I’m teaming up with Conventum, the organisers of the Örebro Beer and Whisky Festival, to build a BeerSweden studio at this year’s show from where I will be interviewing brewers, beer industry figures and festival goers throughout the two day long show which runs between November 19-20th.

Not only that but I will be broadcasting live so that anyone, wherever they are, can follow the goings-on  in real time via this blog!

Myself and BeerSweden Trev will be sniffing out new beers and giving them a whirl live on camera, sitting down with the people that brew the beers you’re drinking right now and asking them the questions you want me to ask and (most fun of all) I’ll be inviting fellow beer enthusiasts to pull up a chair and join me to talk and taste beers!

I’ll update you with more details of what we’ve got planned for the BeerSweden studio at the festival soon but if you’ve already got any suggestions and ideas for what you would like to see then please drop me a mail at darren@beersweden.se

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Pyrre and the Conventum team for all their positivity and enthusiasm for this project. I hope it will be another small step in the right direction of making beer more relevant and better understood in this country.

(but most of all I hope it’s going to be a lot of fun!)

Looking forward to meeting you all in Örebro!

Beers and Cheers!

Darren

Sales of alcohol-free drinks rocketed by 42% between June and August compared to the same period last year, while rosé wine for under 70 SEK a bottle recorded growth of just over 41% to 5.9 million litres.

Sales of other types of alcohol were fairly flat with total beer sales up just 0.8% (although this figure is top line doesn’t show us the performance of the Swedish craft brewers who I am confident out-performed the category). Spirits were the only type of alcohol to show a drop in sales, down 2.3% on last year.

The report also reveals that we paid 31.6 million visits to the Systembolaget during the summer months. I was personally responsible for several of them.

The Systembolaget’s Press Officer Lennart Agén said it was “extremely pleasing” that more and more people are discovering alcohol-free products.

“In order to meet this growing demand we will continue to increase our alcohol-free range”, he said.

It may not quite be alcohol-free (although it almost is) but I feel compelled to finish this post with two words. Nanny State.

Then write this date down in your diary – Saturday, September 18^th – the day when I’ll attempt to change the way you think about the worlds two favourite alcoholic drinks forever.

Now I know it’s a big ask but having recently tried the five beers I’m going to be serving up at the first ever Beer Club at Duå Delikatessbutik in Umeå I honestly believe I can do it!

Some (but not all) of the beers we're tasting at the 'Beer for Wine Lovers' tasting might be in this photo. But to find out which ones you need to book your place fast!

I’m not going to give away too many details of the beers we’re going to try (I want you all to turn up with minds wide open!) but this much I can now reveal:

One of these beers is as shockingly pink as a fruity Rosé, another gives off delicate smells of lavender and honey reminiscent of a fine desert wine while another is aged for months in red wine Bourgogne barrels and is so wine-like to sniff I’d challenge anyone to pick it out as a beer with their eyes shut!

All the five exclusive beers we’ll be trying have some connection to wine, either in the way they are made or in their flavours and aromas.

I’ll also be taking the opportunity during the evening to bust a few common myths about beer and wine, particularly when it comes to pairing them with food.

Demand for this “Beer for Wine Lovers’ tasting has been so great we’re actually going to hold two tastings back-to-back so that as many people as possible can get the opportunity to try these hard-to-get beers.

The first tasting will start at 17:00 and the second one kicks off at 19:30. After that everyone is invited for a spot of ‘ölmingel’ where as an added bonus there will be a selection of great beers from Swedish beer importer Brill & Co available to try!

If you want to join me and the Duå boys for a night of beery revelations then here’s all the contact details you need:

090-7800303

www.duaumea.se

info@duaumea.se

duaumea.blogspot.com

I hope to see some of you at Umeå’s trendiest Beer Club (Ed note: actually it’s Umeå’s only beer club) soon!

Until then…..Cheers and Beers!

Darren

* Couldn’t resist getting my own back Bengt Frithiofsson.

Monks Porter House is the latest addition to the Monk ‘cloister cluster’ of pubs in the Swedish capital and is housed in an imposing 16th century listed building on (rather fittingly) Munkbron.

Walking up the narrow steps you are greeted by a knight in shining armour who guards the entrance to where it is hoped the pub’s keenly awaited 350L microbrewery will soon start producing a range of exclusive porters and stouts.

It was to be honest a little hard for me to orientate myself at first. I got the odd feeling I had stumbled into the entrance of a museum by mistake. It took a couple of wrong turns to discover that the pub itself is stashed away deep in the vaulted basement of this historic building.

With it’s worn stone steps, uneven whitewashed walls carved out of rock and dark brick vaulted ceilings Monks Porter House cannot fail to make a lasting impression on you. A number of small ‘alcoves’ offer drinkers and diners plenty of privacy should they need it, making this a great place to come with your ‘other half’. The bar itself is rather small, neat and modern, with trendy bronze-coloured tower fonts technically capable of dispensing 56 different types of draft beer.

I say technically as the actual selection is as yet far smaller than that, albeit an eclectic range of tasty Swedish and international beer brands and styles.

The only thing I couldn’t work out was why the designers decided to put up a wall of computer screens behind the bar which beamed out prices and special offers exactly like the ones you see at McDonalds.

I stood there fully expecting the barman to say “would you like a cheeseburger with your Hornbeer Cranberry Bastard sir?”

The food was excellent (I had a deliciously buttery cup of chanterelle soup to start with followed by a Porter Steak washed down with a malty sweet brown ale) and the service utterly professional.

I walked out of the new Monks happy and contended with the feeling it was more like a restaurant that served great beers than a place I would go just for a drink and to socialise. Having said that it’s early days for this Monk and speaking with one of the team working there a little later it’s clear they have plenty of ambitious plans in the pipeline.

If Monks was a ‘work in progress’ however then Pubologi is the finished article.

Just a short stroll down Stora Nygatan I was lucky enough to find myself sitting down in this ‘hybrid bar’ on its opening night.

Now there are plenty of places in Stockholm that try to be cool. The problem is that if you’re trying you very often aren’t. Pubologi is COOL, spelt out in big shiny metal letters like the ones that dangle from the bar’s front window.

It’s hard to describe a place that by its own admission isn’t a bar, isn’t a restaurant and isn’t a traditional pub. It’s one of those places you sit down in and spend most of your time gazing around with a smile on your face just checking things out. It’s a case study in attention to detail, managing to cram tonnes of finesse into a tiny space that seats just 25 people.

And therein lies the secret of its undoubted upcoming success. Pubologi brings everyone together for a unique dining experience in which you sit at something akin to a desk and pull out a drawer containing your spoon, knife, fork, menu and even a cute little wooden butter knife.

Rather than the somewhat private and ‘disconnected’ dining areas at Monks here you rub elbows with the stranger sitting next to you, although in such a laid back atmosphere they probably wont stay strangers for very long.

So what about the beer? Pubologi have done the opposite of Monks and kept the beer offering very lean, with ‘just’ 8 craft beers on draft, dispensed by fonts that spell out the pub’s name (just another of those lovely touches).

All the beers come in small, medium or large servings, poured into elegant oversized wine glass that give you plenty of room to swirl (and we all know how important that is don’t we!)

I went for the Punk IPA and a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. Both were stunningly fresh and aromatic and (despite the fact I had only eaten less than an hour before) did some serious making out with a paper cone of mixed fritters served with two different types of mayonnaise.

Pubologi may have difficulty spelling out what it is but I don’t.

Pubologi is spelt C-O-O-L.

Until Saturday September 4th the team at one of the BA’s most beer friendly pubs will be giving you the chance to super-size your beer by infusing it with hops of your choice using a variation on a brewing method known as hopbacking.

Here’s how it works: you order a jug of beer (which beer is entirely up to you) and choose a style of hop from a list of international varieties. The team will then put both beer and hops into something resembling a coffee peculator and squeeze the beer through the hops, giving it a boost of extra aroma and flavour.

So if you’ve ever wondered what Falcon Export would taste like with loads of spicy lemon Saaz hops or if pint of Spitfire would really take off with some added American Cascade then this is your chance to have some fun and blend your very own beer!

The Bishops Arms is located at Folkungagatan 105 in Stockholm.

Next Wednesday marks the annual release of Oktoberfest beers at the Systembolaget and this year you’re being really spoilt for choice with no fewer than 12 Oktoberfest beers being released to celebrate the world’s largest annual beer party.

The sheer scale of the 16-day long festival held in Munich in late September to early October easily qualifies it as a ‘must-have beery experience before you die’. Just check out the stats:

• Over 6 MILLION people will attend the festival. That’s a LOT of lederhosen!
• Between them they will drink over 6.6 MILLION litres of Oktoberfest beer traditionally produced by six Munich breweries: Augustiner, Paulaner, Spaten-Franziskaner, Löwenbräu, Hacker-Pschorr and Hofbräu.
• With all that beer sloshing about festival-goers need something to eat too, and last year they scoffed their way through 488,137 pieces of chicken and 116, 923 pairs of pork sausages.
  

But what exactly is Oktoberfest beer and why do we get to drink it in September?

This picture sent to me from Carlsberg could be a contender for Beer is Art! Here are three of the 12 Oktoberfest beers going on sale at the monopoly next week. Spaten is a particular favourite of mine!

Oktoberfest beer has sprung out of the Märzen beer style, a beer (named after the month of March in German) brewed in – you’ve guessed it – March and stored in the cool caves around the city before the warmer summer months arrived and made brewing impossible. This underground beer stash would be drawn upon during the summer and finally exhausted around October. Märzenbier has a malty aroma and is a medium-strong version of the amber-red Vienna lager style.

In recent times a paler version of Märzen called Oktoberfestbier has been developed to suit more ‘international tastes’, which in my world means they’ve dumbed it down a little bit to appeal to the masses. It is normally around 5-6% ABV and moderately hopped, with a pronounced malt flavour and aroma and smooth, clean finish. Traditional Märzen beer is still brewed by many Bavarian breweries around October time.

Oktoberfest beer has become hugely popular in other parts of the world, particularly the US and even here in Sweden where a quarter of this year’s Oktoberfest beer release has been brewed.

The Oktoberfest itself was first held back on October 12, 1810 to honour the Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig’s marriage to Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen (try saying that quickly after downing a mass – the traditional one litre glass of beer served at the festival!)

Many years later the festival, which by this time was a huge annual event, was moved back into September to take advantage of the better weather conditions and now normally takes place during the sixteen days up to and including the first Sunday in October.

So it’s the cold Autumnal weather that means we get to drink Oktoberfest beers in September.

Of the 12 Oktoberfest beers being released next Wednesday 4 of them come from the 6 Munich breweries traditionally represented every year at the festival, four come from right here in Sweden, one from Finland, one from the US and the last one from Germany (which also happens to be the second oldest brewery in the world).

A full list of all the Oktoberfest beers going on sale next week has been posted by Magnus over at his brilliant Ofiltrerat blog.

Prost!

In another first for BeerSweden here’s an exclusive peak at the two upcoming Innis & Gunn beers due to be released at the Systembolaget over the next couple of months.

First out is Innis & Gunn Highland Cask, an ale that has been matured in casks that held 21-year-old single malt whisky and which goes on sale on September 1st. A month later Innis & Gunn Rum Cask is being released at the monopoly. As the name suggests this time the beer has been aged in oak casks that contained Caribbean rum. This is the second time this beer has been in Sweden, having gone on sale in limited numbers back in 2007.

Of course BeerSweden will be tasting and reviewing these two beers first, so check back over the weekend for all the details.

However there are times when I simply can’t help but covet others. Like my 8 year-old daughter and her musical ability to play The Entertainer on the piano flawlessly while looking over her shoulder to watch Bolibompa or Tom, my 10-year-old, and his habit of hitting a driver off the fairway first time, every time, as though it is the most simple thing in the world to do (which it is not).

And today, this bright and sunny Monday morning I feel jealous again. Jealous of all the people that live in Stockholm. For two reasons:

Reason One

You can stroll right into the Systembolaget’s vinkällarbutik in Regeringsgatan this morning and pluck these bottles of beer straight off the shelves:

Admittedly you can also do the same thing at Nordstan in Gothenburg and Hansacompagniet in Malmö too. The rest of us need to pop into our local Systembolaget stores and order in bottles – which I recommend you all do because every one of these ‘middle-of-the-month’ releases is worth trying.

Reason Two

Today the capital’s newest beer emporium opens, Monks Porterhouse (now that name sounds familiar) in Munkbron 11 in Gamla Stan. As though you don’t already have enough great watering holes to satiate your every craft beer need check out the stats of the latest Monks:

• 56 beers on tap (of which at least 20 are Swedish craft beers)
• 500 different Porters and Stouts from around the world (This Monks specialises in the darker side of beer)
• An on-premises microbrewery producing only porters and stouts
• 200 other types of beer for good measure.

So yes I admit it I’m jealous. I’m a seething, spitting mass of envy. Not even the thought of you all stuck in Stockholm rush-hour traffic or constantly having to hunt for somewhere to park the car is helping right now.