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 4th 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.
This just in from Thomas ‘Mr Bing’ Bingebo from Ocean Brewery (Oceanbryggeriet) in Gothenburg:
