Everyone at the brewery was looking forward to this past week, as we had planned to take the whole brewery on a roadtrip across Sweden, all the way to the capital, Stockholm. There we had planned some events, and a brew day with our friends from Stockholm Brewing Co.
The beginning of the week was spent packaging some new beers, hush, hush, and tasting some more. Sabotage, the black IPA collab with O|O Brewing, is tasting great by the way, as is the collab with All In Brewing, both of which will be released at the All In Beer Fest next weekend.
Stockholm Roadtrip
We left our Kungssten Brewery around 9am. All of us hopped in a rented van, and off we went. At the moment we’re 11 employees at the brewery, but only 9 could make the trip this time. It’s actually been a long time since all of us could get away together. And we’re glad we did.
Funny thing happened though… as soon as we parked our van in Stockholm and got out, someone noticed a can of Bobek Citra in the gutter next to the car. I mean, what are the chances that one of our beers would lie around so randomly hundreds of kilometres away?
We had events booked in both nights of our stay in Stockholm. Thursday night was at a great cozy bar called Katarinas Ölkafe (Kataraina’s Beer Café). We had five beers on tap, and four more in the fridge. Safe to say, we had a blast, meeting old friends who stopped by, and making new friends, as one does on these trips.
If you’re ever in Stockholm, put a marker down to visit them, and hang out in one of the trendy spots on Södermalm.
Before the events of Thursday night, we spent the afternoon walking through town, or more accurately around on Södermalm. We stopped off at one of the latest trends in Sweden, a Bottle Shop selling only low ABV beers, or more accurately 3,5% or lower. Sweden has tough alcohol laws, and only the state owned monopoly may sell beers over 3,5%.
After a quick tasting of some low alcohol beers easing us into the weekend, we stepped it up immediately, by visiting Stockholm Bränneri, for a tour and a tasting of their Gin. It’s the first Craft Distillery in Stockholm, a great place, and really good Gin.
After a lot of walking and the tastings, our third stop was for food. And what better place than Omnipollo’s Hatt. If you’ve not stopped by, then do so. They always have great beer on tap, and their pizza’s are fantastic.
Our second day in Stockholm was taken up in one place, Stockholm Brewing Co. Where we brewed a collaboration beer, and also joined them for their open house and tasting. Great thing was the food truck on the outside called Sliders from the company Flippin’ Burgers. They know a thing or two about making sliders, and what better than being able to go back into the brewery, and drink some more beer!?
They close the brewery at around 9pm, which meant only one thing. Heading upstairs to BrewDog Södermalm, to carry on the weekend, meetin’ and greetin’.
Collaboration with Stockholm Brewing Co.
This is our second collaboration with Stockholm Brewing Co. The first was brewed at our brewery in Kungssten. It was a sour mashed IPA, called Golden Sour.
This time around it was something totally different, a Gose. A Gose is a top-fermented beer that originated in Goslar, Germany and is usually brewed with at least 50% of the grain bill being malted wheat.
As for dominant flavours, it could include a lemon tartness, a herbal characteristic, and a strong saltiness (the result of either local water sources or added salt). Gose beers typically do not have prominent hop bitterness, flavours, or aroma. The beers typically have a moderate alcohol content of 4 to 5% ABV.
Gose belongs to the same family of sour wheat beers which were once brewed across Northern Germany and the Low Countries. Other beers of this family are Belgian Witbier, Berliner Weisse, Broyhan, and Polish Grodziskie.
The one we brewed has a strong focus on Pomegranates. And in case you’re interested, Garnet derives from Old French grenat by metathesis, from Medieval Latin granatum as used in a different meaning “of a dark red color”. This derivation may have originated from pomum granatum describing the color of pomegranate pulp or from granum referring to “red dye, cochineal“. Even the French term for pomegranate, grenade, has given its name to the military grenade.
The colour of the wort was a very light yellow colour, until of course we added all of the Pomegranate seeds. We’re aiming for an even redder colour, but we’ll have a look mid-next week, to see where we stand. So far it’s tasting great.
Some more new beers
As I mentioned, the beginning of the week was spent packaging some new beers, and one of them was a version of Bobek Citra, where we added Peach. So it’s simply name Bobek Citra Peach. We tasted them side by side, and we are longing back to summer.
We delivered our first shipment of Pustervik IPA to our friends at Pustervik. Already the reviews are looking good. We’ve been fans of the shows at Pustervik for a very long time. Even before we opened the brewery, so it’s just been a matter of time before we did a beer for them.
Two new beers we’ve tasted from the tanks this week has been the Berliner collab with All In Brewing, and a new Stout on 5,6%, in time for the dark months that are coming. The names are still a secret, but the All In collab is being released at the All In Beer Fest next weekend. The Stout is for a later date.
In the brewery we also have been working with a lot of fruit lately. So the floors are usually coloured red, yellow, pink and so on. And of course it smells great. Our Berliners have not been the only ones to get the fruit treatment. Weäve also added Mango to Hip Hops, Peach to Bobek Citra and Apricots to Single Hop Mosaic.
The first two are already out on the market, while the Single Hop Mosaic is out in the coming weeks. If you’re in luck, then we highly recommend drinking the original beer alongside it’s fruity version. It’s great.
Celebrating one year in our Kungssten Brewery
We brewed our first beer at our Kungssten Brewery on the 21st of October 2015. It happened to be Back to the Future Day, which is why we called that IPA Back to the Future. That was beer number 139. We’re currently on 173, so in a year we’ve brewed 34 new beers.
It’s been an exciting year in the new brewery, but we haven’t forgotten the old one, where we released our first sour beer Sour Berry Quite Contrary, which won bronze at the Gothenburg Beer and Whisky Festival.
But the thing which we’re happiest about at Kungssten is our canning line, and how the market has started to respond to cans. We started with four cans, and are soon going to have twelve, with more in the pipeline before the end of the year. #goodtimes
To end off with, don’t forget that next weekend is the All In Beer Fest. We will be releasing two new beers, and looking forward to meeting up with all the other great breweries that will be attending. Festivals like that are not just a time to meet the craft beer drinking public, but also a time to meet other breweries and brewers, and plan collaborations.
Tomorrow we’ll be hosting a Beer Maker’s Brunch, together with our friends at Tapasbaren, down the road from the brewery. There’s still some spaces available, so we hope to see you there.
That’s it from us for this week.
Take care, until next week.
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.
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 Richard is wearing then all you have to do is click the Webshop link in the menu. We have them in black and white, for all you beer lovers out there.
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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