There can be only one after yesterday can’t there?
The return of Ingrid was something we’ve all been looking forward to but the queues and net chatter that marked her return to the Systembolaget took all of us by surprise – including, apparently (again) the monopoly, which promptly ran out of bottles in the first couple of hours in most of the major cities.
Which is, I think, brilliant news – and I’ll tell you why.
We need beers like Ingrid to come along now and again and shake things up. The snaking queues of us lining up to grab bottles, the switched-on store personnel standing at the ready with a trolley load of boxes at the entrance, the countless tweets exclaiming excitement at scooping her or abject frustration at leaving empty-handed. We need that.
We need a craft beer that sets a first day record for selling well over 3,000 bottles (comfortably double that of Falcon Pilsener I’d care to point out) and we even needed the fiasco of the last Ingrid launch because it all combines to make people sit up and take more notice of beer.
And that’s only a good thing in my book. When the media, the Systembolaget bosses, online surfers and ordinary drinkers visiting their local store for a box of Chill Out witness the lengths we’re prepared to go to for a beer – a BEER – then they’ll probably ask the logical next question:
Why?
And that, right there, is when we’ve got them.
So my After Work Friday! beer this week is the much-hyped but much loved Ingrid.* I hope you’ll join me by raising a glass of beer (maybe even a Hof) and toasting a great week for beer in Sweden.
Have a safe, hoppy weekend everyone.
Cheers and beers!
Darren
*I was going to open the very special limited edition bottle of Carlsberg / Jacobsen 200 Years Birthday Brew to mark the fact that today is the actual 200th anniversary of the great man himself but as I’m alone tonight and it’s a strong beer in a large bottle I’ll think I’ll save it to share with some other beer lovershhers soon.
Great article, Darren!
As outstanding as ‘Ingrid’ is, I’m still longing for someone to follow up the even more outstanding ”Soleil de Minuit” cloudberry lambic…any takers?
Cheers!
Want!!!
Ooo..Was that the one that Stene at Akkurat and Cantillon produced quite a few years ago? Cloudberry wise it was in a different league than Ingrid. But of course a totally different kind of beer..
Have a nice weekend all of you !
Visst håller jag till viss del med dig om att det behövs mer ”buzz” runt kvalitativa släpp Darren.
Problemet som jag ser det är att släpp som dessa enbart frälser de redan frälsta. Dvs det är i princip bara ölnördarna som är beredda att stå och köa en torsdagsmorgon. När Svensson kommer förbi bolaget på Fredagen så gapar de flesta av dessa speciella hyllor tomma.
Om även de oinvigda gavs möjlighet att prova häftiga öl på sina villkor så skulle den svenska ölscenen vara betydligt livligare.
See your point cj. It’s a little ‘chicken and egg’ isn’t it.But remember that there are many many people I have talked with through BeerSweden who weren’t beer ‘nerds’ (or whatever you want to call us) a year ago and it was beers like Ingrid that made them realise that beer could be so much more. So we are winning. Slowly, but we are winning
Svensk ölkultur har absolut tagit fantastiska steg framåt det senaste decenniet eller så, inget snack om saken. Väldigt mycket tack vare eldsjälar som du själv. Allas ert arbete är oerhört uppskattat, i alla fall från mitt håll.
Hade du efterfrågat en ”smakrik” öl på 90-talet så hade du fått en Falcon Bayersk.
Den stora frågan kring släpp som dessa rör väl snarast systembolagets roll. De flesta lokala bolags chefer verkar tyvärr fortfarande tro att speciella öl inte säljer speciellt bra. Om vi pratar öl generellt så kan jag till viss del förstå dem då en hel del nyheter tenderar att sitta på hyllorna ett bra tag. Kanske en signal till deras inköps-/upphandlingsenhet?
Om vi pratar bra amerikanska dipa (eller även ipa)så bör de snarast ta en titt på sin statistik och agera därefter.
Min personliga utopi är ett bolag där hyllorna dignar över med öl gjorda med kärlek, snarare än tråkig öl som enbart är ägnad att dra in så mycket pengar som möjligt till sin skapare.
First couple of hours? Try first couple of minutes. Wasn’t a long queue, but the last bottles of Ingrid left the shelf just as I got there…
There was a handful of bottles left that hadn’t been put on the shelf though, so I got my two in the end.
Not sure why they insist on only getting 48 bottles on first days though. Same thing happened with BP, Old Stock, Bigfoot and such last month (almost; think they lasted 10-15 minutes).
I set the alarmclock at 8.00 AM to get up and go 20 km to the Monopoly for some Ingrid. Working the late shift thats not funny. Woke up and noticed that my youngest daughter had fever and my wife had to go to work for a couple of hours to finish up befor taking the sick kid. At three pm i came into town to find four of the blue and yellow beauties at the shelf. They all went down into my basket. Work became a joy after that catch. Tested it this evening together with my wife and we LOVED it. Lovely full taste.
New ones arriving today.
Thank €#&# for that! But once this lot’s gone it’s bye bye Ingrid again (for good this time?)
Lucky me for living in Skövde, we had Ingrid in stock up until yesterday when i bought the last three. I spoke to the cashier and she said they had more in the back which would go on sale today. Oh joy!
Scratch that, that last stock was already booked by other Systembolag. Oh well, atleast I got the last three.