Mariestads Export

Once again in the Skybar and the beer of tipple amongst the Stockholm crowd appeared to be Mariestads Export (5.3% abv). This beer is a pale Pilsner style beer with a clean malty taste and a nice bitter aftertaste. The beer is nice and well balanced and is considered one of the leading Swedish beers. I am not going to argue with that, however the dominant style that I noticed was the Vienna Lager style? Maybe this is environmental with the climate providing barley that malts with a lot of mellanoids, whilst hops grown in the area are lower in alpha acids? Anyhow the Mariestads brand is one of several owned by Spendrups, who acquired the former Mariestads brewery in 1967. On an interesting note, and arguably more interesting than the beer is that Sir Richard Branson's Virgin have an interest in the brewery and it is the Swedish licence holder for Virgin cola. http://www.mariestads.se/