Something rather significant happened to this blog about a week ago. Something that somehow got lost in all the confusion and craziness in the aftermath of this year’s Stockholm Beer & Whisky Festival.

One week ago, on October 11^th, without candles, cards, or presents BeerSweden quietly became two years old.

When BeerSweden celebrated its first birthday last year I wrote that the first twelve months had felt like bringing up a baby. A blur of constant feeding, sleepless nights and early mornings it order to keep up with it.

Well now, in blogging time, my blog has matured into a gawky teenager. It has stopped constantly screaming for attention like a hungry baby (most of the time anyway) and has developed a quirky personality all of its own.

Like any teenager it has its ups and downs (my host provider has seen to that) and can keep me up late at night worrying who it’s hanging out with and whether it is liked.

But it’s all totally worth it because this blog continues to be the most exciting and rewarding thing I’ve ever done in the beer world.

In the past year alone we’ve said Hello to Ingrid, won an award, skipped across the Atlantic, launched an amazing online beery hangout, talked up blogs in London and watched as BeerSweden Trev hopped about and almost choked on rotten herring for our 100^th BSTV episode.

Looking forward the next year is going to be a defining one for this blog. It’s the year it has to take that important and inevitable step into adulthood. Exactly what these major changes are going to be I’m keeping to myself for just a little longer but I hope you’ll be here with me following BeerSweden as it finally grows up.

So, better late than never, I’d ask you to once again fill your glass later on today with beer (and that’s great beer OK, not any of that stor stark nonsense) and give a little toast to BeerSweden!

”Ja må du leva uti hundrade år”!

Swedish beer blog BeerSweden has announced its appointment as an official 2012 World Beer Cup media endorser.

BeerSweden joins a group of some of the world’s leading beer magazines, websites and organisations who will all be promoting and covering the “Olympics of Beer” when it takes place in San Diego, California in the USA next May.

In 2010 a total of 642 breweries from 44 countries entered a staggering 3,330 beers into the bi-annual event’s 90 different beer style categories, which eclipsed the Great American Beer Festival to become the largest commercial competition ever.

BeerSweden’s founder Darren Packman is now urging the thriving Swedish craft brewing community to enter their beers into the prestigious competition and “make the rest of the world sit up and take notice of Swedish beer”.

“Over the past few years the Swedish beer scene has changed beyond recognition, with more microbreweries starting up than ever before and a new generation of breweries producing exciting, adventurous beers of real character and taste.

“I’m totally convinced that a few Swedish breweries can compete with the best in the world and I would love nothing more than to be drinking a medal-winning Swedish beer in San Diego next year!”, he said.

Imagine if there were Swedish beers amongst this lot in 2012!

“If a Swedish brewery could win a medal it would send a clear signal to beer drinkers both here and around the world that Sweden is now a fantastic place to come and drink great beer”.

Entries to the World Beer Cup -  which is organised by the US Brewers Association  - are being accepted between October 10^th – December 6^th 2011. The competition is unusual in that it does not automatically award medals in each of the 90 beer categories unless it considers it has judged three world-class examples of any style.

In 2010 there was one Swedish winner in the European-Style Low Alcohol Lager category; Carlsberg Sverige took gold for Falcon Export 3.5% and bronze for Pripps Blå 3.5%.

 (Ed Note: Sorry if this post seems a little ‘formal’ but I’ve written this as a press release to send out to the drinks industry media).

In recent years The Bishops Arms in Stockholm’s Vasagatan has become something of the unofficial efterfest* location during the Stockholm Beer and Whisky Festival. This year they are making it totally official by keeping the kitchen open later and serving up some exclusive late night beer treats for festival-goers, brewers, importers and bloggers alike!

As BeerSweden likes to be where all the action is we’re proud to announce we’ll be a co-sponsor of this cool initiative. The pub (located a stone’s throw from Stockholm’s central train station) will be serving up a special late-night food menu until 2.30am (Edit: a much more healthy and tasty alternative to a kebab right?) as well as pouring up a number of exclusive beers during both weeks of the festival, including unpasteurised Pilsner Urquell and ‘Hello, My Name is Ingrid‘ on draft!

So if you don’t want the party to end after a tough day tastings beers at the festival then I hope to see you there!

* Wiki’s explanation of what an Efterfest is here!

IF YOU DON’T AUTOMATICALLY SEE THE CALENDER JUST CLICK ON THE HEADLINE TO ACTIVATE IT!

I recently asked you to suggest ways to make this blog a more useful resource and several of you suggested creating a calendar of beery goings-on in Sweden.

Therefore I’ve attempted to do just that, publishing a public Google calendar that I’ve started to fill with as many beer related events, happenings and festivals I can think of as well as details of all the Systembolaget beer launches* until the end of 2011. I’ve created a new tab at the very top of the BeerSweden blog so you can easily keep up-to-date with all the latest beery goings-on.

This is a public calendar which means that you are free to add details of your own beery events too. Just remember to make sure it has something to do with our favourite drink To see a larger, more detailed calendar (with pretty colours) and to add an event just click on the +Google Calendar button on the bottom right of the calendar above.

I chose a Google calendar because of the success of BeerSweden’s Google Beer Map, which now contains details of nearly 100 places in Sweden to enjoy great beer and which has now been viewed almost 19,000 times since it was created back in May of last year. Again if you’ve got any tips for places to enjoy a beer that’s not on the map please go in and add it (of course if you run a pub that prides itself on its beer selection then feel free to tell us about it too!)

*the information for these launches is largely borrowed from those very nice chaps at Schnille & Schmak

The idea is simple – to interview the biggest characters in world brewing using the wondrous power of Skype.

Unfortunately the unpredictability of bandwidth means that not everything in this first interview went exactly according to plan. It turned out that the internet connection at Boston Beer Company wasn’t quite fast enough to handle high quality video calls but we decided to carry on with the interview regardless.

And I’m so glad we did because Jim Koch has to be one of the most infectiously passionate beer personalities on the planet. I challenge anyone to spend more than a few minutes in his company without wanting to go and grab a cold glass of beer.

Due to the technical issues this video interview freezes in several places. I was contemplating releasing just the audio track of our conversation but decided to upload the video as well (figuring you just need to shut your eyes to get the same effect!)

A new interview with another beery celebrity coming soon!

Finally, after weeks of fermentation, two bouts of intense dry hopping, ridiculous amounts of Scandinavian cloudberries and designy emails whizzing across the stormy North Sea between Fraserburgh in Scotland and here BrewDog and BeerSweden can proudly announce there’s a new babe on the beer scene – and her name is Ingrid.

Here’s an exclusive first look at the label that will adorn exactly 1720 bottles making their way to the Systembolaget to go on sale via the Beställningssortimentet from March 1st

Click on the image to make it larger!

Each 330ml bottle will cost 39.90 SEK and will be available to buy in cases of 12 bottles. Both BrewDog, Cask Sweden and I spent a long time scratching heads trying to work out how as many of you as possible could get hold of Ingrid. This ended up being the most practical option as selling bottles individually would have rocketed the prices sky-high.

Just 5 kegs of Ingrid will be coming over to Sweden (a few more will be sold at BrewDog Aberdeen, the Scottish micro’s uber-cool bar). Details of what promises to be some pretty crazy launch parties to follow……

BrewDog’s Head of Stuff James Watt has just tasted Ingrid as she goes through the bottling line this week and reports she’s ”awesome”.

And that, to me, in one word, pretty much sums up everything single second of all this.

Awesome!

(Details are correct at the time of posting although some changes are (although highly unlikely) possible).

You probably use it every day and may even spend more time with it than your other half but how well do you really know the Internet?

Sure it’s an amazing resource if you missed the last episode of Minuten, want to get to the bottom of Lady Gaga’s sexuality (but not her bottom) or if you, for some strange and probably medicinally treatable reason want to see what’s going on right this second in the Latvian capital of Riga.

But as interesting as all this is can the Internet help you make better decisions when it comes to choosing your beers? Does the World Wide Web make you a better beer drinker?

I’ve scoured the net looking for the top five websites that I believe can help you on your way to becoming a beer expert:

Ratebeer.com –The online beer rating community is divided into two clear camps. You’re either a RB or a BA – and the two rarely mix! RBs – Ratebeerians – use ratebeer.com as an online journal of their beer drinking adventures, recording the look, smell, taste, palate and overall impression of each and every beer they try. There are currently over 2.5 million ratings contained on the site.

Rating beers can become a highly addictive pastime, leading to erratic behaviour such as buying disgustingly cheap canned lager just so you can score another rating or spending your life savings travelling to far away places to sample rare beers (I am talking from personal experience here).

It’s also a great place to meet other beer fans with lively forums covering every topic imaginable from tips on new beers, new brewery start-ups to beery events happening near you.

You don’t have to be a beer geek to open up a free basic account there but you’ll probably be a geek after using it a few times, so be warned!

BeerAdvocate.com – This is the ‘other’ rating community run by beery brothers Todd and Jason Alström (Swedish descendants?) out of Boston in the USA. Our very own Swedish blogger Magnus Bark from Ofiltrerat is the BA’s ‘BeerFly’ Guide for Scandinavia and ensures the beers coming from this region are registered into the site’s database.

BA uses a slightly different rating methodology than RB and it’s really a question of personal preference as to which one works best. In my book RB has a stronger European influence in its overall character, forums and ratings and therefore edges it for me.

Systembevakningsagenten – this is an amazing resource if you want to track down a particular bottle of beer at the Swedish alcohol monopoly. Just search by name (or a number of other search variables) and you’ll get an instant snapshot of how many bottles of your beer are left on the shelves throughout the country and see just how fast they are being sold out.

Using data supplied by the Systembolaget this website can be the difference between skipping or sipping the latest beers releases.

FatKoll.se – the team behind Systembevakningsagenten have done it again – this time with draft beer. Want to know what’s on tap this evening at your local pub? Chances are you’ll find out here thanks to users ‘pinging’ the beers they see being sold while out in the pubs to the site, updating it in real-time. You can also search by beer brand name and brewery. It could quickly grow to become your best drinking buddy!

BeerSweden.com – Hang on, surely it’s cheating putting your own site in the top 5 list? Well yes, I suppose it is a little egotistical but this blog, along with our Facebook page really is one of the most regularly updated websites featuring original content about beer in Sweden.

A more-than honourable mention should go to Allt Om Öl, a beer blog portal that gathers the newsfeeds from some of the country’s top beer bloggers and puts them into one easy-to-navigate site. It also has ‘sister’ sites in the US and the UK making it easy for you to keep track of the international beer scene from the comfort of your keyboard.

Use these online resources and I promise you within days you’ll be struck by a revelation of Matrix-size proportions that beer is not at all as it might at first glance seem to be.

Today’s the day tickets to the Linköping Beer Expo 2011 are officially released.

The festival, now in its second year, has already attracted an impressive line-up of Swedish craft breweries and beer importers who will be offering a large selection of beers to sample from here and abroad.

BeerSweden will of course be at the show too, where I’ll be blogging live from our very own stand with all the latest festival news, interviews and live tastings. Rumour has it I may even have Ingrid with me, although this has yet to been confirmed…..

Tickets to the two-day festival, which runs from 8-9^th April cost 145 SEK (which includes a tasting glass) and are available to purchase in advance here. If availability permits tickets may also be bought at the door on the day.

To reduce complexity (and heavy pockets full of loose change) organisers will be using a coupon system for buying samples.

The man responsible for staging Linköping Beer Expo 2011 is Richard Lindblad, who says he is “very excited” at the prospect of hosting the event again this year.

“I’m incredibly happy at the response we’ve had from festival goers and exhibitors from the first event last year. Already we’ve got as many breweries and importers signed up as we had last year and there’s still a few months to go so I’m very optimistic we’ll have even more”.

“The goal of the expo is to get the general public interested in great beer. That’s the main goal. If you’re not into beer in a big way right now coming to the festival may change that. If you’re already really into beer then you might just find something you’ve never tried before”.

BeerSweden will be at this year's Expo and I promise there will be a LOT of whirling going on!

Last year around 2,000 people attended the premier event. This year, with the expo being run over two days instead of just one, Richard hopes the final attendance figure will exceed 3,000.

It would be great to see as many of the BeerSweden community there as possible. Supporting festivals like this is an important part of helping the beer scene grow in this country. On top of that it would be great fun to meet loads of you and give it a whirl, so why not put the dates in your diaries right now!