In one of this blog’s most popular competitions to date (hardly surprising given the prizes) I’m delighted to reveal the names of the 5 BeerSweden followers who have won shares in one of the world’s most talked about craft breweries – BrewDog from Scotland.

The five lucky winners will now get an invite to BrewDog's legendary AGM.

To win participants had to search my posts over at the new BeerSweden Forum (which now has almost 350 registered members and over 4,200 posts!) to find the secret ingredient that is found in every single BrewDog beer (other than the ‘normal’ ones like water, malt, hops etc).

The answer was, of course, Punkitude, which currently isn’t a word in the English language but I humbly suggest should be.*

The five BeerSweden faithful to find the hidden word and email it to me and who are now the winners of a bundle of 4 shares each in BrewDog worth £95 (around 1,000 SEK) are:

Johan Eriksson from Örebro

Kristoffer Krogerus

Jonas Nyblom

Hannes Gruber

Joel Blom

Congratulations to all five of you! Details of what you need to do next to register your details and claim your shares will be sent to you in the next few days.

I’m not really sure how I’m going to top this competition but rest assured I’ll be giving away something magnificently beery right here on BeerSweden very soon.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to enter and if you didn’t win then better luck next time

*Look, if the word ‘Muggle’ from the Harry Potter novels/films can crack the Oxford English Dictionary then Punkitude stands a chance, doesn’t it?

In the past on this blog I’ve given away T-shirts, books and pub dinners but I’ve never given away a bit of an internationally acclaimed brewery – until now!

In what must be one of the most awesome competitions ever held on a beer blog I’m now giving you the chance to win a bundle of 4 shares in the brewery everyone’s talking about these days – BrewDog.

Soon you could be BrewDog's Head Brewer Stewart Bowman's new boss. Sort of.

The shares, currently being sold as part of the brewery’s newly launched Equity for Punks scheme, are worth £95 (around 1000 SEK).

But perhaps even more important than the value of the prize is the fact the winner will be able to brag that they own a part of the brewery to their friends, get a 20% discount in BrewDog’s on-line shop, a 5% discount in their rapidly growing chain of bars and be invited to their notorious AGM where members get to brew a special share-holders beer.

Did I say winner? Actually I meant winners, because when I rang BrewDog James up to ask him if he would donate the first prize he said “why not make the competition really epic?” and promptly offered 5 bundles of shares to give away!

So not just one but five lucky BeerSweden followers are about to book their front row ticket to the craft beer revolution. Here’s what do you need to do to stand a chance of winning a share of the dog house.

All BrewDog beers are made using the five following ingredients (and very often a few more ):

• Water
• Hops
• Yeast
• Malt
• ??????

To enter all you have to do is tell me what the 5^th special ingredient found in all BrewDog’s beers is. The ingredient is hidden in one of my posts over at the new BeerSweden Forum, so if you haven’t already done so you’ll have to get over there and register to take part and find it.

The special ingredient is a single word that I’ve made up myself so if you had any thoughts of taking a shortcut by randomly searching for words in the forum then you might want to think again. All I’ll say is that as soon as you see the word you’ll know

Once you have discovered the special ingredient send the word to me at darren@beersweden.se. This competition will run until midnight on Sunday 24^th July and the winners will be picked at random by a representative of the brewery and announced right here on the blog on Tuesday, July 26^th.

This competition is open to anyone living in Sweden, Finland, Norway or Denmark. The judges decision is final. If anyone posts a thread or comment either here, on the Forum or anywhere else revealing the winning word then obviously not only will it ruin the fun for everyone else but that person will automatically be disqualified.

Good luck everyone!

Beers and Shares!

Darren

Disclaimer: I represent BrewDog in Scandinavia. This may have helped a bit when getting the prizes.

Due to rain, mosquitoes, a shockingly poor internet connection and the company of many great friends I was unable to post the winner of ‘The Brewmaster’s Table’ competition yesterday.

Whatever the weather I hope you, like me, had a fantastic midsommar!

So without further ado the randomly selected winner of the competition and a brand new copy of the ‘bible’ of beer and food pairing is…………Per Gunnar Eriksson from Umeå! Congratulations P-G – I know mealtimes around your house are about to get very interesting over the coming months!

A big thanks to everyone who entered (there were a lot of you!) and remember to check back soon for another beery BeerSweden competition.

In what must be possibly the coolest prize ever given away on a Swedish beer blog I’m delighted to announce the winner of BeerSweden’s Ultimate Burger and Beer Competition in partnership with those jolly nice people at The Bishops Arms in Linnégatan which has today opened its door to the public for the first time.

Let’s recap for a moment. The competition asked you to suggest your ultimate burger recipe and the perfect beer to go with it. The winner gets a dinner for two in the new pub (which is pretty huge considering these guys are helping to run the kitchen). But that’s not all. In fact we’re only just warming up! The winner also gets a special glass with his or her name engraved on it which will be given a special place behind the bar for whenever they pop in for a drink!

But that’s still not all! The winner will also get his or her name printed on the menu alongside the Bishops Arms own hamburger description as a recommendation for everyone to see.

So without further ado, here’s a picture of the winner’s special glass….

And here’s the winner’s named engraved on the glass.

A huge congratulations to David Hedenfalk for your winning burger recipe:

1 Snabbt grillat bröd
2 Lite dijon
3 Tunn skiva rödlök
4 Salladsblad
5 Burgaren gjord på kalvfärs kryddad med vitlök, Worchester Sauce, timjan
6 Cheese of choice
7 Chili sauce
8 Avocado tunna skivor

To this you paired a Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA, a powerful yet balanced US IPA packed with citrus hops and exotic fruit flavours.

The jury’s motivation is as follows:

”With a good bitter edge sharp enough to cut trough the fat flavours of the cheese and a malty sweetness to balance the pickles and the dressing – Snake Dog IPA from Flying Dog makes an outstanding companion to our burger. Describing the perfect beer and burger combo David Hedenfalk managed to persuade the jury”.

To complete your awesome prize David here’s you name printed on the new menus at the pub.

A huge thanks to everyone that entered. The standard of submissions was incredibly high and many of you had obviously put a lot of thought into your pairing. Thank you!

A new competition with cool beery prizes will be announced on BeerSweden very soon so remember to check back often!

Whenever I hit a roadblock with someone I’m trying to convert to beer I normally head for the fridge. Not for another beer though. For some food.

Food really can bring out the best in a beer. Anyone who has experienced the mouth-watering majesty of a chilled Belgium witbier as its light, fresh lemonade and herb flavours wrap themselves around a perfectly poached fillet of plaice will know exactly what I’m talking about.

Food can also calm beer down at times. Take a brash, arrogant US imperial stout and hook it up with a slice of artery-clogging Mississippi Mud Cake and the dessert will help flatten the sharp spikes of bitter chocolate and charred espresso coffee beans.

Food can make a good beer great but it’s not just a one-way relationship. Beer can also turn a good meal into a memorable one.

In Sweden we’re just taking our first tentative steps into the world of beer and food pairing. Sure we drink beer with food at Easter, midsommar, with crayfish and at Christmas but I’m pretty sure many of us don’t know why we do it or that there’s probably better matches to be had with beers other than the lagers we routinely plonk on the table.

To get to know beer better it’s really worth taking a little bit of time to learn the basic principles of beer and food pairings. Notice I didn’t use the word rules because there aren’t any. We’ll leave the dogma of ‘red with meat, white with fish’ to the wine world where it belongs. In our brave new beer world the only thing that matters is that the match works for you. If the food and the beer are better for hanging out with one another then you’ve just made a great match. It’s as simple as that!

I don't think there's ever been a better book written about food and beer pairing. It might not change you life, but it will change your mealtimes!

But hang on you say. Is it really that simple? Well yes…..and no. There are in fact several ‘guidelines’ you can follow, some well tried combos that never let you down, some dishes where you might want to tread a little more carefully.

Fortunately someone’s already written these guidelines down for you in a book that I refer to as the bible of food and beer pairing.

The book is called ‘The Brewmaster’s Table’ and in its 372 pages you’ll find everything you’ll ever need to start creating amazing combos. It is written by Garrett Oliver who is brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery, a man considered by many to be the world’s leading authority on knowing what to eat with your beer.

This beautifully illustrated book takes you on a journey through beer’s past, explains how it is made and then tours the world’s most popular beer styles giving you suggestions on which foods to match them with.

Garrett’s intelligent prose and infectious enthusiasm for his art (because that is what it is) is guaranteed to inspire you and make your next meal, in some strangely pleasant way, just that bit more complicated.

And now thanks to those nice people at Brooklyn Brewery I’m giving you the chance to win the latest updated edition of ‘The BrewMaster’s Table’.

To stand a chance of winning you’ll need to have liked BeerSweden’s Facebook page (you know we’re big on Facebook right?) and answer the following question:

Q: Garrett Oliver’s Brooklyn Brewery released a ‘sunshine’ beer at the Systembolaget in May. What is it called?

Send your answer to darren@beersweden.se by midnight on Thursday, June 23^rd and I’ll give one lucky BeerSweden follower an extra reason to celebrate midsommar the following day when I announce the winner. This competition is only open to people that live in Sweden.

Good luck everyone!

What do Betamax, hydrogen-filled blimps, making the Titanic too….titanic, George Lazenby as James Bond and leisure suits have in common?

They were all pretty bad ideas, weren’t they?

Not really such a good idea, was it.......

I had one of those last week when I tried to launch a new monthly Facebook competition concept over at BeerSweden’s FB page I’d been working on called ‘Tag-a-T’ in which all you had to do was tag your name to a picture of a beery T-shirt, ‘LIKE’ BeerSweden’s FB page and the page of the brewery supplying the swag in order to win it.

Simple. I thought.

Until that is until I started getting emails about 15 seconds later after it went live from concerned BeerSweden followers telling me that my Facebook account could be closed down unless I removed the competition immediately.

Some frantic online research later and it turns out it’s true. Buried in Facebook’s Terms and Conditions in small print so small it would make estate agents and divorce lawyers giggle with glee it states that your account can be frozen and your toenails turn black and fall out for improper use of Facebook’s native features. (I may have made the bit about your toenails up).

Which led to one of the shortest T-shirt giveaways in the history of the Internet as I was forced to remove ‘Tag-a-T’ from Facebook and migrate it over here where it’s me rather than Mr Zuckerberg that makes the rules up.

So here it is, slightly re-tweaked but in essence still a simple chance to get a free beery T-shirt every month. Remember you have to be a LIKER of both BeerSweden and BrewDog Scandinavia to stand a chance of winning.

Just post a comment with your preferred T-shirt size (S/M/L/XL) under this post to enter. I’ll pick a winner at random at the end of the month and inform the winner by responding to the mail address registered when you comment.

Happy tagging everyone!

(PS: if you run a cool brewery with great looking T-shirts and want it to feature in next month’s ‘Tag-a-T’ competition just mail me at darren@beersweden.se).

Capturing over half of the 103 votes cast the winner of the ‘Hello Beer Lovershhh’ picture caption competition is Robert Hermansson with this cheeky suggestion for what I’m saying to TV4′s drinks pundit Bengt Frithiofsson.

Congratulations Robert (who will be receiving an all expenses paid trip to North Coast Brewing in the US item of beery merchandise) and tough luck to Stefan, Daniel and Fabian this time around.

Another BeerSweden competition coming soon!

I love Bengt Frithiofsson, I really do.

With his gruff enthusiasm and a hairstyle you can normally only ever achieve by sleeping under a bridge for a week he lights up the TV4 studio with his regular drinks reviews, which he delivers with all the drama and spectacle of a big fight ring announcer.

A force majeure, Bengt has blazed a trail for the appreciation of wine in the country, an industry in which he is an incontestable expert.

In recent years Bengt has increasingly diversified into rating beers, and it is here that my troubles with Bengt begin.

Because although Bengt has clearly earned his wine stripes his knowledge of beer is sometimes….questionable.

Take for example his appearance on TV4′s Nyhetsmorgon last week when he shared his beer tips of the week with us. I could point to the rather odd selection of beers – three rather standard British ales and a Belgium Strong Dark Ale – that are hardly representative of the season or his opening statement about exciting beers being produced by microbreweries (Both Ruddles and Scarecrow come from breweries that have been gobbled up by large UK brewing concerns).

But that would be picky.

Let’s concentrate instead on Bengt’s analysis of one beer in particular – Brother Thelonious, a jazzy 9.4% beer from a real microbrewery, North Coast Brewing in California, USA.

Bengt’s only actual comment about the beer itself is that it has too much alcohol in it for his tastes, concluding that because of the booze he can only give it 3 out of 5 (a pretty reasonable score anyway). However if Bengt had done his homework he’d know that the word ‘strong’ in this beer’s style description specifically relates to the presence of alcohol in it.

Belgium Strong Dark Ales like Brother ‘T’ are supposed to be boozy. It goes with the territory. Don’t just take my word for it; a quick check of the BJCP guidelines (the US’s leading beer judge certification organisation) tells us that this type of beer should weigh in between 8-11% ABV and have a ”smooth but noticeable alcohol warmth”.

So it’s a bit of a shame that it gets marked down because of a characteristic that is a vital part of its DNA. It’s like dishing out a poor score for a bottle of champagne because it’s too…..bubbly.

So in a tongue-in-cheek response to Bengt I thought we should have a little competition. Just tell me what you think I am saying to Bengt in the photo above and the wittiest answer will win a beery prize (I’m not actually sure what it will be yet but details to follow).

Send your suggestions to me at darren@beersweden.se by midnight on Wednesday January 26th. You’ve got to be a resident of Sweden to win the prize, although please feel free to enter anyway wherever you live!

I’ve thought about sugar-coating this announcement but there’s really no need. BeerSweden is teaming up with Scottish brewery BrewDog to create a brand new beer exclusively for this blog!

It’s worth taking a couple of seconds to re-read that first paragraph isn’t it.

BrewDog, the maverick Scottish craft brewers of global fame responsible for such revolutionary, ground-breaking (occasionally politically incorrect) beers has agreed to brew and bottle a beer exclusively for this blog!

As if this news (which is my beery world is the equivalent to Elvis coming back from the dead, ringing me up and asking me to join him down the pub for a pint and a spot of karaoke) isn’t awesome enough here’s where things get REALLY interesting.

In a competition I’ll be running right here on this blog in the next week or so you’ll get the chance to name this one-off collaborative brew. Should your entry be chosen by myself and the BrewDog team your name will be printed for all to see on the bottle labels themselves.

Just imagine what will happen to your beer ‘cred’ if you owned a bottle of BrewDog beer with your name on it! You would truly walk as a beery god amongst men.

Only 50 litres (around 150 bottles) of this exclusive beer will ever be made. I will fly over to BrewDog in Scotland in the middle of December to help brew it (which probably means I’ll just sit there in quiet awe while Mr Dickie and Co do their thing) and then sometime in January/February those nice chaps at Cask Sweden will ship the bottles over to this country.

Then (and we’re still finalising this bit) you will hopefully be able to order the beer through ‘privat import’ on a first come, first served basis. This is assuming of course I haven’t bought it all up first!

Stay tuned to BeerSweden over the next few days for more exact details on how you can join me in creating a little bit of beery Swedish blogging history.

Exciting, isn’t it!

This short story of 499 words is my entry for a writing competition being run on Zak Avery’s excellent ‘Are You Tasting The Pith’ blog over in the UK where the theme is beer and time. Rather than relying on my normal – some might say flippant – style of writing I wanted to experiment with something a little darker, more brooding and touch on subjects many fellow bloggers might secretly relate to, even if they don’t want to admit it. After reading it you may think my ‘real life’ wife is on the brink of leaving me. This clearly isn’t the case….is it sweetheart?

I sat there alone staring at the hands of the pub clock as they swept inexorably around and wondered whether there was time for a cheeky last pint.

I was suddenly griped by an overwhelming urge to burst out laughing. After all, isn’t time all I’ve really got left since all the problems with my blog began?

It had started innocently enough a few months ago after a boozy session with Harold the pub’s resident unkempt, bearded CAMRA guy who suggested I started a beer blog.

I began by posting the occasional beer review, excited to use new words like hoppy, citrusy (even though that really isn’t a word) and malty – words stolen from the countless Ratebeer entries I hungrily consumed every day.

It wasn’t long before I was following dozens of fellow beer bloggers and my morning trawls through the ‘beerosphere’ started replacing breakfast.

The wife was amused at first, even encouraging me to pursue my new-found hobby. I swear I could see the relief on her face that someone else could now suffer my constant moans about diacetyl and cask breathers.

Over the next few months I spent more and more time feeding my blog. And the more I posted the more comments I received, every one of them an addictive ego fix, a heady rush of belonging.

Soon whole evenings were lost in front of the computer, fingers dancing over the keyboard now, commenting, tweeting, trading and endlessly checking Google Analytics.

It wasn’t long before even X-factor or Emmerdale could hide the cracks in our relationship. ”You love that bloody blog more than you love me”, she’d often shout.

Once, just to prove I didn’t, I took her for a night out to the city. Things were going fine until I saw they were having a Marble Brewery night at the Old Pithy and I had to go in and try a pint. It wasn’t until I was ordering my second that I noticed she had left.

Despite all this I was still genuinely surprised the afternoon I got home after work and stepped through the front door into an empty living room.

All that remained was a cheap pine table on which sat my computer, quietly humming. Carefully balanced on the keyboard was a handwritten note from her telling me she’d left me for Derek, the thin-lipped, greasy haired landlord from the pub in the next village. I couldn’t help smiling at the irony of it all. Only last week I’d written a review of his pub on the blog, complaining about his dirty lines.

Staring up again at the clock on the wall I notice the hands had now worked their way to 11 o’clock. The jarring sound of the bell shook me out of my thoughts.

“Time gentlemen please”, declared the bored looking barman.

Rather fitting, I thought, as I drained the last flat drop of beer from my glass, that my blog should be called just that, and headed off home alone.

(Ps: Zak – I know I’m rather flirting with your ‘No Time at the Bar’ rule but hope this story’s other references to time will help pull it through )