Today I am delighted to reveal the winners of the inaugural BeerSweden Forum Awards 2012!

More than 160 BeerSweden Forum members voted for their favourite beers, breweries, bars and beery personalities in eight categories during January. All the finalists had previously been nominated by BSF members, with those attracting the most votes advancing to the final voting round.

So without further ado let’s see who took first place in the country’s biggest online award scheme organised by beer drinkers for beer drinkers!

Best Swedish Brewery

Oppigårds Bryggeri was never in danger of losing this category. Having started out strong the Darlana brewery just got stronger, taking home first place with an impressive 70% of all the votes cast.

Best Swedish Beer

Again it’s Oppigårds in pole position with Drakens DIPA (which was brewed to a recipe created by hardcore homebrewers Tomas Lundqvist, Rick Lindqvist and Magnus Ahlström).

Best International Beer

This category went down to the wire and at the last second it was one vote that meant the category was tied between Great Divide Brewing’s Yeti Imperial Stout and ‘Hello, My Name is Ingrid’ from BrewDog in Scotland. The honours are shared!

Best International Brewery

I know, some of you may ask how can a guy from Denmark called Mikkel Borg Bjergsø be called a brewery? Well he’s a new kind of ‘one-man’ brewery that travels to breweries around the world where he transforms his very active imagination into beer. The so-called ‘Godfather of Gypsy Brewing’ Mikkel is also one of the most prolific brewers out there and is threatening to close in on 100 different Mikkeller beers in a single year. The BSF-ers salute you!

Best Swedish Beer Bar/Pub/Restaurant

Beer emporium Akkurat in Stockholm once again leads the field and underlines its status as a must-visit bar whenever you’re in the capital (particularly if you like cask ales and lambics). Congratulations to Stene, Rille and the whole ‘A-Team’!

Best Swedish Importer/Distributor

Those nice guys at Brill have really spoilt the Swedish beer community with a succession of hard-to-get craft beers from both sides of the Atlantic over the past year and their passion for what they do has clearly paid off, earning them an emphatic pat on the back from BSF members.

Best Swedish Beer Event

Probably no surprise here. The Stockholm Beer and Whisky Festival is not only the largest beer show in Sweden but it’s one of the largest in the world. Ultra-professionally run with the largest gathering of Swedish beer brands and personalities in one place the SBWF continues to set the standard for how a beer show should be run.

Swedish Beer Personality of The Year

I have to confess to feeling more than a little awkward here as I have ended up winning this category myself (I’m putting it down to home advantage). I am obviously incredibly grateful and humbled for all the nominations and votes. I’d like to give a special mention to Magnus and M2 and Magnus Bark who were both also nominated in this category and who all – in their own unique ways – do so much to contribute to the beer community in this country. The fact that three bloggers were nominated says a lot about the role beer blogs are playing right now in spreading knowledge about our favourite drink.

A huge thanks to everyone who took the time to nominate and vote. As the awesome BeerSweden Forum continues to grow (now over 20,000 posts, 575,000 post views and almost 700 members) I’m confident next year’s awards will be even bigger and better!

All winners will shortly be receiving swanky certificates as recognition of their achievement. Once I’ve made them that it…..

Cheers and Beers everyone!

Darren

 (ps: If you’re not a member of the BeerSweden Forum yet then why not sign up right now? It only takes seconds and costs nothing. That’s right – nix! Within minutes you could be chatting to other beer enthusiasts, checking out food and beer pairings, discovering the latest beer scene news and reading honest reviews of beers from fellow BSF-ers. And that’s just for starters! What are you waiting for?!!)

Please note: I work for BrewDog in Scandinavia. Although I am personally committed to reviewing all beers objectively I feel it only right you should know this when considering this review.

As a few Swedish beer blogs reported yesterday* (I’m giving the nod here to Dempa who I think was first out with the news) we’ve already got a lot to look forward to in 2012 as details of the beer releases at the Systembolaget over the next few months emerged online.

Rather than cut and paste the lists here you can check out just how much beer money you need to set aside in February, March and April by paying Dempabeer a visit or going here.

Fantastic to see that the momentum for great beers at the monopoly has carried over from 2011 (the best beer year this country has ever seen?) and well into the New Year!

Without doubt one of the most successful international craft breweries in Sweden during 2011 was BrewDog, which is starting 2012 in outrageous style with no less than four listings at the monopoly in the next three months.

James Watt from BrewDog gives us the low-down on what's to come in early 2012

I managed to grab a few words with the brewery’s Head of Stuff James Watt to ask him for his thoughts on what Swedish beer drinkers can expect from the Scottish craft beer revolutionists in the year ahead.

James:

”Sweden was our first ever export market and 3 years on is our biggest overseas market. Yes, we send more beer to Sweden than anywhere else in the world. It has been great to send the limited release beers to Sweden over 2011 and this looks set to continue with some great releases at SystemB to complement our regular line up which includes our flagship Punk IPA and our west coast inspired double IPA Hardcore IPA.

A sneak peak at the packaging artwork for the new BrewDog mixed 4-pack coming in March.

2012 will see a BrewDog mixed pack launching giving you guys the chance to get your paws on 5am Saint, Chaos Theory, Alice Porter and Dogma – all beers which have never made it to Sweden on any major scale before. 5am Saint is actually our 2nd best selling beer overall after Punk IPA.

Abstrakt AB:08 is a blonde imperial stout. A deconstruction which does not make too much sense, will definitely mess with your head and tastes amazing, more on how we made it here.

In addition Hops Kill will also be making a guest appearance – a 7.8% Imperial Red Ale loaded with the brutal Chinook hops.

2012 promises to be an exciting year for us. We sold all of the Equity for Punks shares (hello to all you Swedish investors). In doing so we welcomed 6,000 new shareholders to our company and this has given us the money to build the world’s first fan-funded brewery. Building should start in February with the new brewery hopefully online by November giving us much needed capacity. We are also opening some more BrewDog craft beer bars with Leeds, Newcastle and Nottingham all opening in early 2012. Maybe 2013 will even see a BrewDog bar in Sweden?

Anyway, thanks for all the support – without you guys drinking our beer we would not even have a brewery!

Keep on rocking in the free world!”

Transparency statement: I am BrewDog’s Top Dog for Scandinavia (yes, that’s really my job title) and although I am committed to reviewing their beers like all others as objectively as possible I think you really should know this.

*It’s great to see the Swedish beer blogging scene getting sharper and quicker out with the news with every month that passes! I’m going to have to be on my toes in 2012 if I’m going to keep up!

Hind·sight  (hndst)

n.

This post has everything to do with the first definition (and thankfully nothing to do with the second) because a wave of 15 new beers crept into the Systembolaget over the weekend largely unnoticed.

As October 1st fell on a Saturday this month I failed to give the launch the attention it deserved during a week that was dominated by all the action from the Stockholm Beer and Whisky Festival. This post is my way of setting the record straight.

Lets take a look at the 15 beers that are now available in selected Systembolaget stores for at least the next year:

A few potential diamonds among some lumps of coal in my opinion. I was delighted to see Adnams in the monopoly again with a 4.1% version of their Southwold Bitter which is a slightly fatter version at 4.5% in the UK and which I’ve drunk many a pint of for its honesty, Britishness and the fact it is dry hopped with Fuggles.

Moving down the list we come to BrewDog Riptide, a smooth Imperial stout of 8% brewed with muscavado sugar that I reviewed on BSTV a while back.

Like buses it was only a few weeks ago I was moaning about how few Dugges beers we get up here in Norrland then Höstbrygd came along and now another beer from the Gothenburg craft brewery appears on the shelves! This time it’s an impressive T1 listing (which means almost all the Systembolaget stores can order it) and it’s for Dugges Gustaf’s Finger, a strong bitter forged with dark caramel malts to give it body and flavoured with Chinook, Brewers Gold and Cascade hops for a snappy bitter bite.

Mahou Negra is a dark lager in the Dunkel style brewed by Mahou Brewery in Spain, and comes at an attractive price of 13.90SEK a bottle. For this I think you’re getting a pretty good sweetish beer (in a pretty smart looking bottle) with soft coffee and roasted notes that could make it a good companion to food. I will review it shortly to find out!

Old Tom from the UK’s Robinsons Brewery is a beer that has been crowned (by whom I’m not entirely sure) the World’s Best Ale. There is no doubt it has scooped a raft of prestigious international beer awards. I actually got a sneaky taste of it over the weekend and my reaction  was more positive than a TV-shop presenter. This 8.5% British strong ale oozes elegance and charm, with rich red and blackberry hints and a thick, treacly finish. A must try!

Then come the two Pistonheads, Kustom Lager (kool name) in a can and Plastic Fantastic in a squeezy PET bottle. I’m hoping to try both, seriously and objectively, at the SBWF later this week where I also hope to have a chat with the team from Brutal Brewing, so check back for an update!

Svart is a distinctly dry roasted (and ecological) drinking porter from Slottskällans that reflects perfectly the type of beer I want to drink as I stare out of the window at the trees as they drop their leaves.

Finally the Russian beer Zhiguli Barnoe is interesting for the fact it is Russian but I’ll reserve any further judgement until I’ve tried it.

Have you ever heard of a supermarket trolley dash prize? You’re given a few minutes and an empty trolley which you can fill with whatever you can grab from the shelves before your time is up.

Sometimes beer festivals can feel like that.

With so many beers, so many happenings and so little time it’s sometimes difficult to know where to begin.

I’m not a huge fan of lists (I am, after all, the World’s Worst Ticker) but I do have a personal checklist of things I want to try at this year’s show and thought I would share it with you:

Eskilstuna Ölkultur, Pang Pang Brewery, Södra Maltfabriken and World’s Smallest Brewery (world’s coolest brewery name?) are among those making their first appearances at the festival this year so go along and give them all a big hug (and try their beers).

Oppigårds’ stand is always a must-visit, not just because of the Klassisk IPA they’re serving up (Ed note: this is not the only ‘old-world’ IPA coming to the show this year. Do I detect the start of a new beery trend?) but because they’ll actually be brewing beer on their stand on the first Thursday of the show. Cool initiative!

Last year's powerhouse Ace of Spades was a big hit. And this year....?

Who can forget Sigtuna’s Ace of Spades when it was released to huge critical acclaim last year? Well this year’s version promises to be different but equally outrageous and you’ll be able to try it first at Sigtuna’s stand.

Pilsner Urquell are rolling out their 2,700 litre barrel once again offering you a rare chance to try the original golden beer in all its unpasteurised and unfiltered glory.

Cask Sweden are letting the dogs out this year with a huge selection of BrewDog beers, including the läskigt and läskande Ghost Deer, which at 28% is the world’s strongest (non freeze distilled) beer. Oh. I should also mention for those of you brave enough to try it that it is poured from the mouth of a deer. BrewDog James will be at the festival during all days of the second week of the show and will be giving Master Classes every day (together with yours truly).

If you wear one of these badges at this year's show you are 615.2% more likely to find romance. Allegedly.

Brill’s stand is one of the first you encounter when you enter the hall and one of the hardest to leave, with the beery pulling power of a black hole (rather appropriate really).  It’s also the place to go and pick up your free and exclusive BSF badge if you’re a BeerSweden Forum member. That way you can not only walk around the festival knowing you’re cooler than a polar bear’s toenails but fellow BSF-ers will be able to pick you out among the crowd. Who knows, it may be the start of an amazing beer friendship!

The Oliver Twist/Brewers Association stand is another place I guarantee you will happily lose a few hours. THE place to try your way through some of the very best US beers out there today in friendly sample measures, including, I note, some of the increasingly hard-to-get Dogfish Head beers. Go there. Nuff said.

One of my highlights of last year’s show was the Danish section and this year the invasion continues with Elixir Wines once again bringing over no fewer than 7 Danish breweries (and this one from Norway), including Amager, Raasted and Djævlebryg.

Carnegie Porter is an underestimated Swedish beer classic in my book (I’ve been lucky to taste delicious vintages as far back as 1988) but if you ever needed an excuse to discover it again this is the year to do it with the special limited release of Carnegie Porter Jubileumsbryggd brewed together with Brooklyn Brewery to celebrate the beer’s 175^th anniversary. Grab a sample from Carlsberg’s stand at the show.

Lastly if a day at the beer festival isn’t quite enough there’s the ‘efterfest’ every night after the show at the Bishops Arms in Vasagatan. Here you’re pretty likely to bump into some of your favourite brewers and can grab a midnight snack with the kitchen staying open extra late and the bar serving some pretty amazing beers until 3am.

I realise I’ve missed out a lot of great stuff trying to keep this list ‘short’ (like these ones, or the Black IPA from this lot) but I hope you get a sense of how epic this show promises to be. So dive in, ask questions, explore beer styles you’ve never tried before and most of all have loads of fun. 

And if you see a guy in glasses wearing a BeerSweden T-shirt and a thirsty look on his face come up and say hi. It might just be me

Just one of the BrewDog beers coming your way before Xmas.

BrewDog has a pack of new beers coming to the Systembolaget over the next few months. Details of some launches have already been leaked onto the net but here, for the first time, is a confirmed round-up of what BrewDog fans can look forward to in the run-up to Christmas:

Abstrakt 07 – launches 1 November. 960 bottles @ 125SEK (SB Art Nr to be confirmed).

Black Tokyo Horizon – launches 1 November. 960 bottles @ 135SEK. SB Art Nr 11181-03

There is No Santa – launches 15 November.  42.000 bottles @ 19.90SEK. SB Art Nr 11178-03

I Hardcore You – launches 1 December. 9.600 bottles @ 39.90SEK (SB Art Nr to be confirmed).

Winter Porter – launches 1 December. 12.000 bottles @ 26,90SEK. SB Art Nr 11142-03. (This beer has Alice Porter as its base and is flavoured with chilli, chocolate, cacao and orange zest).

There’s some pretty amazing news coming your way in the first few months of 2012 too. Can’t say much now but trust me, you’re going to love it!

It’s a week that started with haggis and Hardcore and ends in a storm of surprise, uncertainty and conjecture that arguably Sweden’s most iconic craft brewery might be Norwegian from next month.

Beer so tasty you can eat it!

On Tuesday I was in Scotland with Stene and Rille from Akkurat and Per from Cask Sweden to help brew Abstrakt 0X (working title….most probably Abstrakt 08) at BrewDog*. It’s an imperial oatmeal stout that’s modelled on the traditional Scottish dessert Cranachan and uses crystal oats, an obscene amount of malts including Extra Pale Marris Otter and Carafa (a German dehusked malt that gives a smoother chocolate flavour without any harshness), Fuggles hops, wild Scottish raspberries and a bucket of heather honey from local bees.

Oh and then it’s going to be stuck into whisky casks for ”around 3-4 months” before being bottled and hopefully finding its way over to Sweden. Rumour has it that a very limited number of kegs may be exclusively available in one particular Stockholm pub. More on that later!

Brewing beer wasn’t the only thing we did on Tuesday though – we drank a fair bit of it too. In fact we sampled so many outstanding brews I’m calling Tuesday, September 6th The Day of Many Beers and will attempt to give you all the details of exactly what we imbibed early next week.

This was also the week that we said Goodbye to Ingrid. She set something of a craft beer record when she went on sale just 9 days ago as crowds of people lined up at Systembolaget stores throughout the country to grab her. According to the Systembolaget website all 10,000 bottles are now sold. Is this the last we’ll ever see of Ingrid? You’ll find out here first.

In a week when the world’s strongest fermented beer known to man was poured from the mouth of a deer almost as shocking was the news from Gothenburg that a drunk elk got stuck in an apple tree. Seems to me the line between wild animals and beer has become very thin these days.

And finally are they or aren’t they? Norwegian craft brewery Haandbryggeriet announced on its Facebook page yesterday night that Sweden’s Närke Kulturbryggeri are to join forces with it. The rather strangely worded statement reported: ” Närke is our friendly brewery and its a damn good brewery but they don’t have a clue re marketing and production” before revealing that ”From 1 October Närke will be part of Haandbryggeriet and håke (read here Håge?) will be our master brewer” and finished by declaring that ”Stormaktsporteren will from now on be made here in Drammen”.

Since this announcement there has been no official comment from either brewery, inevitably leading to speculation about whether the news is true and if it is what it means for Sweden’s famous craft brewery in Örebro. Will all production move to Drammen? Would such a move result in more Närke beers becoming available? The early excitement among US drinkers that they might finally be able to get their hands on a bottle of Kaggen is almost palpable.

When it comes to Närke it’s my experience that it’s best to wait for a formal response before publishing anything. So that’s what I’ll do. Wait. *drums fingers*

So how do I round off a week like this one? With a bottle of the amazing Prototype 17 perhaps? No, I think that’s enough BrewDog for this week so I’m going for something a lot closer to home – Dugges Höstbrygd Contemplative Ale.

This 5% ABV British style brown ale is being tipped as a great partner to the earthy mushrooms popping up everywhere around Sweden right now, so why not grab yourself a bottle and follow the advice on the label and take a time-out to reflect on what has been a pretty awesome beery week.

Have great weekends everyone. Be safe, be happy and be unlagom

Darren

  *Just so you all know I’m laying claim right now to the headline ”BrewDog beer gets its just desserts”. It’s mine OK and my lawyers WILL be watching