E-Malt.com News article: Denmark: Rapidly growing craft brewing sector surprises brewers themselves

While the Scandinavian market is dominated by Danish giant Carlsberg, breweries across Denmark, Sweden and Norway are making some of the boldest beer in the world: from 15th-century ales flavoured with herbs to rich, dark strong porters and even American-style India Pale Ales, The Star posted on April, 22.

In Denmark, the speed of the craft beer revolution has been breathtaking. In 2003, there were six craft breweries in the country. Today there are somewhere between 120 and 140 craft brewers serving a population of 5 million.

"There are so many breweries opening in Denmark right now, it's really hard to keep track," says Anders Kissmeyer, brewmaster and owner of Norrebro Bryghus, one of the craft beer movement's pioneers. "On a brewery per population basis, I don't think there's anywhere else in the world that's as big as Denmark."

Sweden has about 50 breweries, Norway - 30.

Kissmeyer opened his Copenhagen-based microbrewery in 2003. Even he is sometimes mystified by the rapid growth of craft beer in his country.

"The Danish beer consumer was very conservative. Why they suddenly turned around is a little hard to say," says Kissmeyer, who was global technical director at Carlsberg before opening his own brewery. There, he saw first-hand how conservative consumers were when Carlsberg launched its own line of innovative small-batch brews in the late 1990s. While the beers were good, and got distributed to top restaurants, sales were a bust. People, it seemed, preferred a plain old big-brewery lager.

For Kissmeyer, who left Carlsberg in 2001, the eye-opener came at a brewers' conference where he ran into influential U.S. brewmaster Garrett Oliver of the Brooklyn Brewery. Kissmeyer was impressed with Oliver's flavourful brews, including his Black Chocolate Stout, and gave some to his wife and a few friends to try. They raved.

"They're just ordinary people, not beer specialists. If they liked beers like that, I thought other ordinary people might too," Kissmeyer says. Today, he brews a wide variety of styles, from traditional German double bocks to dark, strong imperial stouts and barley wines. One of his most intriguing brews is based on a traditional Danish recipe from the 1400s, before the widespread use of hops as a flavouring agent and preservative. Old Odense Ale, as he calls it, is a slightly tart brew flavoured with several herbs and berries, including woodruff, blackthorn and yarrow. The tartness comes from a wild yeast strain known as brettanomyces.

While Kissmeyer was inspired by the creative spirit of American brewers, he still makes distinctive brews of his own. Some Scandinavian brewers, such as Mikkel Borg Bjergso of Denmark's Mikkeler brewery, have a more direct U.S. influence. Among Mikkeler's brews are a hoppy India Pale Ale, a bitter brown ale called Jackie Brown, and a bold, strong imperial stout flavoured with civet-cat coffee. Both hoppy beers and imperial stouts are favourites of American craft brewers.

Even though Scandinavian brewers may be making styles popular with U.S. brewers, Kissmeyer says they're anything but copycats.

"There's a Scandinavian touch. A lot of American brewers have the philosophy of `the bigger, the better,' but there's something to be said for a bit of subtlety," says Kissmeyer.


22 April, 2009