Origin: Piozzo, Piedmont, Italy
Brewery: Birrificio Le Baladin
Style: Spiced Ale
ABV: 6,6 %
Price: ~11 USD
750 ml bottle

Appearance: The embossed and handcrafted bottle with natural cork and candle wax is something extraordinary. Let's see if the content lives up to the high expectations that the bottle gives. The liquid is amber colored and somewhat obscure.

Nose: Big aromas of dried fruit, apricot, cedar wood, and a slight tinge of dry ginger. Large maltiness and plenty of honey. Very straightforward and rustic.

Palate: Quite rich and chewy with a fresh and fruity taste and a nicely weighed sweetness and distinct character of apricot (apricot marmalade), peach and wheat bread. There are also light citrus notes that balance the sweetness beautifully. The slight heat from the ginger also helps with the balance. I can barely notice any bitterness, but there are some interesting herbal as well as floral notes that I can't really identify (it's probably the myrrh). To some extent it reminds me of a Belgian Wit beer, only slightly sweeter.

Finish: Sweet, herbal and slightly grassy.

Conclusion: The balance, the clean and clear flavors, the velvety mouth-feel, and how spices, floral notes and herbs intermingle all makes this a beautiful ale. I can recommend it with a piece of blue cheese. A final score of 4.2 out of 5.

 @SteemSwede