Best beers in Norway and Sweden?

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FatsSchindee

FatsSchindee

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Hey all,
I'm traveling to Stockholm, Trondheim, Bergen, and Oslo in the next couple weeks...
Any must-have local beers I should try while I'm there? Some long-lost cousins brew their own beer at a place called Teveltunet, where we're staying for a few days (east of Trondheim near the Swedish border), so I'm looking forward to trying their brews!
But other than that, the only craft beer I've heard of from there is Nøgne (which I plan on trying, of course). But I've heard beer is expensive there (along with everything else!), so I'd like to spend my $$ wisely.

Thanks for any advice... Skål!
 
I second Josh, my favorite is Ægir in Flåm, I have enjoyed every beer from them with the exception of their Jul øl (Christmas beer), love their IPA. If you are driving it’s a wonderful and scenic destination to pass through. A close second would be Lervig Aktiebryggeri out of Stavanger. Love their Lucky Jack, great session pale ale. The Betty Brown is a good brown ale with a nice hop note to it. (both can be found at grocery stores, more on that later) Nøgne is everywhere and the easiest to find.

A couple words on where to buy beer. You will not find that many places with a big tap selection, most places (bars and restaurants) will have microbrew in bottles except for the breweries themselves or some of the largest pubs in big cities. I am in Olso and it is still mostly bottles.

Yes it is a pricy country and alcohol especially. Bars will be 1,5 to 2 times the price of a beer at the Vinmonopolet (literally translated to wine monopoly). If you want to make your buck go further, buy bottles at the government wine and booze store, Vinmonopolet, as opposed to bars. (this goes for Sweden too, and the prices are better and more selection) FYI all of the beer in the grocery store by law cannot be over 4.75% alcohol by vol. Thus for bigger styles such as an IPA, to get what the brewer truly wants you to drink, it’s sold in the Vinmonopolet. The stuff in the grocery stores may say IPA, but is of course not true to style, but brewed to fit the law.

Lastly, grocery stores stop selling alcohol at 8pm on weekdays, 6pm on Saturdays, and none on Sundays.

Beer selection and price in Norway is the reason I started home brewing in the first place, so it’s not the ultimate beer destination, but has some good offerings while you are here. Enjoy your trip to Scandinavia, it’s absolutely beautiful and filled with friendly people.
 
Takk, iJosh og Plainer! Jeg vil prøve å drikke noen av dette øler... (I hope that's close to right - I'm just learning). ;)

That's good advice about the Vinmonopolet, too... Thanks for the heads up!
Leaving tomorrow... Excited for the two weeks away!
 
Akkurat is a great bar in Stockholm, with a huge selection. Mikkeller is good aswell, 20 taps that change often. Omnipollo is pretty hyped right now, I haven't been that impressed, but they're really popular. My favourite local brewery is called Pang Pang and resides in Hökarängen, a suburb to Stockholm. Enjoy your trip!
 
I flew over on SAS (am standing in baggage claim in Arlanda right now, waiting on my luggage), and they had a couple Mikkeller beers in bottles on the plane, that he brews just for them, I guess. I had the red lager, and it was pretty tasty.

We're staying in Sodermalm, and I saw Akkurat in the guidebook - not too far away! Definitely going to try to swing by at some point...

Thanks for the info!
 
If you're staying in Söder, you have to go to Akkurat! Oliver Twist can be ok, it's very close to Akkurat, and so is Omnipollos hatt, they have nice pizzas. Katarina ölkafé focuses on swedish craft beer, which means that quality varies a bit but they have decent sandwiches.
 
Plainer said:
I second Josh, my favorite is Ægir in Flåm, I have enjoyed every beer from them with the exception of their Jul øl (Christmas beer), love their IPA. If you are driving it’s a wonderful and scenic destination to pass through. A close second would be Lervig Aktiebryggeri out of Stavanger. Love their Lucky Jack, great session pale ale. The Betty Brown is a good brown ale with a nice hop note to it. (both can be found at grocery stores, more on that later) Nøgne is everywhere and the easiest to find.

A couple words on where to buy beer. You will not find that many places with a big tap selection, most places (bars and restaurants) will have microbrew in bottles except for the breweries themselves or some of the largest pubs in big cities. I am in Olso and it is still mostly bottles.

Yes it is a pricy country and alcohol especially. Bars will be 1,5 to 2 times the price of a beer at the Vinmonopolet (literally translated to wine monopoly). If you want to make your buck go further, buy bottles at the government wine and booze store, Vinmonopolet, as opposed to bars. (this goes for Sweden too, and the prices are better and more selection) FYI all of the beer in the grocery store by law cannot be over 4.75% alcohol by vol. Thus for bigger styles such as an IPA, to get what the brewer truly wants you to drink, it’s sold in the Vinmonopolet. The stuff in the grocery stores may say IPA, but is of course not true to style, but brewed to fit the law.

Lastly, grocery stores stop selling alcohol at 8pm on weekdays, 6pm on Saturdays, and none on Sundays.

Beer selection and price in Norway is the reason I started home brewing in the first place, so it’s not the ultimate beer destination, but has some good offerings while you are here. Enjoy your trip to Scandinavia, it’s absolutely beautiful and filled with friendly people.
Click to expand...

good advice about purchasing alcohol here. i started homebrewing for the same reason.

don't waste your money on Nøgne Ø. they're not bad or anything, they're just not really good. I don't buy any of theirs anymore. Ægir is probably the best brewery in Norway. They brew tons of styles and all of them are pretty good examples of that style. I would personally also not waste my money on Lervig. The only one of theirs that's good is the berliner weisse. My number two brewery in Norway would have to be Kinn. They come in big bottles and all have creative labels and names. They have tons of different styles like Ægir, but I feel like they're a bit more experimental and not focusing on hitting specific style guidelines. You can get good beers from both of those breweries in two grocery stores, ICA and Meny, and although they are only 4.7% they are still good beers. Then you can get both of those in Vinmonopolet as well. You will find different beers in Polet (what people actually call it here, and i'm sure you'll impress them by calling it that) than you will find in ICA and Meny, so be sure two check all three locations. But as far as Polet goes, you want to try to find a bigger one in a mall or something, the littler ones seem to not have much of a selection for beer.
 
Well, I live in the exact oposite corner of Sweden from Stockholm, so I sit down in Malmö. I personally like most of what Omnipollo does and love some. Big fan of Yellow Belly and Noa Pecan Mud Cake for example, both amazing stouts to me. Their Fatamorgana IIPA is also one I really dig. Sides that they do the Magic Number series which is fruit IPA with for example vanilla, lactose, and strawberry.
So I personally would drop by their Hut and see what I on atm.

Sides that Akkurat has the reputation of being the best beer bar in Sweden. Lots of good stuff to be found there.

Mikkeller makes a lot of amazing beer, but he makes so many that some are also a bit of a miss. Checking ratebeer and such can help.

What I recommend is Brekeriet, the Swedish sour masters from Malmö. Wide range, crazy ideas, and a lot of delicious stuff. A bottle of their Cassis is extremely hard to come by, but many people would say worth it.

Not very expensive and up and coming is Brewsky, also from the south. Their Fever series of fruit infused beers is quite tasty.

For Norway, well there it gets really bloody expensive. Nogne is good, but outside of their special brews often not quite worth the steep price. Were they not Norwegian they´d be much more worth. Lervig is a good choice however.

Dropping by the Swedish liquor store, Systembolaget, can be worth it to sample a lot of local stuff and save some dough compared to the bars. There you can get good local bottles like Brewsky for like 4 bucks for example.

A Danish favorite often available in Sweden is also Amager. Lot of great brews, like their RIS Hr. Frederikssen, and especially nice IPAs. Their Batch 1000 fresh is really nice. They do, in my humble mind, the best IPAs in the north on average.
 
joshesmusica said:
Even if nøgne was somehow cheaper, I still wouldn't waste my money on averageness, and the same goes for lervig...
Click to expand...

I agree with you on the Nøgne, It says a lot when the originator and brewmaster left over its current and future averageness. I will even add that is not their “average” beers that bother me most, but beers like the #100 and #500 just don’t hit me right.

You have some high standards overall in a country where selection of outstanding craft beer is small. Nothing wrong with that. I like the offerings from Lervig for what they are, but if I was back in my hometown Bevmo or even Safeway for that matter, you can bet I would never be purchasing Lervig (if they were there) over the pile of other options. So I guess for this recommendation to sample the best of Norwegian offerings I see why you push it off the table.

Total thread hack here, Where do you buy your homebrew ingredients in Stavanger? I buy my stuff through Bryggselv and see they have opened in your area.
 
Yeah they've been open here ever since I've lived here (a year now). The guys are real nice. The only bad thing is there's no brew club in the area at all. Sometimes the guys give me answers to questions that I either know right off that it's wrong, or find out later after taking their advice. But since it's such a big chain it has really good availability. So overall I'm satisfied with their service. I just go in there knowing exactly what I'm looking for now.
 
When I was in Stockholm almost two years ago, the sad thing was that we ended up at a British pub the first night, and at Brew Dog the second night. Not much of a local flair. Although in between starting the evening at the British pub and ending the evening at the British pub, we went to a local restaurant and I got to eat reindeer. So that was nice...
 
joshesmusica said:
Yeah they've been open here ever since I've lived here (a year now). The guys are real nice. The only bad thing is there's no brew club in the area at all. Sometimes the guys give me answers to questions that I either know right off that it's wrong, or find out later after taking their advice. But since it's such a big chain it has really good availability. So overall I'm satisfied with their service. I just go in there knowing exactly what I'm looking for now.
Click to expand...

My experience with them is the same. I place my orders online, then just go pick it all up.
There are some homebrew clubs around here, but I have not taken the time as brewing is a bit of a side hobby for me. I just get my friends and coworkers to drink my beer and give me feedback. Oh, and the internet helps.
 
I forgot to add my favorite Nogne O beer. I know we have discussed them a lot and yes, overall they have dropped, but I do think that the Red Horizon is a wonderful beer and experience. It´s a ca. 17% imp stout fermented with Sake yeast. Just something else. Probably since nobody else has ever done something like it to my knowledge. Awesome brew imho.
 
Plainer said:
I second Josh, my favorite is Ægir in Flåm, I have enjoyed every beer from them with the exception of their Jul øl (Christmas beer), love their IPA. If you are driving it’s a wonderful and scenic destination to pass through. A close second would be Lervig Aktiebryggeri out of Stavanger. Love their Lucky Jack, great session pale ale. The Betty Brown is a good brown ale with a nice hop note to it. (both can be found at grocery stores, more on that later) Nøgne is everywhere and the easiest to find.

A couple words on where to buy beer. You will not find that many places with a big tap selection, most places (bars and restaurants) will have microbrew in bottles except for the breweries themselves or some of the largest pubs in big cities. I am in Olso and it is still mostly bottles.

Yes it is a pricy country and alcohol especially. Bars will be 1,5 to 2 times the price of a beer at the Vinmonopolet (literally translated to wine monopoly). If you want to make your buck go further, buy bottles at the government wine and booze store, Vinmonopolet, as opposed to bars. (this goes for Sweden too, and the prices are better and more selection) FYI all of the beer in the grocery store by law cannot be over 4.75% alcohol by vol. Thus for bigger styles such as an IPA, to get what the brewer truly wants you to drink, it’s sold in the Vinmonopolet. The stuff in the grocery stores may say IPA, but is of course not true to style, but brewed to fit the law.

Lastly, grocery stores stop selling alcohol at 8pm on weekdays, 6pm on Saturdays, and none on Sundays.

Beer selection and price in Norway is the reason I started home brewing in the first place, so it’s not the ultimate beer destination, but has some good offerings while you are here. Enjoy your trip to Scandinavia, it’s absolutely beautiful and filled with friendly people.
Click to expand...


Aegir is my favorite Norwegian beer! Had it in Oslo and Kristiansand.
 
I was there for a short trip, didn't get to try so much but out of all the Nogne ones I tasted the 500 batch was by far the best for me
 

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