For sailors and landlubbers

It’s still hot here. Almost 30 degrees, the beaches are packed and I’d think even Carlsberg are smiling at this. There were hundreds of people lining up for ice cream at the new beach at the end of the runway of Fornebu airport yesterday. They are developing parts of the airport, but a large chunk [...]

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Hamburg to Århus

Mark asked the other day about his planned drive from Hamburg to Århus. Any good brewpub stops along the way or places where I could pick up some good Danish microbrew? I don’t know the scene first hand myself, so I asked the Danish crew at ratebeer, and they gave a quick response. South of [...]

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Brewed in Chicago

As Chicago has morphed from a meat-and-potatoes town to one claiming some of the country’s best chefs, consumers have started demanding better beer. Says the New York Times. Right now, I’d settle for anything. As long it’s cold! Tjeldsundfergen, maybe?

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Heat wave

It’s close to 30 degrees celsius here. On my way home from work yesterday I couldn’t resist a pint of the Hefeweissen at Oslo Mikrobryggeri. It might be the brewer, it might be a new recipe, it might be the heat – but the beer was divine.

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Oslo Beer Festival – looking forward

According to the organisers, there are already plans to have a new event next year. Here are some words of advice on how things could be improved. Note that I do not know the economics of the festival and I have no inside knowledge of negotiations between various parties. This are just personal remarks basked [...]

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Oslo Beer Festival

It was quite all right, wasn’t it? I did not spend long sessions in the festival, but I popped in for several shorter visits. Long opening hours and no entrance fee meant that visitors could come and go and there were no long lines to come in. The range of food available seemed fine to me, [...]

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Bad taste

Somehow I have the feeling that the new beer from Danish contract brewery BeerHere will not go down too well in Germany. I find this too juvenile, but that may just be me getting old and grumpy. There is a full range of beer and wine with dictators on the labels in Italy. Evan has [...]

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Channel trade in decline

While the border shops in and close to Scandinavia are doing a roaring trade, the cross channel shopping is in decline, if we are to believe the Guardian (and why shouldn’t we?). The megashops in Calais are mostly empty, and one of the owners gives three reasons why: the weakness of the pound has sent [...]

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A long way for a beer

Yes, I have received my review copy of Pete Brown’s book about his epic voyageto recreate the route of the original IPAs from Burton to India. I am still in the Burton part of the book, so I’ll have to come back to you about it. But I can assure you there is more of the [...]

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A question of attitude

If you don’t read the BrewDog blog, it’s about time you start doing so. One of their posts starts out like this – and it gets even more hilarious: A feminist quizzed us on the appropriateness of calling a beer ‘Trashy Blonde’ and using the word ‘lesbian’ in some of our promotional material. To which [...]

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