Chicagoist's Beer Of The Week: Solemn Oath's Kidnapped By Vikings
By Jason Baldacci in Food on May 9, 2014 8:30PM
With Chicago Craft Beer Week approaching, get ready for your favorite bars and restaurants to be inundated with their favorite, local beers. If you're not super familiar with the local scene here in Chicago, you have a couple weeks to brush up, and we have the perfect beer for you to start with.
Kidnapped by Vikings is an India Pale Ale from the fine people over at Solemn Oath Brewery of Naperville. It pours a cloudy orange-copper hue in the glass, and gives off a nice floral aroma, along with a hint of pineapple skin. On the palate, those floral tones really pop, and turn to earthy perfume on the back end. We also pick up small undertones of pine, lemongrass, and grapefruit rind that make for a pretty complex hop profile overall. There is a touch of caramelization in the malt that helps round out the backbone of the beer, but the body is relatively light, and the hops are definitely the star of the show. At 6 percent alcohol content, Kidnapped by Vikings should make any of your hop loving friends happy if you share a bottle with them this weekend.
If you happen to be a person who doesn't care for hops as much as some of your beer loving friends, you shouldn't fret. While IPAs and other hop-forward beers have become very popular in American Craft Brewing over the past few years, some burgeoning connoisseurs have come to think that a hoppy beer is a better beer, and that anyone who disagrees with them doesn't appreciate the craft movement appropriately. We're here to tell you that this simply isn't true. Every drinker has different perceptions and thresholds for bitterness, and it's totally fine if you happen to be a little more sensitive to it. Just think, does everyone in the world like black coffee? Espresso? Green tea? Brussels sprouts? Collard greens? The vast majority of beer made in other parts of the world is not hoppy at all, and we're talking about styles that have existed longer than the USA has been a unified country. The earliest beers weren't even brewed with hops, brewers used to use all kinds of herbs, roots, and spices to flavor their beer instead. Personally, we're big fans of hoppy beers, as long as they're balanced like Kidnapped by Vikings, but we're not in the business of discriminating when it comes to beer in general.
Look for Kidnapped by Vikings on draft and in 22-ounce bomber bottles, check beermenus.com to see where you can grab some today.