Ueli Beer
Brewed by Brauerei Fishcerstube
Style: Specialty
Basel, Switzerland
The brewery Fischerstube AG is a Swiss brewery with its headquarters in Basel, a city on the Rhine River in northwest Switzerland, close to the country’s borders with France and Germany. It produces beer under the brand name “Ueli beer”.
The brewery sells a wide variety of beers and also does a good trade in seasonal and iconic brews. They have taken on some interesting brews with an eye on what is happening in the local area. When the Basel Antiquity Museum had a Tutankhamun exhibition in 2004, this inspired the brewery to bring out The Tut-Anch-Ueli, brewed according to an ancient Egyptian recipe of barley malt, emmer, hops and dates and found ripping heel. They did likewise when Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso had exhibitions in the local art gallery. For Van Gogh they actually had a sunflower flavoured beer in their Van Ueli beer, while for Ueli Beer Pablo they brewed a powerful beer with Absinthe, as “Powerful as a work by Picasso”. And for the annual Basel carnival, they have their own specially themed Bock beer, and they also produce a Christmas beer in the run upto to the end of year festivities. In total, more than 50 such specialty beers have been brewed, each available for a specific occasion or seasonally, there really is no occasion without a Ueli beer at hand!
Second time having a beer from this small Swiss brewery, having had their Ueli Bier Reverenz a while back which I found to be very good, very nice and definitely one to saviour especially the long full bodied taste, so high hopes for this Laggs Special, so lets see……
Review: 33cl bottle of Ueli Laggs Special: 5.2% vol.
Famous for their specialty beers, Brauerei Fishcerstube, as part of the current “Salmon Comeback Campaign” in the city of Basel, have teamed up with WWF Switzerland to create the “Ueli Laggs special”. The upper Rhine used to be overflowing with Atlantic Salmon about 50 years ago but alas no more, so the WWF are hoping to bring them back. So with every bottle of Laggs you purchase, 50 cents goes towards this great project. I will drink to that!
So that explains the picture of the salmon on the bottle!
The appearance is one of a golden colour, and a small white head. A good bit of carbonation going on, results in a head that maintains well and some lacing present, not a bad looking beer.
On the nose I get the sweet malts and the odd fruit aroma, but also the strong smell of hops. They smell a bit stinky, I wonder is that to mimic the smell of a fresh salmon!
Initially it was not a great taste, tasting a bit “urgh”, like a salmon taste in fact. A bit too over done with the hops, too bitter.
Its all about the hops in this beer.
Bit better with the second bottle cold from the fridge. Malts and barley coming more to the fore.
All a bit sickly in the mouth for me. Far overdone with the hops and not a great beer to drink. Just as well its a specialty as I dont think I’d be buying this on a regular occasion. Too overbearing, too bitter, too much like drinking a bucket of salmon water. Yuck!
“Brasserie du Dzô” is a contraction of the word “Dzojè”, which means Joseph in the Fribourg dialect, a nickname given to the local residents. 
Coming in a small lovely shaped bottle, with an interesting logo of the brewery, a lamb, in black and white with a fork like weapon! Apparently its based on the old family coat of arms. It is pretty cool though. 
Bit of a shock initially, a bit of a “eh, what!”. Very hoppy at the start, took a while to get used to that strong taste.
A German speaking city, Zürich was founded by the Romans in 15 BC. However, early settlements have been found dating back more than 6400 years ago. The Romans founded the city as a tax collecting point for goods trafficked on the Limmat river. 
Zürich is a major hub for railways, roads, and air traffic for Switzerland and for Europe. Both Zürich Airport and railway station are the largest and busiest in the country, and the city has an extensive local train, bus and city wide tram network. The network also includes boats on the lake and river, funicular railways and even a cable car between Adliswil and Felsenegg. Zürich train station is the world’s most frequently served railway station, with 2915 trains every day, and has high speed trains coming from France, Germany and Austria passing through, and it is also directly connected with Zürich Airport which is less than 10 kilometers (6.2 mi) away. 
First pint of the day was to be in the Lion Pub, an English Pub, near the city centre. Was very busy with some premiership football on the box, but still plenty of space to sit down.
Nice interior, very swanky (wooden but all smart), good cozy atmosphere at the time, British style pub grub on the menu, but also some Swiss dishes, British and Irish beer on tap and in bottle. Also, while I was there they also had a gin tasting stall which looked pretty cool. 
A very nice interior, all modern and smart, and the bar was within easy reach so sat myself down and ordered a Carlsberg, which was served with a nice big friendly smile by the bar lady who also gave me some nuts to nibble on. Carlsberg was great, lovely and cool, and I had another one as I was beginning to settle in nicely, that and the fact that the bar lady was kind enough to recharge my mobile. 
I went in and sat down at the bar, was hungry too so ordered some food to accompany my beer. Service was very friendly. Had some regular local lager and got some fries and a steak burger, nothing too fancy! The beer was nice and cold but unfortunately the food was rubbish. Just tasteless, small portioned and nothing special, bit disappointing. Sit down food should be a bit better than this. 
Anyway had another beer then my eye caught a board listing various shorts and I was immediately intrigued by the hemp vodka that was an offer. Had a shot of it and it went down easy but I am not sure how much hemp was in it. 
The club was founded on 1 August 1896 by former members of the three local clubs (FC Turicum, FC Viktoria, and FC Excelsior). One of them was the FC Barcelona founder, Joan Gamper. Zürich won its first national championship title in 1901–02, but did not win it again until 1923–24.
Between 1925 and 1962, were the years of no success, FC Zürich winning sweet fuck all. Thirty seven years of nothing at all and including two relegation’s. Bet the supporters enjoyed those times. But not to worry, as the “Golden Years” came during the 60’s right up to the early 80’s, Zürich winning seven championships in the years 1963, 1966, 1968, 1974, 1975, 1976 and 1981, and the Swiss Cup five times in 1966, 1970, 1972, 1973, and in 1976. FCZ also had some success in Europe getting to the semi-finals of the European Cup in the 1963–64 season, before losing to the mighty Real Madrid (8-1 on agg!), and also reaching the semi-finals in the European Cup in 1976–77, where they lost to Euro kingpins at the time, Liverpool (Losing 6-1 on agg)
They play their home games at the Letzigrund in Zürich, which seats 25,000 spectators. The Letzigrund stadium is some stadium though, wide and expansive, at night with the floodlights on it is a sight to see. An athletics stadium first and foremost but owned by the city of Zurich (buying it off FC Zurich who were in debt at the time), with the popular IAAF Diamond League taking place here every year, it also has held some pretty big music concerts down through the years (both the old and updated version of the stadium) from U2, Bon Jovi, Madonna, Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Rihanna, Beyoncé, the Rolling Stones right up to today with Ed Sheeran playing in the summer of 2018. The current capacity is 25,000, for football events, 30,000, for athletics and 50,000, for concerts.
As for rivals, I would say it has to be the other Zurich club, Grasshopper Club Zürich, and FC Basel. Grasshoppers are known as the club of the elite while FCZ are known as the club of the workers. But its the RotBlau who are regarded as the number one foe, mainly down to an incident in the last day of the 2005–06 season when FC Basel only needed a draw to clinch the title at home against FC Zürich, who had the cheek to spoil the party and score in the last minute to take the title. After the final whistle, players and fans from both teams started fighting on the pitch and in the stands. Since that day, fans from FC Zürich and FC Basel pretty much detest each other with a passion. 
And then six minutes later we had our second goal of the night, I. Aliu whipped in a nice high corner for A. Nef to power home a header where the goalie had no chance, albeit you might wonder why the Lugano defence were a little static. Two nil and I was barely even into my burger and beer!
You just know when you get a high scoring first half that Sods law dictates that the second half will be shit, that’s the way it always goes, and sure enough it was. Zurich did the work and relaxed a little to give Lugano some chances but they were mostly long ranges efforts and Yanick Brecher in the FCZ goals was equal to anything that came at him. Lugano quite simply were not up to the same high temp and level that FC Zurich were at. 
Like the days out in Zurich, a great city for drinking in, wandering round and for football hopping. Albeit it is expensive but heh ho it is Switzerland. Was good seeing how much of a crowd FCZ brought to the Stadion Letzigrund compared to their rivals Grasshoppers, it was slightly bigger but not as large as I had expected considering they are the “big team” in the city! Still they were a noisy bunch all game and I just love the Stadion Letzigrund big game atmosphere. One can only imagine what its like when the place is even half full!!
Farnsburg AG is a brewery in the small town of Sissach located in the Basel region of Switzerland. The brewery opened in October 2016, reviving a long tradition of beer production in the area that was thought long gone. The company has about 750 shareholders, a board of directors and a well renowned brewmaster, Ludwig Stranzky. Offering some regular beers in Naturblond, Hellblond and Amber, they also plan to introduce a whole range of specialty and seasonal beers soon. Selling to local bars and restaurants for the moment, the new brewery has high hopes for the future. 
Smell is of light pale malts. Good lagery beery smell.
Their Appenzell Beer (
Bought this beer from the local Coop supermarket here in Basel, bought it in a six pack in a nice black packaged box. The bottle itself had a smart logo with the majestic looking Swiss Alps looking all nice and shiny. 
No carbonation and also not a lot in the bottle, I wonder where it all went to!
Lucerne is in central Switzerland, and its star attraction is its massive lake, a total area of 114 km² (44 sq miles). It is very scenic with many bends and turns and one can always see the Alps far off in the distance, most of the time with snow covered peaks. Taking a cruise is the way to go, and at peak tourist time they are regular enough, and stop at various points along the lake. Or, if you prefer, you can do some laps of the lake without getting on a passenger boat at all as there are scenic walks all around the lake.
On the bottle you get a nice big UR logo, interesting and striking, it stands out. 
The initial taste was fantastic, very crispy soothing start, very good.
So the town is well known for its wooden pedestrian bridge between itself and the nearby village of Hurden. Built in 2001, crossing the Lake Zürich, the bridge symbolizes the fact that over the centuries locals have crossed between Lake Zurich and Obersee, mostly on boats, but also on a wooden bridge that was constructed by Count Rudolf IV the Wise and Duke of Austria. In 1358 this structure was a handy little earner as there was a toll set up on the bridge, that’s why he was considered a wise man! It is also important to acknowledge that there were other bridges from prehistory, and in the Roman times, so this crossing was and is of an important cultural and historical significance to the local area. 
Arriving early to the town, it was good to see at least one bar open on the promenade. Nice looking bar from the outside, ventured in to a very small bar. A few people came in, looked like they were in town for some sort of sporting gig, so the small bar, with an interesting wooden and nautical themed decor, was actually quite busy. Ordered a Falken bier (from Schaffhausen), poured well and not too bad to drink for the first beer of the day. 
Vaduz started the game much better and scored after about half an hour, a well worked goal deservedly putting them in the front. Devic squaring the ball lovely for Mathys to easily slot home. 
Feldschlösschen is the best known beer brand in Switzerland. Their beers have been brewed at the Feldschlösschen brewery in Rheinfelden, the biggest brewery in Switzerland, since its foundation in 1876 and has been the leading Swiss beer brand for more than 100 years. Today its by far the leading brand in the country with 45 per cent of the beer market, with more than 40 Swiss beer brands, mineral waters, soft drinks and wine produced and shipped all over the country and beyond. 
For the appearance it is a yellowish looking beer, with no head to speak of, looks pretty shite to be honest. Yellow goes a bit cloudy after a while too. Doesn’t look great. 
This spurred England on, and it was them as they dictated the play and had a few more chances to increase the lead. Lingard should have scored, or at least hit the target when Alli set him up perfectly, while Kane had two bites of the cherry from close on but couldn’t connect. Those chances would come back to bite them on the ass later!
Croatia came more into it in the second half as England let the foot off the gas, Brozovic hitting the post. That should have woke England up but it didn’t. Sterling still on the pitch, fannying around, while Kane not showing any leadership on the pitch. Perisic, on the other hand, was showing grit by pushing his side forward every chance he had, and all that hard work came off as he scored the equalizer beating the defender to shot for goal, a bit too easy for Croatia. England were now on the ropes. Brozovic missed another chance, an empty goal after a rare blunder by Pickford. Vrsaljko also had Stones clear off the line with a shot. Mandzukic was excellent and had a great shot well saved by Pickford, while Vida at the other end had Sterling ,and Rashford when he came on, had them both in his pocket, well defended considering the speed of those two players. And then at the centre of it all Modric pinning the ball all around the pitch, brilliant to watch, a world class performance if I ever saw one. 
France V Belgium: Great start to the game from both teams, Pogba to Mbappe but Courtois quick off his line, A Hazard shot which Varane just headed over. Alderweireld then with a tight angled shot that seen Lloris saving superbly, up the other end Pavard seeing his shot well saved by Courtois. If anything it was the goalkeepers that were the busiest in the opening exchanges. 
It was all Belgium, Kevin again bossing midfield, Hazard doing his stuff on the wings, Lukaku always a danger up front. 
E Hazard, with a great one two with De Bruyne, scored the second for Belgium killing the game as a contest and so the Belgians take the third spot. A good World cup for both teams, but England were lucky that they got such an easy route to the semi’s, they wont get that again for a while, while the Belgians must be wondering how they didn’t make the final since they were easily the best footballing team in this years tournament. Roll on the Euros 2020!
