Sigtuna's Brewmaster Mattias Hammenlind with one of the brewery's founders Lars Landeman looking on. Foto: Helena Havlund: www.vinochgastronomi.se

Under the flight path of planes landing at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport lies Sigtuna Brygghus, one of a new wave of microbreweries taking off in Sweden right now.

Brewmaster Mattias Hammenlind is the man who’s ‘heavy metal’ approach to brewing has helped create a new buzz around Sigtuna which has seen sales soar and a clutch of new brands launched at the monopoly stores.

”Good beer should be mashed in with AC/DC playing in your headphones”, says Mattias. BeerSweden couldn’t agree more, so we’re rocking out with the second in our ’5 Questions’ series to Metal Head Matt Hammenlind, Brewmaster at Sigtuna Brygghus.

BeerSweden: I’ve searched around the internet but couldn’t find much about your brewery’s history. Can you tell us how it all began and the people behind Sigtuna Brygghus?

Mattias: The story about Sigtuna Brygghus began in 2005 when a couple of beer enthusiasts/homebrewers/beer geeks got together and decided to start a brewery. For years the brewery was a hobby for them but in 2009 they decided to take it a step forward. I started working here as a Brewmaster in January 2009 and we have since then hired one more person full-time and tripled our production from 35000 litres to 100000 litres of beer. The brewery still relies on hard-working part owners that work several hours a week for free.

BeerSweden: What is your beer philosophy at Sigtuna Brygghus. Where do you get your brewing inspiration from?

Mattias: Great Britain for their brewing tradition and American microbreweries for their innovation and boldness.

BeerSweden: What would you say are the biggest changes in the Swedish micro-brewing scene over the past 5 years?

Mattias: The amount of breweries and the will to make ”out of style” beers.

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BeerSweden: That’s the past. How do you see the future of beer in Sweden developing over the next few years?

Mattias: I think will see more microbreweries starting up in Sweden and I think people in general will appreciate ”craft beer” more and more. Hopefully in the future people will stop drinking fizzy yellow ”beer” that is more comparable to tap water than real beer.

BeerSweden: Finally congratulations on two new releases at the Systembolaget (Snowblind Strong Ale and Midvinternattens Mörker) in the past month. Have you got any new beers or plans in the pipeline you can tell us about?

Mattias: There´s always beer in the pipeline! We got three releases at the Systembolaget next year (so far…); two easter ales, Sigtuna Röd Påsk and Sigtuna Easter Ale. Then in February our weissbier, Sigtuna Vårweizen will be released. In January there will be a collaboration between me and the Brewmaster at another European brewery. We´re making what we think will be a really exciting beer. I´ll tell you more when we finished the details.

***News Flash***

From Mattias posted on Facebook today: ”Sigtuna Brygghus+ Nørrebro Bryghus=Yeah! Den 21 Januari kommer jag att göra ett gästbrygg på Nørrebro Bryghus tillsammans med deras bryggmästare Anders Kissmeyer. Vad vi kommer att brygga håller vi hemligt ett tag, men att det blir nåt spännande kan jag garantera…”

See all of Sigtuna’s beers available at the Systembolaget here.