Time, as they say,  certainly does fly when you’re having fun! It’s been a little under 9 months since BeerSweden quietly arrived on the Swedish beer blogging scene. Now, 300 posts later, I’m proud to say we’re well on the way to creating the most exciting – and definitely the smartest and most attractive – online community of beer enthusiasts in this country!

It’s been one hell of a ride so far hasn’t it? Interviews with brewing stars, Beer is Art, brewery visits, BeerSweden TV, live Facebook tastings, competitions, volcanoes and exclusive tastings are just some of the beery highlights of the last nine months that spring immediately to mind.

But don’t for one minute think we’re sitting back with a cold beer and our feet on the table here at BS HQ – far from it! We’re looking forward to creating a heap of original new content and of finding new, ground-breaking ways of exploring the exciting world of beer in this country.

Of course none of this could have not been possible without all of you who follow this blog day in, week out. It’s your comments and enthusiasm that fuel this site so a massive beers and cheers to each and every one of you (yes, even you lurkers!)

One of the my main ambitions with BeerSweden has been to make it as interactive as possible – to give you the opportunity to get involved in beer in a very real way. I can’t think of a better example of this than earlier this week when Swedish microbrewery Sigtuna Brygghus gave the BeerSweden community the chance to vote for its favourite label design for its upcoming Black October beer.

The results are now in and are as follows: (a) got just 7% of the votes, (c) polled a respectable 32% but the winner and the label you’ll all be seeing on bottles of Sigtuna Black October come September is (b) with 61% of the total votes.

Thanks to everyone who voted!

Just a reminder that later on tonight (Wednesday) at 8pm BeerSweden together with Sigtuna Brygghus is going to conduct the first ever simultaneous national beer tasting live on BeerSweden’s Facebook page.

It all sounds a little complicated but in reality it’s pretty straight forward. Right now there are two unmarked bottles of Sigtuna beer chilling out in the fridges of five members of the BeerSweden community located all across Sweden. At 8pm tonight we will all simultaneously open one bottle after the other and post our immediate thoughts on what we think of the beer via this blog’s Facebook page.

According to our research it’s the first time such an online tasting has been done in this country and it’s certain be a lot of fun, so be sure to tune in at 8pm to see whether we all agree on what we think about these beers!

I happen to know that one of the two beers we’ll be trying is this year’s Sigtuna Black October which will be launched at the Systembolaget in the Autumn. But as if getting to try the beer months before it goes on sale isn’t enough Sigtuna Brygghus is also giving followers of BeerSweden the awesome responsibility of choosing the new label design for this beer!

Here are three ‘never-been-seen-before’ front label artwork alternatives for this year’s Sigtuna Black October. You now have a little over 24 hours to decide which one is your favourite and post your choice (of A,B or C) as a comment on the BeerSweden Facebook page or under this article. When the results are added up tomorrow night the design with the most votes will be submitted to the Systembolaget for approval next week and will be the one seen on the shelves come the Autumn.

It’s your chance to get actively involved and help support one of Sweden’s most exciting craft brewers so be sure to join us later tonight to check out the live tasting and to cast your vote for your favourite label design.

Cheers and Beers!

Darren

(here’s a link to a slightly more hi-res picture of the label designs if you want a closer look. Worth noting that the yellow colour shown here will be gold and the white detail will be silver in the final design).

I’ve spent the morning sifting though tasting notes sent in to me by BeerSweden readers all wanting to be a part of a Swedish beer blogging first by joining me for a ‘live’ Facebook tasting of two beers especially released just for us by those nice chaps at Sigtuna Brygghus.

After much deliberation and plenty of laughs I have finally managed to whittle it down to the final five. Three of the chosen ‘jury’ run and write their own Swedish beer blogs (so I suppose you could claim they had an unfair advantage….) and the other two are die-hard BeerSweden fans and regular commenters over at BeerSweden’s Facebook page.

So here, without further ado, are the five chosen panellists for the first ever BeerSweden Facebook Live Tasting:

Pelle Stridh – long-time (and I mean long-time) beer activist and evangelist and the man behind the Allt om Öl and Humulus Lupulus websites

Carl Ralph – one half of the dynamic duo from the respected Swedish beer blog Schnille och Schmak.

Johan Lenner – a relative newcomer to the Swedish beer blogging scene (can I say that as someone who has only been blogging for half a year…..?) with his food and beer-orientated site Portersteken.

Anders Thomas – A loyal BeerSweden fan who submitted his entry within 15 seconds of me posting details of this tasting on Facebook. Such lightening reactions deserve recognition!

Carl Ljungberg – Another BeerSweden follower whose tasting notes of Sailor Premium Lager had me in stitches (”an after-taste that left me feeling sea-sick” being a highlight).

Congratulations to those of you who are going to get the opportunity to try some pretty special Sigtuna beers very soon and a big thank you to all of you who took the time to send in your entries.

As an aside I note that I didn’t receive a single entry written by a woman. This is a shame because not only do I happen to know that over 20% of BeerSweden’s Facebook fans are from the fairer sex but it’s also a pretty well known fact that women generally have a better sense of taste than men. Remember that beer is an equal opportunities drink ladies so please get involved next time!

I’ll be posting details of the exact date and time of this unique Facebook live tasting a little closer to the time – so watch this space!

By now you know that BeerSweden loves to try doing things a little……..differently.

Here we like doing things fast and we like doing them first, which is why I’m really excited (and I mean jumping up and down can barely control my bodily functions excited) to announce yet another game-changing premier – Sweden’s first ever national live Facebook beer tasting!

Huh?? I can almost hear some of you saying? Here’s a little background.

Those of you who are regular followers of BeerSweden’s fanpage over at Facebook (and if you’re not, what’s keeping you?) will know that I have held a couple of completely spontaneous ‘live’ beer tastings there, updating the page as I go along and posting my initial thoughts and feelings live, raw and uncut.

It’s always great fun to do and the feedback from doing these tastings has been so positive that we’re now going to take the concept to a whole new level.

BeerSweden can reveal today that it is hooking up with one of Sweden’s most exciting microbreweries Sigtuna Brygghus to conduct the country’s first national simultaneous beer tasting via Facebook. Here’s how it’s going to work.

Sigtuna has agreed to send out 2 exclusive bottles of beer to five people nominated by BeerSweden to take part in this ground-breaking tasting. These beers are totally different from each other and are not due for release until after the SUMMER! That’s right people, you could be tasting these two beers MONTHS before anyone else can get hold of them. This is without doubt the beery scoop of 2010!

I’m going to keep you guessing as to what these two beers are for now but the idea is that on a date towards the end of May (as yet to be decided) the five lucky five beer tasters and myself will simultaneously open these bottles and conduct a live tasting via BeerSweden’s Facebook fanpage.

Sound amazing? Want to be a part of Swedish beer blogging history?

To stand a chance of being one of the lucky five tasters just write some tastings notes about your favourite beer in 50 words or less and send it to me at darren@beersweden.se. You can write in either English or Swedish and it can be as straightforward or as amusing as you like. Bear in mind though that what I’m looking for are creative ways to describe beer rather than the normal ”it’s brown with a white head” stuff.

The five most imaginative entries will be chosen and have the beers sent to them in the next couple of weeks.

This competition is open until midnight this Sunday (26th April) and the judges decision (that’s basically me) is final.

Good luck everyone!

BeerSweden Darren

(ps: this competition is only open to people living in Sweden)

Forget the missed brewery trips, the travel chaos and the volcanic ash cloud.

Never mind it’s April and it’s still snowing, that you’re already behind on your beach 2010 training regime or that Princess Madeleine has clearly called things off with her fiancé but is still not returning your calls .

None of that matters because today I collected a little bit of summer in a box from the post office sent by those nice chaps at Sigtuna Brygghus.

Expect the first exclusive reviews of these exciting new beers right here shortly!