In this week we brewed a collaboration with one of Sweden’s best brewers, Olle from O|O Brewing, we were asked to brew the official beer for GBG Beer Week 2017, and we spent some time in Stockholm with our distributor, while Adam was in a panel discussion with Steve Hindy, founder of Brooklyn Brewery.
Being asked to brew the official GBG Beer Week beer is quite an honour. #nopressure
Gothenburg is often called Sweden’s most interesting Beer city. The goal of GBG Beer Week is to get the city’s beer culture to flourish even more. In a week during April we all pay tribute to the diversity of this new “Beer-Sweden”, and of course, everyone’s invited.
Here in Gothenburg, everything fits together, big and small, locally and internationally, wide and narrow. The idea is to set a movement in motion, with events organised by breweries, importers, restaurants, pubs and compounds the entire town to ferment flavour of rich experiences. The culmination of the week is the Gothenburg Beer & Whisky Festival which attracts over 18,000 visitors over two days.
This last week we’ve been asked to brew the official beer for GBG Beer Week 2017. It’s an honour indeed, and one that doesn’t come without added pressure. You see, the IPA that Stigbergets Brewery brewed for GBG Beer Week 2016, rates as one of the best IPAs in Sweden, with a rating of 4,05/5 on RateBeer.
What we’re going to brew, has not been decided yet, but at least we know the bar has been set extremely high by Olle from O|O Brewing, who also brews for Stigbergets Brewery. More news will be out soon.
While we’re on the subject of the Stigbergets Brewery, and their GBG Beer Week IPA, this weekend we spent some time in Stockholm, at the Stockholm Beer and Whisky Festival.
We ended the night with some friends at BrewDog bar on Södermalm, where I actually had the honour of doing up one of their signs, for the GBG Beer Week IPA from Stigbergets. I did in the end add the S to the end of Stigbergets, to ensure there was no spelling mistakes. A great beer that one.
Sabotage is the name of our collab with O|O Brewing
And yet still more following up on our exciting week, we also brewed a collaboration together with Olle from O|O Brewing, who brewed the GBG Beer Week IPA at Stigbergets Brewery.
The beer we brewed together is called “Sabotage”, and that’s all we’re saying on that subject. We’ll release the style and label design next week, but it’s been an honour to finally brew with him, as he’s been a good friend since before we started the brewery.
The beer is also our 170th different recipe. #170
What’s better than eating a Mandarin, is Berliner number 7.
Our Berliner range is growing very fast indeed. This new one contains Mandarin, Ginger and some Mango, and there will be two differences to it compared to the previous ones.
First up, it’s going into cans. There’s that whole can vs. bottle debate, but we just like it in a can. Fresher. Then secondly, we’ve brewed it lower, at 3,5% whereas the others are all on 3,8%. The reasons are simple, if you live in Sweden. We can sell anything on 3,5% or lower directly from the brewery, whereas anything on 3,6% and higher, can only be sold by the alcohol monopoly Systembolaget.
If we sell it ourselves, we have no extra margins on it, so our consumers can access some of our beers directly, from the brewery, as one can in most other normal countries 😉
Saying hi to Stockholm Beer and Whiskey Festival 2016
Like we said last week, we have never attended the Stockholm Beer and Whisky Festival, as we live on the West Coast and Stockholm is on the East Coast. It’s help over two weekends, so it’s a lot more effort to attend when you’ve got to cart so much with you for 8 days, if you’re staying there and not coming home in between.
We did however get invited by Steve Hindy from Brooklyn Brewery to come and share a beer, and discuss the future of Craft Beer. In attendance was Adam Norman, our head of brewery operations, Darren Packman from Beer Studio and Anders Wendler, from Nya Carnegie Brewery.
It was very entertaining and very informative, and most agreed, that we’re on an exciting journey, there’s still space for growth, but things are starting to settle.
This year we have also had some of our beer at the festival via our distributor Brewery International, and Drycks.se who focusses mainly on the Swedish Monopoly.
We even had a beer on tap at the Bishops Arms stand, which was great. So the two weekends we attended more as guests, who enjoyed the beer and made some great new friends, instead of standing behind the stand just serving beer.
Mocha Latte Stout Double Shot Vanilla is canned
Our Member’s club has been a great way for us to learn about the beer we make, as they get to attend some really exclusive tastings and their feedback is very valuable. This beer was made especially for them, and will be made available exclusively to them to order via the Swedish Monopoly Systembolaget.
So there’s good reason to join our member’s club if you’re not already a member. Get in touch with them via Facebook if you’d like to join. And this is Sweden, so although it’s all in Swedish, they’re good at English 🙂
To end off with, the renovations of the new BrewPub is going well. Some photos are on its way, along with when we’re expecting to open.
Thanks for taking your time to read our weekly brewery update. Let us know if you’d like more news via our contact page.
Take care, until next week.
Getting hold of our beers Internationally
Get some merchandise in our Webshop
If you’d like to get hold of the same Beer T-Shirt Henrik is wearing then you’d need to get to our webshop soon. We have limited stocks available.
But fear not, we’re releasing our new merchandise range soon, so keep watching this space.
Upcoming Festivals
All in Beer Festival 4-5 November 2016
One of our favourite festivals is the All In Beer Fest. The reason? It’s just about beer.
We’ll be attending again this year, but if you’d like to attend, then there’s two ways to go about it. Buy a ticket, or enter our #FreshestCanInTheLand competition, where you stand the chance to win two entrance tickets.
Finding our beers in Sweden
Systembolaget
Have a look at our Systembolaget page, where you’ll find a map that features the stores that have our beers on their shelves. If you live in other parts of Sweden, then you can follow this link to order the beers directly from Systembolaget.se to your closest store.
Folköl (Low ABV Beers)
Visit our Folköl page if you’d like to find out which Stores & Supermarkets, such as ICA & Hemköp stock our low ABV or “folköl” across Sweden.
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