It’s been a while since the last ’5 Questions to:’ post so it’s about time I dusted it off and kick started it again by interviewing the man behind what claims to be Sweden’s smallest commercial brewery and which certainly has one of the coolest names for one I’ve ever heard.

Fredrik has chosen a very personal approach to advertising his new brewery!

The newly opened PangPang Brewery in Stockholm’s Hökarängen district really puts the ‘hand’ into hand-crafted beers, with dreamer turned brewer Fredrik Silver Tunedal personally and proudly involved at every single stage of his beers, from the creation of recipes and the brewery’s distinctive label artwork to filling bottles and delivering them to his rapidly growing group of customers.

To me PangPang represents much of what the new beer scene is all about. It’s a story of a guy with a passion for creating beers with meaning. A guy who has taken a risk to realise a dream. A guy that believes so passionately in what he does he’s prepared to tattoo the name of his brewery onto the fingers of both his hands. Such a guy is worth listening to in my book, so here they are, my five questions to Fredik from PangPang Brewery:

BeerSweden: PangPang is an unusual name for a brewery. Tell us a little bit about the story behind it.

Fredrik: Like a lot of home brewers I’ve been dreaming of owning my own brewery since I tasted my first self-made beer a couple of years back. Working in the restaurant business, being around beer all day, drinking beer all day I have had a lot of time dreaming out loud, until someone told me: stop talking about it and just do it: Pang Pang!

I’m sure it doesn’t make sense in English but us Swedes all know what it means doing something PangPang. Its about seizing a moment and going full throttle. PangPang is also a wink towards the violent expressions I love and will try to display on my labels. Look carefully at the Puttin’ in Hours label!

BeerSweden: What’s your background as a brewer and where do you get your inspiration for your beers from?

Fredrik: Drinking beer, serving beer, dreaming beer and finally brewing beer. I have so many ideas for beers that it’s hard to know where to start. Therefore I like to start with a visual idea for the label and then work the recipe around that.

BeerSweden: You describe yourself as a ‘nano brewer’. What do you mean by that and what are the advantages of being ‘nano’?

Fredrik: I’ve put together most parts of my brewery myself, trying to take my home brewing process and just blowing it up ten or fifteen times the size. Except for the obvious advantages to be able to make this dream come true, without having to deal with banks or investors, I like to think that it really makes me flexible.

I’m also sure that the customers think it’s really cool when I deliver all the beer myself and can tell the final consumer about the beer in person.
The only backside of being nano is the physical labour. Even though I’ve been working as a bike messenger and a bartender for many years I can easily say this is the most physically challenging thing I’ve ever done!

BeerSweden: Your first beer, Puttin’ in Hours, is currently out in the marketplace. Tell us about it, how we can try it and the reception it’s received from the public.

Fredrik: The reception of the beer has really been great! I haven’t been able to meet the demand and right know I’ve actually stopped delivery to able to get in phase.

When I delivered the first batch I was on the financial brink and wasn’t sure I would make it. Some of my beer geek friends noticed that the first batch might have been a bit young, still holding some acetaldehyde. Now that the third batch is coming out this problem has been eliminated.

BeerSweden: Finally, name 3 things you hope to achieve with PangPang in the next year.

Fredrik: In a relatively short amount of time I’ve gone from a dreamer, to a doer, to a brewer. My main goal right now is to become comfortable in that role, following through, keeping what I created together. Other goals are to employ and of course the Systembolaget. PangPang!

Thomas ‘Bing’ Bingebo fell in love with beer in a big way during numerous trips over to London while growing up and his passion for pints has followed him back to Sweden where he now heads the brewing team at Ocean Bryggeriet based in Gothenburg.

Thomas isn’t as taken with the current trend towards heavily hop beers – particularly with US hops – as some other brewers are and insists that malts should form the main course of any great beer and hops be used more sparingly as a spice. Beers such as Eko Pale Ale, Ocean Bitter and IPA and Göteborgsporter have a distinctly British feel to them, often using UK malts and hops with mid-range ABVs and an emphasis on drinkability rather than shock value.

As part of BeerSweden’s ongoing (Ed Note: it’s about time!) series of ’5 Questions to:’ we ask Thomas to explain his brewing philosophy in more detail and ask whether he thinks our tastes in beer are changing here in Sweden.

BeerSweden: What got you into brewing in the first place Thomas? Can you remember the first beer you ever brewed and when did you realize that you wanted to become a professional brewer?

Quite a while back a friend of mine, (Urban who is now our resident carpenter) taught me how to homebrew. 10 years ago I was given the opportunity to go to Thurles, Tipperary in Ireland and work as an apprentice at the DWAN Brewing pub to learn how to brew for a commercial brewery. My mentor was Cuilan Loughnane who had himself been mentored in the art of brewing by David Jones who started the pub in 1998.  David returned to Jämtland’s brewery in 1999 and Cuilan took over the brewing.

Unfortunately DWAN closed down. They had fantastic stouts (Black Pearl and An Dubáin), red ales (Rich Ruby), and pilsners (Cool Amber). We, DWAN and Messrs Maguire, were at the beer festival in Stockholm in 2003 and for a while the beer was available through direct import from Rover in Gothenburg. After DWAN’s demise Cuilan leased the brewery to Messrs Maguire’s brewing pub in Dublin and sent me there to work as head brewer. The trademark of DWAN still existed as an export brand primarily on casks to the UK.

David Jones rang Cuilan around the Christmas of 2003 and asked if it would be possible to borrow my services by sending me up to Jämtland’s brewery to help increase the brewing quantities of their Christmas ale. I went to Jämtland’s for 3 months, returned to Dublin for another few months before finally returning to Jämtland’s where I was responsible for the brewing up to the fermentation stage until I left in 2006 to start up the Ocean brewery.

My goal when I first went to Ireland was to acquire the skills necessary to enable me to start up and manage my own brewery. The first beer I ever brewed at home was probably a stout which was also the case at DWAN (Black Pearl). Our first original recipe at Messrs was a London style porter not totally dissimilar to Göteborgsportern (The Gothenburg porter).

BeerSweden: Tell us a little bit about the story behind Ocean and the philosophy behind the brewery and your beers?

We were initially 5 shareholders with all but one of us with industry connections. 2 with pubs, an import salesman, a brewer (myself) and a rookie. I’d waited out the transition of the move to the new brewery at Jämtland’s as I’d promised to stay as long as the old equipment was still in use. They also offered me the position of CEO in 2006, but I had other plans. We purchased equipment and 12 fermentation/storage/bright beer tanks. We then moved into the old bottling halls in Lyckholm in 2007 and were finished with our first brew on the 4^th of September the same year. A couple of weeks later we had a red ale and a porter on cask at the Stockholm Beer & Whisky festival.

My philosophy as a brewer has always been to brew beers that I myself like and naturally my background and upbringing have played their parts. The first time I visited London on my own was as a 15 year old and I’ve been back every year since. What attracted me was the music, the football (Arsenal) and of course the pub culture and its beverages, so I always place focus on malt. Hops are something that should be used as a spice and not as a main ingredient. It’s possible to have a high IBU and hoppy aroma but the balance between malt and hops is important to me.

BeerSweden: Since you’ve started Ocean how have beer tastes changed in this country?

Trends and fashions come and go. For example, lagers are often looked down upon, but in actual fact it’s difficult to brew a good lager, not least when it concerns the equipment used. The American influences with very hoppy beers is fashionable right now, but I think it’s going to soon disappear especially as it’s difficult to sell any great volumes of these kinds of beers outside of the small fraternity of “hop-heads” in Sweden. When all is said and done we’re a commercial brewery and we have to make a living at this

We at Ocean predict a trend where more and more of the finer restaurants include our beers on their menus and in so doing, sell well. This includes those establishments that have previously only stocked “stor stark”, but have now had to begin ordering other choices to meet demands from customers.

BeerSweden: What one beer (that is not one of your own) do you really wish you’d brewed and why?

Timothy Taylor’s Landlord Bitter. The ultimate bitter. You can drink 10 pints and go home happy and not too inebriated . Simply put, quite wonderful!

BeerSweden: Lastly what is the single most important thing that needs to happen to the Swedish craft beer industry in the next 12 months?

That the Systembolaget adjusts their rules to better accommodate craft breweries in Sweden.

One of the most controversial and sought after names in world brewing right now is James Watt, who along with best friend Martin Dickie is the man behind maverick Scottish micro BrewDog.

BrewDog Head Brewer Martin Dickie (left) and Managing Director James watt are self-confessed rule-breakers.

In between creating radical new brews, inviting people to own a piece of BrewDog, planning the construction of the world’s first carbon-neutral eco-brewery and generally drawing up plans for world domination BeerSweden managed to track James down for an exclusive interview.

So here, in the first in a series of ‘5 Questions‘ interviews with the leading Swedish and international brewing industry figures behind the beers you’re drinking today is James Watt, BrewDog’s self-titled Head of Stuff.

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BeerSweden: BrewDog has been a huge hit since launching Punk IPA at the Systembolaget. Why do you think your beers have been so popular with Swedish beer drinkers and how important is the Swedish market for your company?

James: Sweden is a great place to be for great beer. There are plenty of awesome beers available in Sweden. For me the whole craft beer movement is so much stronger in Sweden than the UK and I think that is why our beers do well there. The Swedish market was our first ever export market and has been a key market for us ever since, our Swedish importer is our 2^nd biggest customer.  I was really excited the first time I was in Stockholm to see the enthusiasm, appreciation and understanding of great beer amongst the Swedish people – I wish we could have some more of that back in the UK!

I think Swedish people also relate really well to our branding with Punk IPA really standing out as an alternative type of beer and approach to beer marketing.

BeerSweden: What’s the philosophy behind BrewDog and its beers?

James: Martin and I were bored of the industrially brewed lagers and stuffy ales that dominate the UK market. We decided the best way to fix this undesirable predicament was to brew our own beers. Consequently in April 2007 BrewDog was born. Both only 24 at the time, we leased a building, got some scary bank loans, spent all our money on stainless steel and started making some hardcore beers. We wanted to redefine people’s perceptions about beer in the UK and elevate it’s status. We are committed to making the highest quality beers with the finest fresh natural ingredients. Our beers are in no way commercial or mainstream. We are unique and individual. We take classic beer styles and give them a contemporary spin and the customary BrewDog bite.

BeerSweden: You and BrewDog co-founder Martin Dickie are rarely out of the media spotlight these days, having been labelled the bad boys of brewing. Are you deliberately trying to upset ‘the establishment’ and if so why?

James: I think people have to realise how backward, traditional, stuffy and old-fashioned the beer culture is in the UK. To make matters worse all the regulators (such as our friends at The Portman Group) seem to be hell bent on protecting the interests of the corporate brewers. In addition, just to make things a little bit more difficult for a good (and cool) beer culture to develop, we have CAMRA – who I feel are responsible for holding back innovation in British brewing as well as giving craft beer a very un-cool image in the UK. When we are up against all this corruption and mediocracy the only way to make a statement and a stand is by breaking some rules, upsetting some trends, unsettling some stuffy institutions and breaking down tradition and convention. Craft beer has a long way to go in the UK, we are determined to spearhead the revolution.

Our biggest goal is to make other people as passionate about craft beer as we are. We want to raise awareness of craft beer and make it cool, contemporary and relevant in the UK.  I guess we just can’t do this without courting some controversy. And for a brand as punk as BrewDog, that is not always a bad thing.

BeerSweden: You’re currently inviting people to buy shares in BrewDog to raise money for a purpose-built eco-brewery in Scotland. Can you tell us more about your plans?

James: Sure, via www.equityforpunks.com anyone can buy a share in our company and own part of our brewery, our beers and our brand. It is a great opportunity for people to buy into the BrewDog vision, philosophy and ideal. We have had an amazing experience since we started BrewDog just over 2 years ago, this is peoples opportunity to share in our future journey and growth potential. By investing you will also have an involvement in how the company is run as you can vote on key decisions on the website and discuss plans in our forum.

BeerSweden: Lastly is there anything special going on in the dog house right now that you can tell BeerSweden regulars about?

James: As always at BrewDog we have a few very special things going on. Our product range is going to undergo some changes as we move into 2010, some beers will disappear but we have some amazing things lined up to replace them with. Abstrakt will be a series of limited edition directional, high-end beers packaged in half champagne bottles – a 18% IPA, Vanilla bean quad and a Raspberry oak aged imperial stout are all planned for the Abstrakt series. In addition we will be launching 5am Saint, an uber-hoppy 5% dark red ale, into our core range. Oh and we are currently working on a top, top  secret project to make a beer, the like of which has never been seen before-  but I can’t give too much away yet other than that it will launch at the end of November 2009….. The best place to keep up to date is the BrewDog blog: www.brewdog.com/blog.php or by following me on Twitter: @BrewDogJames

See a list of the Brewdog beers available at the Systembolaget here.