Denmark got a big Olympic win today, overcoming France for the gold medal in handball. I thought about burying the lede on this, in case any Commentists log onto the site while desperately avoiding Olympic handball spoilers, but… look, I just didn’t think that was very likely, y’know? I’ll apologize now if I was wrong.

Handball’s a hell of a lot of fun to watch. If you’ve never seen it, the spectator experience is thus: You’re watching basketball with faster ball movement and big ol’ goals at each end. It’s one of the two things I discovered while living in Copenhagen, in a kollegium (somewhere between a dormitory and an apartment building) on the island of Amager that are fun as hell to watch, the other being the so-bad-it’s-good Eurovision Song Contest. I’ve done a terrible job of following both since leaving Denmark, but each, in the company of friendly Danish students and frankly awful Danish beer, was a real blast at the time. I’m not kidding about the beer. The best of it was Carlsberg, and Carlsberg’s slogan at the time, “Probably the Best Beer in the World,” may be the most undeservedly kind thing anyone has ever said about anything.

Back to Amager: It’s home to ample farmland, the Copenhagen Airport, and the fairly famous anarchist squatter enclave of Christianshavn. It’s also been home, since 2007, to Amager Bryghus. Exactly when in 2007, I’m not sure; I’d hate to think I missed it while I was living so close. But the world of beer, I’ve found, is generous with second chances. Some time in the last week or two, Amager’s beers hit the Texas market, so today I can drink to the Danish victory with something a quite a bit nicer than Carlsberg. Or, what the hell, it’s their first handball championship. Two somethings!

The first something is Amager Bryghus Lawrence of Arabica, a collaboration with Gary, Indiana’s 18th Street Brewery, and more importantly, porter with coffee and oranges added. I know! I’ve never heard of such a thing either, but it immediately sounded awesome to me too. (If this didn’t sound awesome to you, please take a few moments to recalibrate your awesome sensors before continuing.) It’s a rich chocolate brown coming out of the bottle, and nearly black in the glass, and the head hangs around for a few minutes before dissipating. Lawrence of Arabica delivers beautifully on the coffee, but on first taste the orange eluded me entirely, and I’m not sure I did any better picking it up on subsequent sips. If it’s there, I think, it’s in various component parts of the flavor we think of as “orange,” not as the whole thing; there’s a bit of citric sharpness, a bit of fruity sweetness, but I had to look for both to find them, and I didn’t find them in the same place. In any case, this is a rich and satisfying beverage and a worthy weekend breakfast beer, whether you’re having breakfast in the morning like the kind of person who wants to have a productive weekend, or at three in the afternoon like lady snow and I just did. Breakfast is a state of mind, not a time of day, but naturally it helps if eggs are involved.

The second something is, like handball and the Eurovision Song Contest, a thing I remember thoroughly enjoying years ago. Let me explain: Not long ago (in 2011, officially, though they were selling beer before that), a farmhouse brewery named Jester King opened in the countryside southwest of Austin. One of their first beers was a Russian imperial stout called Black Metal, brewed with an English ale yeast and a healthy helping of hops. That original Black Metal was a means to an end for Jester King, which aimed from the beginning to brew beer using traditional European farmhouse methods, fermented with yeasts and bacteria native to the environment. And so later batches of Black Metal were made with a Belgian saison yeast, and then with a mix of Belgian saison yeast and local bugs. Those versions are good too! But since the first recipe change, I’ve missed the straightforward bombast of the original.

Well, Amager Bryghus brought the original back, with an unspecified “Danish twist” and the perfectly forthright name of Danish Metal. It’s near pitch-black, as it should be. And… I honestly can’t tell what’s going on with it. The base beer is recognizable and delicious after all these years, but, like, what is that fruity finish? Is the beer going sour? Is there actual fruit of some kind in it? Have they thrown in some house yeast alongside the English yeast? Does it matter? I like this version of the beer. Maybe not as much as OG Black Metal, which may at this point be lost in the sands of time, but I’m not going to complain when Amager puts its own spin on the stout and comes up with a worthy successor.

Enough from me: The person with the best palate in this household has some thoughts. lady snow?

lady snow says: Ooh, what is this?

make it snow says: Lawrence of Arabia.

lady snow says: Are you sure it’s not Arabica? There’s coffee in it, right?

make it snow says: Is that a kind of coff—[checks label] oh. [find-replaces “Lawrence of Arabia”]

lady snow says: That’s why I’m here. So, I definitely taste the coffee in it. But, like, I love coffee. I love coffee. So… is this a stout?

make it snow says: Porter. Strong porter. For all the difference there is, you know. How about the orange?

lady snow says: It definitely is a strong porter. Oh, there’s the orange! It tastes like when you get dark chocolates with orange in them.

make it snow says: I’ve had those, but not enough of them to really recognize it.

lady snow says: [stage whispering] I HAVE!

make it snow says: I guess I have to be really hit over the head with it, like with Southern Tier Choklat Oranj. Southern Tier really are masters of hitting you over the head with flavor.

lady snow says: Anything that combines coffee and reminding me of orange dark chocolate beers is the beer for me. It’s a very indulgent beer.

make it snow says: And the Danish Metal? I know you never had the old-school Black Metal.

lady snow says: I think it is more sour than a standard imperial stout.

make it snow says: Any ideas what’s causing that? I have it down to four possible things, three of which I’d have expected to be noted on the label: That it’s wine barrel-aged, that it’s had another strain of yeast intentionally introduced, that there’s some kind of fruit in it, or that it’s accidentally contaminated.

lady snow says: It doesn’t taste infected. But I don’t know about the other possibilities. Maybe it is barrel aging. Was it aged in wine barrels?

make it snow says: No one’s saying so, but that’s what it tastes the most like to me. I’m probably wrong. I don’t know. Is it good?

lady snow says: Yeah, it’s good! But I want to know what’s going on with it, too.

make it snow: Me too. It may just have to remain a mystery. At least it’s a delicious mystery!

tl;dr: Welcome to the real America, Denmark! (The real America is Texas, and also winning at team sports.)

Grade: Bunden i vejret eller resten i håret!

make it snow is an alot of beer who’s sad to see the Olympics come to a close tonight. This afternoon he and lady snow each poured themselves half a glass apiece of Lawrence of Arabica and Danish Metal, and make it snow drank the leftovers. If we’re all kind to each other, except when our competitive spirits make us feel like being assholes instead, we can make the Olympics last all year.