Beer At The Top Of The World

November 1, 2015 By Heather Vandenengel

The Arctic town of Longyearbyen, the world’s most northern town with year-round residents, is getting its own neighborhood brewery, and when Svalbard Bryggeri on Norway’s Spitsbergen Island opens it will earn the title of the Arctic Circle’s first brewery.

Robert Johansen, longtime beer enthusiast and seaplane pilot, is behind the brewery, where he will brew a pale ale, stout, lager and wheat ale, available in selected stores in late 2015. A bonus of the far North location? Johansen says the water for brewing comes from the taps but has “glacial properties.”