Some exiting beers and breweries coming to Systembolaget

15 September:
Southern Tier Hoppe 8,0% 65 cl
Southern Tier UnEarthly 11,0% 65 cl

2 November:
Haandbryggeriet Norwegian Wood 6,5% 50 cl
Haandbryggeriet Ardenne Blond 7,5% 50 cl
Mikkeller Beer Geek Brunch Weasel 10,9% 50 cl

16 November:
Nøgne Ø Underlig Jul 6,5% 50 cl
Ayinger Winter-Bock 6,7% 50 cl
Mikkeller Fra____ Till____
Three Floyd & Mikkeller Oatgoop 10,4% 65 cl
Haandbryggeriet Haandbakk 7,0% 50 cl
Haandbryggeriet Dark Force 9,0% 50 cl
Lost Abbey Judgment Day 10,5% 75 cl
Lost Abbey Inferno 8,5% 75 cl
Port Brewing Old Viscosity 10,0% 65 cl

Buy a Idjit to your home...

Just read that through the result that Brill & Co has taken over the distribution of all beers from Dugges, it also means that directly a range of the beers will be available over at Systembolaget. As a start this means;

1. Gustafs Finger
2. Bältesspännaren
3. Kals Stout

all available on 0,5l bottles.

But the most interesting news is that Mikael over at Dugges also informs that during spring 08 we can look forward for "½ Idjit!" at Systembolaget and finally in the fall we can enjoy; Idjit!.

If you have missed the talk about the Idjit! range of beers, then here is a short recap;

½ Idjit! is a porter brewed by Dugges Ale & Porterbryggeri on the west-coast of Sweden. ½ simply means that it never went the whole way up to a full Idjit, so it just became of potent port at 7.0 ABV. It comes with a darkish color with a very thick tan head, coffee, choco and with a hint of liqorice flavour. Simply a amazing beer when it has been available.

Then to double that and brew something totally crazy Dugges is also brewing the full Idjit that can be described as big Imperial Stout at ABV 16.5!. Still only available as limited test brews this beer will be stored at least six months and seems to be a beer that might come up to the level as Imperial stout beers as Närke Kaggen Stormaktsporter or Nøgne Ø Dark Horizon First Edition.

At least it has been a beer to wait for, and getting the news that we can actually buy it locally at the Systembolaget is great news, and much better than the hype with Kaggen that is a great beer but impossible to get hold of.

How about Scandinavian micros?

As an interesting reflection it seems that the times are changing in the Scandinavian beer scene, at least the tendency looks like that. What I am talking about is the fact that for years you have seen the Scandinavian micro beer scene evolve and grow steady with new Danish, Norwegian and Swedish micro breweries popping up each year.

But strangely enough it has been impossible to actually get hold off the beer between the countries. You were enjoying great new micros in Denmark but due to some reason you could not get a decent beer back home. It seemed odd by it was easier to get a great US-micro or a Belgian beer compared to you closest neighbors.

This was definitely the case between Denmark and Sweden. You have a close neighbor with great new beers but you had to pass the borders to actually get them. Why this was the case was a bit difficult to understand. Some explained that it was caused by different types of regulations, but that could not be the whole truth because why it then works for US-beers or other countries.

Others have explained that the breweries are so small so that they had to concentrate within their own market. And that is probably a big explanation, but also causes you to ask yourselves why it would be so difficult to sell a beer just a few miles between 2 cities just because we have a country border, and a country that should be so easy to export to.

The larger breweries actually instead did other varieties to the extreme where they export main street lager beers to countries like Denmark so that we the Swedes could buy them back, just because of the price. But you could not buy a great beer from the same country; just a Carlsberg and brewed in Sweden!

But then something changes.

You can not explain exactly when it actually happens, but it is small steps that you slowly notice and then suddenly something is different. What I mean is that suddenly you have seen the market to change. Not largely but at least for the better. These small changes that I have seen and has caused the market to change are as I see it;

1. Nøgne Ø being available as Christmas beer at Systembolaget in 2005\2006.

2. Also a short run of the Nøgne Øs Pale Ale an Amber ale at Systembolaget in 2006.

3. The Swedish\Danish beer match at OT in June 2007 (my blog entry), which made more people in Sweden being aware of the Danish and Swedish micro market

4. A returning sample of breweries from the beer match at Stockholm Beer in Oct 07

5. Nøgne Ø being sold by Brill & Co through Systembolaget during fall 07

6. Galatea starts to import; BB, Norrebro & Broeckhouse

Through these small steps and probably a few others that I have not seen or noticed myself you can actually get a decent micro brew from you closest neighbors.

Through Systembolaget(the Swedish Alcohol Retail Monopoly) and the so called "beställningssortimentet" you can now actually get beers from Nøgne (like; Nøgne Ø # 100!! (nr 89403)) (Brill & Co), Bryghuset Braunstein (BB), Noerrebro Bryggeri & Brøckhouse, all through Galatea.

In the better pubs like Bishops Arms, Oliver Twist (both Ølfabrikken and GB has been available after the summer) and Akkurat in Stockholm you can get the same beers.

This is not much if you actually know what is available in the micro market for each country, but it is at least something and represents a good collection of quality breweries. And if this is a trend we have something to look forward after.

I am not 100% sure but I also think that you can see the same trend in Norway and Denmark regarding Swedish beers. At least I have noticed that a brewery as Nils Oscar is available in Denmark through Ølbutikken in København and Dugges Ale- & Porterbryggeri has been available as draught version now since May 2007 over at "Den Tatoverede Enke" in Copenhagen. Dugges has actually made a special beer just for the Danish market and DTE in the form of; Enkens Brown Porter.

This is good trend and something that I think should be normal. Meaning that my personal opinion is that it should be natural to get a good micro beer from a neighborhood country and it should be no difference just because the beer is from Norway or Denmark.

Doing a comparison is that it is closer between Malmö Sweden and Copenhagen Denmark compared to Malmö and Stockholm or that it is very close between Oslo and Gothenburg.

So why should it be more difficult to get a beer from Norway in Gothenburg compared to a beer from the US or Belgium.

So now I am looking forward for some new great Norwegian micros, yes I know there are not so many out there, but those available are at least great.

So how about a beer from Haandbryggeriet in a pub close to me?

Nøgne Ø back to Sweden...

The great Norwegian brewery of Nøgne Ø will be back at the Systembolaget starting from October 1, unfortunately you have to buy 12 bottles for each beer.

But I guess it is ok for many because this is such a good brewery that you need many bottles of and you can always find a friend to share with.

Seems that almost all available types will be sold and is the first time I see the full list in a Swedish shop. Personally I look forward for the #100 brew which is a double IPA and that can always be interesting by this US-inspired Norwegian brewery.

89397 Nøgne Ø Imperial Brown Ale
89399 Nøgne Ø India Pale Ale
89401 Nøgne Ø Imperial Stout
89403 Nøgne Ø # 100
83888 Nøgne Ø Bitter
83834 Nøgne Ø Pale Ale
83841 Nøgne Ø Porter
83825 Nøgne Ø Saison
83882 Nøgne Ø Wit

Thanks to the blog of ofiltrerat for finding this great news at the Systembolaget site.

New beers from Samuel Adams

Both in November and December a couple of new beers will be sold through Systembolaget from the Samuel Adams Brewery in Boston. The beers will be provided by the reseller of Galatea. One of the beers has been available before but in very limited editions, the other two is at least new for me.

1. Samuel Adams Utopias 2007

For the bargain price of 1217 SEK, :). This beer is not brewed so often and it is seen as the most expensive and exclusive beer in the world. I have tasted the beer once at the Stockholm Beer a couple of years ago, and I would not say that it is worth its price, but it is a exiting brew, but nothing that is a favorite or on any of my top lists, frankly a bit to much. But my geek genes say that I will probably try to get a bottle anyway just because it is rare.

2. Samuel Adams Imperial Pilsner

A new american experience for me in the tradition of doing double and imperial beers of traditional European styled beers. So here we have a Imperial Pilsner, meaning double of everything compared to a normal pilsner. Loaded with tons of Hallertau Mittelfrüh-hops that raises it to amazing 110 IBUs. Comes with the moderate price of 34 SEK.

3. Samuel Adams Holiday Porter

A american porter dedicated to the christmas tables and hopefully will be found by the Swedish christmast beer community (a big thing in Sweden to buy the Christmas beers when they are all realesed on Nov 16). 16 SEK for a 355 ml bottle.

All 3 will be available at Systembolaget, but to remember the Utopia is limited to only 36 bottles (of total 12000 produced).

Some more stupidity from Sweden!

Sweden and how we look at alcohol never stops surprising me. A few weeks back I wrote about the consequences for Swedish breweries now when it is legal to buy beers through internet as long as the reseller is outside the country. The breweries can not sell directly to us, and they are too small to sell to Systembolaget (state owned shops). Instead the only option they have is to export the beers and then we can buy them back from an internet site outside the country, and probably with greatly increased prices, plus that you also have to buy with added Swedish beer taxes to the increased price.

So what about more stupidity and something that made me very angry this morning?, here is the story.

In Sweden and many other European countries that have high alcohol taxes compared to other European countries have similar problems. The problem is that people try to override the problem through buying all the alcohol outside the country or even buy smuggled beer that is pouring into the country.

The result is that people buy cheap beers that do not help the beer culture at all. And this affects the brewery industry in the country with the result that only a few large ones can remain, and they often have to go the same way for surviving, meaning that they export the beers so that the Swedes can buy them outside the border in countries like Denmark or Germany. And to make this in an economic way they try to produce the beers cheaper and quicker, which results in poorer quality during the production.

With that the brewery industry has tried to lobby for years trying to convince the Swedish parliament for creating a better situation that can help the local breweries against the cheap crappy rivals from abroad. The bigger breweries in Sweden have calculated that a 30% decrease would help them so that the beers can compete. The politics are arguing that this would mean that we would drink more. But the truth is just that you would move the market back so that we buy more beer locally in Sweden at the Systembolaget and at pubs and restaurants. I do no think that we would drink more, because for us the price is very important and that is why the abroad market has increased. And if you need to buy beer once or twice each year, I would speculate that you naturally buy more just because you try to calculate how much you need and think it is so cheap.

If you buy it locally at Systembolaget or even better at your local pub you can buy when you feel for it and with that you drink less and hopefully drink less. At least increasing the taxes and driving the market outside the country or over to the black market does not help, at least that is not the solution. It only just destroys the local brewery market in each country that tries it.

So what is then the stupidity which I am so angry about? well, here is the deal.

EU has recently settled that Sweden has different taxes for Beer and Wine, where the wine tax is higher. They then mean that Sweden as a country is executing discrimination against the wine industry in Europe compared to the local market, which is mainly the beer industry (Swedish wines is not a big market, :)).

When this decision came it was discussed that this was a blow to the Swedish alcohol regulations and that it would finally break up, and many people were so upset. The solution that was discussed that now Sweden had to decrease the wine taxes so that we get the same taxes, and the beer industry argued as mentioned before that both taxes should decrease to a more normal level.

But what happened? well the news came this morning that the government has now find a solution to the problem. Instead of decreasing the wine taxes to the same level as the beer taxes, the solution is that the beer tax is DECREASED to the same level as the wine tax. And with that the total alcohol taxes is increased, not decreased.

How stupid can it be? we do changes due to the EU rules but not in the same time look at the consequences. No, we just decrease it, and the answer back from the responsible minister is that it will have limited effect to the Swedish market.

Limited effects! The beer is pouring into the country and the market is moving to a black market which means that the Swedish brewery industry is dying. And the minister says limited effect and come with a conclusion to the problem that the solution is decreasing something that is killing a market and is driving people to drink cheap Euro lagers. Limited effects?

Seems that the Swedish politics can not try to create newer and better solutions when the feel that the old system is breaking up, no they think that they can find a solution by just keeping the system and doing strange decisions within the existing system instead. It is time for Sweden to understand that the battle is over and trying to keep the system just means that it will create very unlogic results, like;

1. More and more alcohol is bought outside the country.
2. More and more is moved to the black market.
3. Swedish breweries are dying
4. We drink more and more and concentrated to cheap beers and wine, and at home instead of good quality products at the local restaurants and pubs.
5. To buy a micro product for home consumption you have to buy it abroad through an internet site

What can you say? "OUT OUT YOU DEMONS OF STUPIDITY"...

US beers in the UK, a reflection from a Swede

I just read a article at the hop-talk blog written by maeib over at his blog; maeib's Beerblog that I thought to reflect on and try to compare it to the similar situation in Sweden.

In short the article points out 3 different reasons why there are so few US-beers available in the UK;

1. High prices compared to domestic beers.
2. US beers are seen as crap beers like Bud etc.
3. UK beer drinkers and the British palate are not compatible with the American style beers.

From a Swedish perspective you can summaries that in short we have the same situation, a few differences but in short it looks very similar.

Let’s start with pricing, as you probably know we are not trusted to buy our beers in normal shops, instead the state is controlling the sales through a monopoly situation and we can only buy the beers at our local Systembolaget. The Swedish beer tax has one single goal and that is to limit the sales as much as possible.

Otherwise the state thinks that we would drink us to death. This means that beers are expensive and the way our big breweries are trying to address this is mainly to produce beers as cheap as possible. The goal is to be able to sell beers with a moderate price so that we continue to buy them. The result of this trend is that almost 100% of all beer sales at the Systembolaget is concentrated on cheap crappy Euro lagers that mostly have the taste of the can and alcohol (we Swedes are looks for price performance regarding alcohol, so many of the favorite ones are strong beers and over 7%, which simply means that the breweries are adding alcohol to the already crappy beers and with the result that it only taste of alcohol and a touch of barley).

So you can imagine what happens to the sales of an imported beer from the US, it is simply impossible to compete, as long as we talk about the majority of the market where price performance is the only strategy.

Lets compare, one of the most popular beers simply called Svensk Starköl (Swedish Strong Beer!) comes with a price of SEK 7.60 (21.51 SEK/LIT) and then compare it to a US-import; Sierra Nevada Pale Ale SEK 22.50 (63.38 SEK/LIT). So the Swedes simply chooses the Swedish strong, simply because you can get almost 3 cans of it compared to the US-imports, they do not care that the strong beer can not be seen as a beer, just some kind of brew with alcohol added to it.

Well, now comes the message, you would think that selling US beers is useless. But that is not the case. Maeib also mentions this in his article; we will never catch the big heathens when the buy beers, but the small US-breweries that have come to the Systembolaget are actually selling a lot of beers. There is a small group of people in Sweden that is learning to drink good beers, mostly because of the available beers at our pubs.

This interest in increasing so much that small breweries in the USA is actually making money of selling beers to the Systembolaget, because you have a quite big amount of customers to sell to. This is mainly because Systembolaget is a very big buyer when they actually buy something.

As a reflection is that when Read Seal Ale at the North Coast Brewery is delivering beers to Systembolaget the whole brew that day is only for Systembolaget. The trucks are standing outside the brewery and is delivered directly and loaded to the trucks.

This now means that Systembolaget is one of the biggest buyers and is seen as a very important for a brewery on the west coast of the USA! You can imagine that when Red Seal is now sold at 100 shops in Sweden with addition of sales each month and has also spread too many local pubs that buy directly through the reseller.

This is seen as very important business for the micro breweries and has, for example BA in the USA recently reported the following in their statistics;

Recent US Craft Beer Launches in Sweden
In late 2005, North Coast’s Red Seal Ale was awarded a tender from Sweden’s retail monopoly, Systembolaget. As a result, Systembolaget has guaranteed placement for Red Seal Ale in the retailer’s top 100 stores throughout Sweden. The brand will hit the shelves in April 2006. This listing is expected to also drive sales in Sweden’s hotel and restaurant sector.

So what I am trying to say is that the US-breweries should try even further, because the markets in small countries like Sweden can be important and if you get your foot into Systembolaget it can be hit, plus that the more beers we get through Systembolaget the more our interests of such craft beers will increase.

As in GB the price is important, but with an import quality beers at the US ones this should not been seen as a problem. It is as any other quality product and imported from far places, the price will always be high, but they are not too high compared to what you actually get to drink. Myself sees it as not so expensive to buy a beer for SEK 22, because compared to the SEK 7.6 beer this such a better product and is seen as a little bargain, especially compared to buying the beer at the pub, which would probably be SEK 50-60 or similar.

How about the second thing maeb mentions; US-beer are seen as crappy beers, and the first reaction you get when you tell people that the best beer country for me is the US, not England or Belgium is that you are kidding.

The only way to change this is making people drink the beers. Because what I have seen is that if you take your friends to a pub where you can get a US beers the result very often is that they come very soon to the conclusion that this was simply great, I did not understand that a beer could be so good.

So when I have the possibility to choose a beer for someone I always tend to test a US-beer and this has resulted in the fact that next time they will test a US-beer if available (same thing if you give them a Belgian or English craft beer). And when they then go to the Systembolaget and find out that they can at least buy a bottle of Samuel Adams, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale or a Red Seal then we have suddenly succeed in getting one more to actually respect good craft beers.

So that is the idea here, get them to taste it and they will often like it. This is the same for people in the GB; as soon as you can actually get a good craft beer at your local pub, then people will actually buy it. Not the majority of people, but enough to make a market and hopefully widen what you can get at a pub in GB or Sweden.

Finally the third point that maeb is talking about. This is simply not true, same thing as in Sweden, we only like light Euro lagers and sometimes a porter or two, well if you get people to test they will almost always like it and return to better beers the next time they test it themselves.

And you are surprised when it happens and that beers seen as very difficult almost always is a hit. I remember one time when we had a company dinner with a customer around a year ago at Oliver Twist (my favorite US-beer pub in Stockholm, and the only one!); with the company card we got to the taste many of the beers from the US-beers fridge. And to my surprise the favorite one was the strongest and the hoppiest monsters like Dog fish 90 min and 120 min, plus Hops Infusion from Weyrbacher!

This dinner was talked about weeks after, and the comments I got was simply, I could not believe that a beer could be so good, that is always fun to hear. So it is not true that a palate would be built in a certain way, for example how could then the favorite beer for a person that is used with a big strong lager beer then be Dog fish 120 min!!!

The situation is not great in Sweden, but we can at least get a few beers at Systembolaget and we have several pubs that have US-micros for sales. So what can I say, we want more beers and do not be afraid to test, it can be a hit, and we will help you drink the stuff.

For reference this is the current list of US beers at Systembolaget;

Anchor Bock Beer, Anchor Christmas Ale, Anchor Steam Beer, Anchor Summer Beer, Black Jack Porter Brewer's Choice,Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout,Brooklyn Brown Ale, Brooklyn Lager, Brooklyn Local 1, Budweiser Liberty Ale, Miller, Miller Lite, Old Stock Ale, Red Seal Ale, Samuel Adams Black Lager, Samuel Adams Boston Lager, Samuel Adams Summer Ale, Samuel Adams Boston Ale 15.60 11253 Samuel Adams Octoberfest, Sawtooth Ale, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, Sierra Nevada Bigfoot.

Strange rules breaking up!

A Swedish blogger (Ofiltrerat) today wrote a great short article (in Swedish) about the result of the new EG-regulations, that means it is now legal for me as a private person ordering my own beer on internet and get it home to my door, but only if the distributor or the store I buy from is located outside the country.

That simply means that I can now order my favorite beers directly, instead of going to the Systembolaget and trying to convince them to get home what I want, also great because I can buy a bottle or two of each beer instead of buying a whole package of beers (12, 24 etc), which is the rules if you want to import through Systembolaget.

Now about the unlogic result due to the new legislations.

Swedish micros have it very hard to sell beers in their own home country to a private person and with that increase the sales, simply because it is almost impossible for a small brewery to meet the demands from Systembolaget regarding amount of beers and in what speed it should be delivered, plus that you have to compete with the rest of the crappy Euro lagers we normally drink, with only one chance to be kept. Consequences based on these rules means that the brewery often has to concentrate on a single beer for a very long time, simply because of their brewing capacity and needs to concentrate on a beer style that they believe many will like. So instead of getting more beer styles from the micro brewery we get a single beer for a while at the Systembolaget and can not get it at all through your pub during that time.

But through the new legislations it is very likely and easy for a small brewer instead exporting the beer to a beer shop or similar, and then I can order it from there legally, but I can not buy it at home, except at a good pub, which is normally located in the 3 or 4 big cities in the country. So we in Stockholm or Gothenburg can have the beer at a few pubs, but the rest of the country has to live with the beer sold at the Systembolaget if the want something better than lager beers from the giants. Is that not discrimination, or what?

This is stupid and something that can not continue, what is the logic that a small brewery has to export the beer and then sell it back to the country through a legal internet site?, just because they want to expand the sales and not be dependant on a few good pubs throughout the country, but mainly to the big cities, and through that trying to survive.

I am wondering how long this will last and how long it will take the government in Sweden to understand that it is too late to stop us to buy the beers back home in a local store instead of having a monopoly selling beers.

This does not only concerns micro beers, it will be even larger when our big breweries realizes that they can export the beers and then people can buy them online, they have the resources that the small ones do not have, so I do not see how this can be stopped.

And this is great!, but it seems that it will take a while longer before things will change and Sweden will realize the stupidity (in the time of environment concerns) that a micro brewery is exporting beer with trucks to Denmark and then sold to be driven back with trucks to the beer geeks in Sweden.

I know that all countries has strange rules about selling beers (like the US, where each state seems to have their own rules), but this must be one of the most stupid rules that you can invent, and simply the result of an old system that does not work anymore.