Looking back at 2021
Wow! 2021 has been an emotional roller coaster for everyone here at Beerbliotek. It has been an incredibly challenging and rewarding year with too many up’s and down’s to count but I wanted to take a few minutes to reflect on what has been, where we are going, and of course to thank all of you for your support this year.
2021 saw the birth of our 329th beer in December, We brewed 350,000 liters of beer and added 28 new beers into our beer library. The five most popular beers (according to sales) for 2021 were A Moment of Clarity, Better late than never, Every Li’l Thing, Whoop Ass and Make tiny changes to earth. The pandemic has forced us to adapt, and this year we had a big focus on increasing sales to Supermarkets so we are pretty happy to say we managed an increase of over 600% compared to last year. We also managed to add two new export markets with Japan and Singapore both coming onboard, which considering how difficult export has been in the pandemic we are pretty excited about that. We are really looking forward to the opportunity to get down and visit when the world starts opening up a little more.
Our biggest project for the year has to be the launch our Spirit company “Wet City Spirits”
The playfulness and curiosity that inspired us to release a black ale with chilli as our first beer continues to shine bright, We tested over 85 single distillates before settling on the combination for our first gin “Ombibulous” The final result is a combination of 11 botanicals including tasmanian mountain pepper and eucalyptus, perhaps not the most traditional of botanicals in Sweden or in gin anywhere for that matter, but along with reflecting our international roots they also make for a really interesting savoury gin that works incredibly well with classics like Negroni and Martini but is equally at home i more modern cocktails, one of our favourites this year was Mischief by “Årets Bartender” Josefine Thoren from Bruno.
Both Ombibulous and our second gin “Amicitia” – a more traditional “Swedish influenced” London dry gin with Sea Buckthorn and Lemon Verbena both won gold medals in the Spirits Business awards only three months after our launch so we feel pretty confident we are doing something right.
We know how proud Gothenburg is of it’s craft beer and Gothenburg already boasts some of the best cocktail bars and bartenders in Sweden, we are excited to hopefully play a small part in helping to make Gothenburg one of the most attractive destinations for quality handcrafted spirits as well. Our mission is to put a bottle on every table, so if you are reading this and haven’t yet tried our spirits then might I suggest you whip on over to Systembolaget and pick up a bottle from Gothenburg’s first multi award winning organic distillery
In our spare time from running the brewery and launching the distillery we also took it on us to rebuild our taproom to make it a little more cosy and a little less like some seats in the warehouse. In November Viktor Lorénjoined the team as Events and Community Manager. Viktor has years of experience in the restaurant industry as a chef, business owner and sommelier and along with developing our tap room and expanding our food and event offerings he will also be responsible for planning small intimate festivals held at our brewery. We hope to launch the first one in May. There will be beer, and friends but we want to do something a little different so watch this space… In 2022 we also look forward to being able to invite you all to visit our distillery and taste some of the great products Riccardo and Adam are making with the guys that have made it so keep an eye out for that as well.
Its been a long year. From all of us here at Beerbliotek and Wet City Spirits we want to thank you all for the support and love you have shown us this year. 2022 promises to be an exciting year for us all and we really look forward to having you along for the ride. Have a great New Year everybody, Be safe, drink responsibly and take care of each other. We look forward to seeing you all in the New Year.
