Scan Magazine | Culinary Feature | Swedish Craft Beer
brewers to mingle with beer lovers and get their feedback. We get the chance to talk about our own products and try fellow brewers’ new beers.” All In Beer Fest in Gothenburg, arranged by All In Brewing, is also worth checking out. This is even smaller and more intimate, with three sessions of 1,000 tickets each over two days. It presents around 180 world-class beers with a focus on new, innovative flavours, and visitors can take part in workshops about home brewing as well as collaborative brewing events. Last year, around 30 breweries attended, including well-established international names such as Beavertown, Siren Craft Brew and Mikkeller.
Home brewing beginnings Following the trend abroad, many Swedish breweries have been set up by home brewers – from experimenting with small batches in their own kitchens to brewing for a large and demanding audience. Eklund of Villovägens Bryggeri
talks about the supportive community of home brewers and brewers. “We are like colleagues in the same business, happy to share information and help each other,” he says. Another home brewer gone professional is Ida Engström, owner of Electric Nurse Brewery in Gothenburg. She is also the founder of Gothia Homebrewer Association and says: “The community is strong and the interest in home brewing continues to grow. For instance, in Gothenburg alone, there are four home brewing shops now – unthinkable a few years ago.” In addition to a range of beer festivals and plentiful communities and forums, a great source of information is the Swedish Homebrewing Association with its brewing courses, meetings and events for home brewers, plus the national home brewing competition. A trio of home brewers in Stockholm – Daniel Borg, Daniel Töyrä and Daniel Madsen – were awarded silver in the People’s Choice category in 2015. Following their
SMÖF, one of Sweden’s many craft beer festivals.
success in the competition, they have now started their own brewing community, Daniøl, and launched the award-winning beer through Sundbybergs Köksbryggeri. “It’s a bit like therapy, to be active in the kitchen and experiment,” Borg says about the attraction of brewing. “This is what we would call mindfulness.” This year’s Swedish Championships in homebrewing will take place on 25 March in Stockholm. The many Swedish craft breweries are indeed building a new culture, based on humble home brewing beginnings and experimenting with innovative flavours, and with the support of a close-knit community of mindful and curious beer lovers. For more information, please visit: Swedish Brewers Association www.sverigesbryggerier.se Swedish Homebrewing Association www.shbf.se
Stockholm Beer & Whisky Festival is the world’s third-largest beer festival.
Home brewers Daniel Borg and Daniel Töyrä.
Beer blogger Fredrik ‘Hopmaestro’ Järnberg.
Brew master Sven Eklund of Villovägens Bryggeri.
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