Grünerløkka mat- og mikrobrygg festival

On August 24 and 25, 2012, Grünlerløkka mat- og mikrobrygg festival was held for the fifth year running. After a humble start in September 2008, on the pavement outside Parkteatret, this has become a very popular and well known food and beer festival in the Norwegian capital. This blog post is a brief report from the opening day this year.

Early visitors at the 2012 festival, before it got crowded.

The festival
Except for the first year, when the festival was held outside Parkteatret, the festival is held in the back yard of Café Vespa, in Københavngata 4, just north of Sofienbergparken in Oslo. It's arranged by the Jan Vardøen-owned Grünerløkka Brygghus gastropub.

As its Norwegian name implies, "mat- og mikrobrygg" meaning "food and micro brew", this festival is all about good quality food and beer. However, because of limited exposure to the food selection this year (there were looong lines by the time I became hungry) I will keep to the "micro brew" part of the festival in this report.

This year saw a couple of changes at the festival. First and foremost, you couldn't pay with cash or credit card at the beer or food stalls anymore, but had to use tokens. The tokens were purchased at the entrance, for 300 NOK you got 10 tokens. This is a sensible change, because it should take less time at the head of a queue to transer two tokens for a beer than to find the correct amount of cash or even use a credit card to pay. However, the execution was a bit flawed since you had to return to the entrance and line up with those waiting to get in. Thus, it could easily take 10-15 minutes to obtain more tokens, which ruined the gain of quicker service at the beer stalls.

The other change was that the organizer, learning from last year, had erected big party tents to let visitors take cover in case of rain. And this proved to be a good precaution, because we got some rain this year too! It was also said that the gate would close when the festival area was full, to avoid the crowded atmosphere and long queues of last year. This turned out to be the case, but in my view they did so a bit late because the festival area was already very crowded by the time I saw the big gate closing. This had several bad effects.

• The line of people for the restroom was constantly long, forcing you to plan well ahead so that you could line up in time to relieve yourself. Or else you would have to do like some did, run for the park! 

• The crowded area also made it near impossible to sit down to eat or get some rest, since all the seating space were taken. And those seated always ran the risk of getting beer poured down their necks from people bumping into each other as they tried to pass behind the back of those seated.

Aside from these issues, the festival was a resounding success with a record number of craft breweries attending, nine in all bringing draft beer as well as bottled beer. Visitors could choose from more than 40 beers on draft and a lot more on bottle, including many new and rare beers. It was certainly enough to keep even the most hardened beer geek occupied for two full days.

Here follows an alphabetical list of the attending breweries.

Amundsen Bryggeri & Spiseri
Oslo based brewpub Amundsen Bryggeri & Spiseri, which opened up in February 2011, attended the festival for the first time this year. They brought along three draft beers, the 4.7% hefeweizen Hveteøl, the 4.6% Pale Ale and the brand new 7% black IPA called Black Bird. The latter was a really smooth and hoppy black ale.

BrewDog
Scottish punk brewers BrewDog had stand at the festival, manned by their importer - Cask Norway, serving some of the most interesting beers at the festival. On draft they offered Punk IPA, Hardcore IPA and 5 AM Saint, all excellent beers but these days fairly common. Even in Oslo. It was the bottle menu that attracted my attention, with three novelties: Abstrakt AB:10 - an 11.5% imperial brown ale aged on wine barrels from Malaga, International Arms Race - a 7.5% Flying Dog collaboration beer,  and Dog A - a 15.2% imperial stout brewed with vanilla, coffee and naga chili!

Hornbeer
Like BrewDog, nobody from the Danish brewery Hornbeer were actually present at the festival. Instead, their Norwegian importer Beer Enthusiast manned a stand serving some draft beers from Hornbeer, including the tasty 11% Caribbean Rumstout and the 9.3% Hophorn black IPA.

HaandBryggeriet
From Drammen, west of Oslo, HaandBryggeriet has attended all of the five festivals so far. This year Ole Richard Lund and Rune Eriksen represented the brewery, and they brought along some well known draft beers, including the popular 6.2% Fyr & Flamme IPA and the massive 11% Odin's Tipple imperial stout. On bottle they brought along two new ones, the smooth and nicely roasted 6.5% Sundvolden Porter (only released in 3360 bottles) and the 8.2% Fatlagret Porter - a porter aged on akevitt barrels, just like the old Akevitt Porter.

HaandBryggeriet Sundvolden Porter
- brewed for Sundvolden Hotel

Kinn Bryggeri
Based in Florø in Sogn og Fjordane, on the west coast of Norway, Kinn Bryggeri is less than three years old but already among the top breweries in Norway. Like last year, founder and brewer Espen Lothe showed up with a number of outstanding draft beers. Including the 9.5% Bøvelen abbey tripel and the 10% Svartekunst imperial stout.

Midtfyns Bryghus
Danish brewery Midtfyns Bryghus attended because they had another engagement in Oslo. Its owner, Eddie Szweda, manned the stand, serving several great draft beers. Including the awesome X Porter (originally brewed with Menno Olivier from De Molen) and the brand new 5.9% American Pale Ale with Wasabi and Ginger - fittingly served with a sushi taster!

Nøgne Ø
The oldest and most successful Norwegian craft brewery, Nøgne Ø, is also a veteran of this festival, and this year they brought several new beers with them. On draft they offered a potent pilsenser, the 9% Imperial Python Pilsner, as well as the 6.5% White IPA - a collaboration with Bad Attitude brewed in Switzerland. They also served the new batch of Pumpkin Ale from tap, which tasted very different from the one last year and seemed a bit thin.

Sundbytunet
Bryggerikjelleren at Sundbytunet is the domain of the old Nøgne Ø brewer, Frank Werme. Since opening up less than a year ago he has already attended several beer festivals and made a collaboration beer with Italian brewer Teo Musso from Le Baladin. At Grünerløkka, Frank brought with him several excellent draft beers - including the 6.7% Emmigrant IPA and the 6.5% Vinterporter. The last one is a gem of a porter, smooth and tasty.

Ægir Bryggeri
Based in Flåm in Sogn og Fjordane, on the west coast of Norway, Ægir Bryggeri is a veteran at this festival, attending for the 4th year running. This year, founder Evan Lewis stayed home to attend matters with his brand new brewery complex which opened up for the 5 year anniversary in June. This year, Ægir brought along a brand new beer, called Dirty Blonde. From what I heard, this 4,7% ale was made by aging the regular Bøyla Blonde Ale in an old Lynchburg bourbon barrel. The result was fruity and good. They also offered Sumbel Porter on draft and a new batch of Lynchburg Natt on bottle.

It can also be mentioned that Brooklyn Brewery had a stand, serving one draft beer.

Concluding remarks
Grünerløkka mat- og mikrobrygg festival is still the best craft beer festival in Oslo, 2012 had an even more impressive list of breweries and beer than last year. Its friendly atmosphere and good location makes it a great place for people to come and discover beer.

The 2012 festival also revealed some problems that have to be addressed.

1. The current location has become too small for such a popular festival, causing crammed conditions and long queues at the few restrooms available. It would be nice to have seating space for all visitors.
2. Tokens should be sold at more than one location, or at least be moved away from the entrance, allowing those already inside to more easily purchase tokens.

But these are minor issues. Overall, the festival was arranged in an excellent manner by the people at Grünerløkka Brygghus and I send my warmest thanks to everyone involved - also the brewers and breweries. Thank you very much for this year!

Ægir Dirty Blonde on draft at the festival.

More photos from the festival can be found at Flickr.

Visit to BrewDog Aberdeen

Aberdeen, Scotland, is probably best known as the oil capital of Britain and a former fishing harbor on the North Sea coast. More recently it has also gained a reputation for beer, more specifically as the home base for the infamous punk brewery BrewDog.

Martin Dickie and James Watt.
BrewDog Aberdeen, May 2011.

Starting up a punk brewery

Back when he was still captain on a fishing boat, James Watt would dream of hoppy and full bodied beers. Like his friend, Martin Dickie, he was tired of the "insipid, mass produced chemical products churned out by big companies". In the end they got so fed up with what they could buy locally that they bought a brewing kit and started brewing American inspired pale ales in James' garage. They slowly honed their brewing skills.

In 2006 Martin and James went to London to seek out the opinion of Michael "The Beer Hunter" Jackson, one of the most influential persons in the beer world at the time. He tasted their IPA, looked searchingly at them and uttered the profound words "It's time to quit your day jobs". The two duly did, spending the rest of the year securing loans to build a brewery in their hometown Fraserburgh in the far north of Aberdeenshire.

In April 2007, named BrewDog after after James’s dog Bracken, the brewery was ready for operation. But, as they've admitted since, that's when the real problems began.

Punk's not dead or how to survive in brewing

Trying to make a break in the UK beer market turned out to be easier said than done for Martin and James, their BrewDog beers were all made after the American craft beer mold - hoppy, flavorful and high in ABV. The average British beer drinker is not known for his willingness to try new flavors and even less for trying a beer much above 3.5% ABV. Thus, BrewDog immediately faced an uphill struggle in getting their beers sold.

Another problem was that many pubs Martin and James contacted were already tied to large breweries and those that weren't didn't think BrewDog beers would sell enough to warrant a spot in their bar, partly because of the 30% higher price.

Punk IPA - the original BrewDog success.

Sales were slow and after eight months the firm was only selling around ten cases a month, which didn’t cover the costs of making the beer. They started to fall behind on the loan and things did not look good, until they got a surprising call.

Shortly after starting BrewDog, they had entered Punk IPA in a tasting competition for Tesco - the British multinational grocery retailer. Six months later it turned out they had won, and Tesco called them asking about selling BrewDog beers in 400 stores across Britain!

Brewdog made the Tesco order and soon got another big order from Systembolaget in Sweden who started selling Punk IPA in the spring of 2008 (which was how I got my first taste of it). By the end of 2008, they had sold beer for £800,000.

Today, Punk IPA remains their flagship beer, sold on bottle, can and keg all over Europe. And it has been followed by dozens of other beers in all styles and manners, from the darkest imperial stouts to the hoppiest india pale ales. BrewDog has also launched the experimental Abstrakt series where new and often strange recipes are tried out, sometimes very successful other times just plain weird. But what has caused most media attention have been their strong beers.

The new media kings

BrewDog have never played by the books and have a love / hate relationship with the media, which can be traced back to the July 2009 release of their "intergalactic fantastic oak aged beer" Tokyo* of 18.2% ABV.

BrewDog Tokyo* - hardly a teens drink.

British journalists were outraged, calling BrewDog irresponsible and asking what was the point of such a high ABV? They claimed teenagers would drink this beer just to get clobbered every weekend. Little did the journalists reflect over the price of a BrewDog Tokyo*, which would deter most teenagers from considering this a good way to get drunk. Secondly, the massive flavors of this beer would have been more than a mouthfeel for British teens used to drinking pale, tasteless bitters or lagers. But, no, the media would not listen to that kind of arguments.

BrewDog never let the media reactions stop them. Instead they hit back, creating a ridiculously hoppy beer of just 1% ABV - Nanny State - which packed more punch than all Bitters in Britain combined, but with hardly any alcohol. Today, an even lower alcohol version of Nanny State is sold as a non-alcoholic beer at many pubs across Europe.

The story doesn't end here though, oh no, BrewDog was just warming up to their own personal media war that would see them go head to head with a German brewery and finally animal activists around the world.

Tactical Nuclear Penguin - the arms race

After all the media attention, BrewDog was contacted by Kleinbrauerei Schorschbräu, a small brewery from Gunzenhausen in Bavaria, specializing in high ABV beers known as eisbocks. Eisbocks are made by freeze distilling bock beers, removing the frozen water from the chilled beer causes them to get a more intense flavor and a higher alcohol.

BrewDog was not interested in paying for German secrets, instead they read up on freeze distilling and went for the throat, launching the strongest beer in the world, Tactical Nuclear Penguin - a 32% ABV freeze distilled imperial stout, in November 2009.

BrewDog Tactical Nuclear Penguin - 32% abv.

The Germans responded with a stronger eisbock of their own. This again prompted another attack from BrewDog, this time a freeze-distilled imperial IPA - the 41% ABV Sink The Bismark, accompanied by a hillarious video showing Martin and James dressed up as Hans and Wolfgang, two Germans trying to sabotage BrewDog.

This part of the story ends in July 2010 with The End of History, a crazy freeze-distilled beer of 55% ABV and only made in a small quanity of 11 bottles! Each bottle was enclosed in a piece of road kill and sold for £500-700 at their webshop. Despite having been killed on the roads, animal activists fumed by the lack of respect BrewDog showed for the carcasses while beer writers fumed over the high abv, claiming that what BrewDog had made had nothing to do with beer.

Despite the negative press, guess who was laughing all the way to the bank? Yes, Martin and James! From being a small, obscure brewery on the outskirts of Europe, they had made BrewDog a household name even outside beer geek circles. Orders poured in from all over the world, even a few daredevil pubs in Britain started ordering a keg or two. Today, their beers are sold in 28 countries around the globe.

Punk is certainly not dead!

The BrewDog bars

Because of the lack of response from British pubs and beer drinkers, Martin and James conceived the plan that they should do like former English breweries - start their own chain of pubs, partly to be able to sell their own beer from draft but just as importantly to educate the beer drinkers in the new ways of craft beer.

BrewDog Aberdeen - the first BrewDog pub.

Thus, in October 2010 the very first BrewDog bar opened up at 17 Gallowgate in their home city, Aberdeen, followed half a year later by BrewDog Edinburgh. As of this moment they have five bars, all in the UK:

1. BrewDog Aberdeen (opened: 19 October 2010)
2. BrewDog Edinburgh (opened: 24 March 2011)
3. BrewDog Glasgow (opened: 23 July 2011)
4. BrewDog Camden (opened: 10 December 2011)
5. BrewDog Nottingham (opened: 25 February 2012)

In addition, they expect to open up bars in Newcastle (contract signed), Leeds and Manchester later this year and there's even talk of finding a city in Scandinavia - most likely in Stockholm or Copenhagen - for the first BrewDog bar outside the UK.

The bar at BrewDog Aberdeen.

The BrewDog bars have a common design, so whether you visit BrewDog Camden or BrewDog Glasgow you should get the same feel and roughly the same types of beer.

The bar in Aberdeen is stacked with board games, chess and other forms of games that people can play at their tables, while enjoying good craft beer and a tasty pizzy or a cheese & sausage platter from the kitchen. The staff behind the bar seemed very knowledgeable about craft beer in general and the BrewDog beers in particular, so whether you come as a rookie or a seasoned beer veteran there's always helpful advices on what to try.

During my visit in May 2011, BrewDog Aberdeen had 7 BrewDog beers on tap, including Tokyo*, Alice Porter and Hardcore IPA, and four guest beers, from Stone Brewing Co and Evil Twin. All was properly poured and tasted fresh and good. There is also a good bottle selection to choose from once you've exhausted the draft beer menu, so you can easily spend several days here and just try new beers.

Like most bars in the UK (and elsewhere), BrewDog Aberdeen can get fairly packed at night, especially on Fridays and Saturdays, but it's a really great place for a beer or five in the early afternoon, since they open at noon on weekdays.

Photo sets from the BrewDog pubs can be found at Flickr: Aberdeen (and Edinburgh).