In the fifth and final part of my series of Beer Geek Brunch Interviews I’ve squeezed in talks with three of craft brewing’s upcoming talents – Tore Gynther and Tobias Jensen from To Øl and Henok Fentie from Omnipollo.

First out are the infectiously enthusiastic Danish guys from To Øl, former High School students of a certain ‘Mr Mikkeller’ who last year last year launched their first commercial beer and have never looked back.

You only need to spend a minute in their company to know these guys are having the time of their lives right now!

BeerSweden: Tell us the story of how you got into brewing guys.

Tore: Mikkel was once a teacher at the school where we were students. One day in 2005 we were sitting at a party at the school complaining about how terrible, flat and tasteless the beer we drank was (Ed Note: If I could have my time again I would be educated in Denmark!) and we decided that the only way we could get the kind of beers we wanted to taste was to brew them ourselves.

So we asked the school if we could brew the beer there and they said yes, so we were allowed to borrow the kitchen. The problem was the only time we could borrow it was when it wasn’t being used, which was between 10pm and 6am. This meant often we would go directly from brewing beer to our classes!

BeerSweden: I’ve got to ask you – did your education suffer?

Tobias: (laughing) It was hard! Everyone at the school enjoyed it. We used to give the beer away. The only people that complained were the people working in the kitchen because we messed it up a bit.

BeerSweden: So when you left school you carried on brewing? Did you have plans even then to take it up professionally?

Tore: Well we never imagined we would be sitting here talking to you guys and winning awards (Ed Note: To Øl’s Reparationsbajer had just won gold in the ‘Modern Ale’ category at this years Stockholm Beer & Whisky Festival). It was just a crazy hobby until about one and a half years ago we starting talking about starting the brewery concept and when Mikkel heard about it he rang us up and said “guys, you’ve got to start with a collaboration beer with me. I insist!”

Tobias: So of course we said OK! Our first beer was Overall DIPA and we used so many hops that De Proefbrouwerij (where it was brewed) called us and said “guys, are you crazy? You can’t use that many hops!” But we said do it anyway. We lost so much volume due to all the extensive dry-hopping that we ended up with around half the volume of beer we had hoped for. It turned out to be a massively expensive beer but we are glad we didn’t compromise because it ended up being a great beer.

BeerSweden: So what is your motivation now?

Tore: To hear when people say they enjoy our beers, which is why it is so great to come here to Sweden because we’ve heard from so many Swedish drinkers that they are happy with what we do and take it so seriously. I wish in Denmark we had the same passion and attitude to beer as you have in Sweden!

The guys went on to reveal they were planning to almost double the amount of beers they’ve produced to date (6) over the next few months and that one of their favourite own beers has not yet been released but is coming in early 2012 – an imperial stout brewed with coffee which was one of the first recipes they ever created.

Moving from Denmark back to Sweden one of the most avant-garde beers to be released here in 2011 has to be Leon from brewing newcomer Henok Fentie, the man behind the Omnipollo brewing concept.

Henok is a self-confessed perfectionist who believes beer should taste and look good.

Henok recently left his job with the Bishops Arms Group after living, studying and spending quality time with his newborn son (Ed note: called Leon) for a while in Brussels.

BeerSweden: Did moving to Brussels change your perception of beer?

Henok: Well although I had been home-brewing for quite some time it was only when I lived in Brussels that I had to time to be more creative. I had the context too because Brussels is a really amazing place to be for beer. It was very inspirational.

BeerSweden: So tell us the story of Leon.

Henok: Well I wanted to create a beer my friends could drink that was also interesting enough for the beer community. That’s been my ‘balance’ all along. I actually started by experimenting with Brettanomyces yeast (Ed Note: brave start!) but realised along the way I would have to change and that’s when I tried champagne yeast which is the core of Leon.

BeerSweden: So Leon basically evolved out of your kitchen in Brussels?

Henok: Yes, although it wasn’t the Leon you can drink today because I couldn’t control the temperatures etc. However it did give me a clear indication of where the beer was going before I took the recipe to ‘De Proef’.

BeerSweden: So was it simply a question of giving them a recipe and telling them to scale it up?

Henok: (laughing) Not quite! We test brewed eight times actually. When I met Dirk Naudts (Ed Note: The highly regarded brewing engineer and professor who founded ‘De Proef’) I was a nobody and was really surprised he wanted to work with me. I think he saw I was a real beer geek who didn’t really have a clue and in some way that appealed to him!

By the eighth test batch he said to me that if the beer wasn’t right they weren’t going to brew it.  I remember trembling when I tasted it thinking “what the hell am I going to do if this isn’t right?”. But I tried it and it was perfect. Looking back I was probably being a little bit over-anxious!

BeerSweden: As well as all your attention to the taste of Leon the look of the beer was very important to you too right?.

Henok: Absolutely. I worked with two different graphic designers before finding Swedish Artist Karl Grandin. It was a fun journey to have a beer and then brand it. I met Karl, explained what the beer is, he sent me a couple of sketches and it was love at first sight.

BeerSweden: What’s it like being the ‘new face’ around here in the company of well-known guys like Mikkel and Christian?

Henok: It’s scary but I’m slowly relaxing into my new ‘role’. Even though a thousand people have tried Leon it I still get nervous when people first drink it.  But I’m getting more confident so hopefully I won’t have to test brew eight times for my next beer!

Henok finished by revealing that a recipe has already been perfected for his second beer, which will be “very different” from Leon, although when I pushed him on the style he just smiled and said “it’s too early to say”.

So there we have it – six interviews with seven brewers in three hours that took two months to publish. I hope you enjoyed this opportunity to get to know the people behind some of the most interesting beers currently coming out of Europe.

In 2012 I’m planning to go head-to head with even more beer personalities both here and over in the US but until then I’m going to take a break from asking questions so I can concentrate on tasting more beers!