Heros of Telemark

Noz, the local 'remainders' shop in my part of France, tends to have an eclectic choice of beers for sale. Many of them are British, but whilst these were once reasonably priced they are now rather expensive (perhaps a sign of things to come post-brexit?). But that's not the case with the Scandinavian beers they offer. Naïvely I assumed that only lager type beers come from Scandinavia. So I was surprised to see, yesterday, a selection of bottle conditioned dark beers from the Norwegian Telemark Mikrobryggeri. Being reasonably priced, I bought all that was in stock. These were Old Pale Ale (4.7% ABV)(0.69€ per 330ml bottle) and Amber Ale (4.7% ABV)(0.99€ per 500ml bottle). The former uses Pale, Munich, Vienna and Crystal malts and Perle, Cascade, Columbus, Centennial and Citra hops. The latter uses Pale, Munich, Crystal, Chocolate and Black malts plus roasted barley and Perle, Columbus, East Kent Goldings, Liberty, Citra, Zeus and Cascade hops. It looks as if I'm going to need to rest them for a while in my cold cellar because when, today, I opened a bottle of the Old Pale Ale, even after resting it for 24 hours I'd have needed at least a quart glass to take the head it produced (which caused me difficulty as I was pouring from the bottle so as not raise the sediment). So I think that I'll leave them for a week. But I have to say that the Old Pale Ale made excellent drinking - clean, fresh and well hopped - and would have put many a British 'craft' beer in the shade. Does anyone else have experience of these sort of beers?

It was the same with every bottle - the beer was so lively that I had to use two pint glasses, every time I opened a 500ml bottle, to accomodate the excessive head. Surely this can't have been the intention of the brewer?