Norwegian Novelty

November 1, 2007 By Mikko Montonen

Scandinavian Brewers Make Their Mark

On the way from the airport, Carsten S. Due, the Honorary Consul of Finland, stops to pick up a couple of bottles of Nøgne ø beer he’d left to cool in the river, so we can have a sip of their saison. The sun is shining. Life could be worse.

We are in Grimstad, in southern Norway, for the Scandinavian Brewers Conference. The first meeting, held in Oslo about 20 years ago, was hosted mainly by the big boys. In 2007, it was the microbrewers’ turn. A closer look at a local craft brewery demonstrates how far Scandinavian brewing has come in two decades.

The excellent Norwegian brewery Nøgne ø used to be a power plant. In the summertime, you can fish for wild salmon from the river next door to the brewhouse. In the neighborhood, farmers grow apples and distill their own version of Calvados.

“We feel we are craft brewers, as we work manually and don’t use automatic equipment,” says head brewer and founder Kjetill Jikiun. He is very much a Northwest-style brewer, standing in his shorts despite the cool early summer weather of 13 degrees C (56 degrees F).

Nøgne has some twenty different top-fermented brews. Most, but not all, are in production at the same time: Christmas and Easter beers have their seasonal periods. All beers are unfiltered and refermented in the bottle at 30 degrees C (85 degrees F). “I’ve never heard of pasteurisation,” the brewer says with a big laugh.

He uses 13 different malts and 10 different hop varietals. “We are proud to have Maris Otter malts,” says Jikiun. “All breweries have unique flavors. Lots of breweries use American hops but with cheap malt. We use traditional high-quality English malts with aggressive American hops. This gives us our profile.”

On the way from the airport, Carsten S. Due, the Honorary Consul of Finland, stops to pick up a couple of bottles of Nøgne ø beer he’d left to cool in the river, so we can have a sip of their saison. The sun is shining. Life could be worse.

We are in Grimstad, in southern Norway, for the Scandinavian Brewers Conference. The first meeting, held in Oslo about 20 years ago, was hosted mainly by the big boys. In 2007, it was the microbrewers’ turn. A closer look at a local craft brewery demonstrates how far Scandinavian brewing has come in two decades.

The excellent Norwegian brewery Nøgne ø used to be a power plant. In the summertime, you can fish for wild salmon from the river next door to the brewhouse. In the neighborhood, farmers grow apples and distill their own version of Calvados.

“We feel we are craft brewers, as we work manually and don’t use automatic equipment,” says head brewer and founder Kjetill Jikiun. He is very much a Northwest-style brewer, standing in his shorts despite the cool early summer weather of 13 degrees C (56 degrees F).

Nøgne has some twenty different top-fermented brews. Most, but not all, are in production at the same time: Christmas and Easter beers have their seasonal periods. All beers are unfiltered and refermented in the bottle at 30 degrees C (85 degrees F). “I’ve never heard of pasteurisation,” the brewer says with a big laugh.

He uses 13 different malts and 10 different hop varietals. “We are proud to have Maris Otter malts,” says Jikiun. “All breweries have unique flavors. Lots of breweries use American hops but with cheap malt. We use traditional high-quality English malts with aggressive American hops. This gives us our profile.”

Jikiun is a flight captain with Scandinavian Airlines. He started homebrewing 10 years ago and, by his own account, became obsessed with it. He continues to fly to Seattle: it was there he saw the light, brewing-wise.

“I bought malt and yeast there, and brought it back in heavy suitcases. Most of our beers have American profile. They are my reference. I had brewing friends in Norway, and they didn’t like my India pale ale at the homebrewers competition. Okay: if they don’t like me, I go commercial.”

Of course, it was not that easy, even with a good salary from a major airline. “If I had known five years ago how much effort it would take, I would not have bothered.” Luckily he did.

“We started the brewery with another homebrewer. Norwegian lager did not have enough flavor for us. We wanted to go the other end of the of the range with beers with lots of flavor.”

While he talks, we are tasting Nøgne’s Wit. It has a lot more depth than most of the Belgian wheat beers, and all this with the same 50 percent of wheat malt.

Nøgne ø saw the light of the day in May 2003 and it has grown rapidly, to put it mildly. In 2006 the production was 1,300 hl [about 1,100 barrels]. In 2007, they expect 50 percent growth. Demand for the beer is higher than supply, despite the hefty price of $12 per bottle in the shops. Export for the time being is only to the United States, Sweden and Finland.

Of course, there is a challenge all craft brewers face: how to get your taps and bottles into bars.

“In Norway they find it a problem if a waiter has to explain that they have many beers. That takes time. Also at the end of the year, bars get marketing support from breweries. That can be up to four Norwegian crowns per litre. Additionally 90 percent of the pubs don’t offer a choice. This means there is demand.”

And people are responding. It’s early days, but Norway has eight brewpubs and five micros.

Like to most of its Nordic neighbors, Norway limits sales in retail shops to lower alcohol beers. In Norway’s case, beer stronger than 4.7% has to go through the government monopoly and the bars, where the typical price for a bottle is $20. Vinmonopolet, the state retail monopoly, carries 64 beers plus seasonals—and this is the selection for the entire country.

“Five years ago Norwegian consumers knew nothing about beer,” explains Jikiun. “Now people are interested, open and conscious. Things are happening big time. We started this trend. There was nobody before us. We inspired many brewers to start, also in Denmark. We have to admit that we are 10 years behind Denmark, and eight years behind Finland. [But] we did change beer culture in Norway.”
When you see Nøgne beers at your local speciality beer shop, they are easy find by the design. The labels and the bottle are thanks to an industrial designer. They wanted to have something unique—and achieved it.

“We try to be open, and put the ingredients on the label. We have no secrets. Some homebrewers come hear to learn and give their recipes. Now it’s my turn to return the favor. Like in the U.S., everyone is very open to each other. We don’t have competition, but only fellow brewers.”

On day one of the brewers’ conference, a former brewmaster at Nøgne returned to his old job, preparing a lovely barbecue by a southern Norwegian river for the guests. Main responsibility is taken by chef de cuisine Hans Petter Klemmetsen of the Grimstad restaurant Apotekergarden (Pharmacy Garden).

The gala dinner is DJ’d by Jan Paul, the brewmaster of Bryghuset Svaneke on the island of Bornholm in Denmark. The music is melancholy Finnish tango, not as Latin as the Argentine original, but still with a lot of passion. Jan is half-Finnish, but German-born. The dance floor by the water fills quickly.

Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery and I share massive Cuban cigars that I bought from Montecito in Havana. Smoking in Finnish bars was banned that very same day, but here in Norway everything is perfect. Sam is now brewing Finnish-style sahti at his brewpub in Delaware. Scandinavian craft brewers may have been influenced by the Americans, but sometimes the exchange is two-way.