If we overlook all the Americans who moved to Europe and started brewing American-inspired beers there, which already-existing American craft brewery will be the first to open its own European brewing facility?
Devon, Cornwall’s nearest English neighbor, has its legend of White Ale. Was there a similarly exotic indigenous beer style in Cornwall. Naturally, mentions of a mysterious brew known as “swanky” among lists of Cornish recipes online, generated considerable excitement.
Taking time off to travel allows brewers to escape the comfort zone of their local brewing scene. Countless possibilities await those willing to expand their worldview for the sake of professional development, whether it’s a state or a continent away.
Berliner Weisse entered the twentieth century in robust health. New-fangled lager beers had dented its popularity a little, but it remained one of the city’s favorite styles. That was to change as the century progressed, and its popularity slowly declined.
Like all styles that have been around for more than five minutes, Berliner Weisse has undergone several transformations, adapting to technological, political and social change. It’s currently in a very sad state in Germany, hanging on by a thread. Only one version, Kindl, is made in any quantity.
In the second half of the 19th century the types of beer brewed in Sweden changed radically. The original, purely indigenous styles were gradually swept away by imports from elsewhere, and Sweden was very early to jump on the lager train.
The increasing number of US breweries establishing themselves in Europe indicates American beer’s surging popularity overseas. In Copenhagen, White Labs will share a space with WarPigs brewpub, the joint venture between Mikkeller and 3 Floyds, in the city’s meatpacking district.
Mikkel Borg Bjergso, the founder, owner and CEO of Denmark’s Mikkeller brewery, and a self-proclaimed “gypsy brewer” who has always used another brewery’s facilities has finally decided to establish not one, but two brewing locations of his own.
Since 2009 Galway Bay has grown from supplying one bar with two beers to supplying nine bars in Galway and Dublin. Much of this success can be traced back to 2012, when the partners hired a 21-year-old biotechnology graduate with no professional brewing experience.
A fire at Hof ten Dormaal brewery in Tildonk, Belgium, destroyed the company’s warming chamber, bottling line and product stock. No one was injured, but the damages halted operations at the farmhouse brewery, which the Janssens family has run since founding it in 2009.
Italy, one of the world’s top wine producers, is experiencing a beer explosion. And after nearly 3,000 years, Rome has finally become a town for beer drinkers, too as enotecas reluctantly yield room to beer bars and bottle shops.
Every hue of IPA and dozens of Stout sub-types are recognized in style guidelines, but Czech beer is reduced to “Bohemian Pilsner,” a name that would leave a Czech drinker scratching his head. Meanwhile, the country is awash with an array of lager styles, more than anywhere else in the world.
Bruges’ De Halve Maan brewery will soon build an underground pipeline to move beer. Once operational, the pipeline will transport over 4 million liters (roughly 34,000 barrels) of beer per year to a nearby bottling plant.
The Netherlands is now home to upwards of 225 breweries; in 2013 alone some 60 new microbreweries launched, many of which are contract brewers. Amsterdam is certainly at the forefront of this Dutch renaissance.
Brevnovský Pivovar has an annual production of about 2,500 barrels. Most of that is its Pale Lager, but it also makes an Imperial Stout, a Baltic Porter and an IPA, all rarities in lager-loving central Europe. For the moment, however, none of the brewery’s beers are regularly exported out of the Czech Republic.
Reporter Cecilia Rodriguez wrote in a Forbes.com article that in order to hold a Trappist label, a beer must be brewed under the supervision of monks. With the number of monks at Orval down to 12, she claims the abbey is jeopardizing its Trappist designation. Orval’s François de Harenne offers his response.
No, Sommerbier and Winterbier are not seasonal specials. At least not in the sense you’re thinking. They’re two of the earliest lager styles, now almost completely forgotten, though traces of them remain.
Even though small-batch beer holds only about 1 percent by volume of today’s German beer market, the legacy of handmade beer has endured years of macrobrewery consolidation and is finally coming out on the other side.
Austrian taste buds tend to stick to the classics, such as the light lager (Helles), dark lager (Dunkles) and the Märzen, known elsewhere as Oktoberfest beer. Yet diversity is dawning on the Alpine horizon. Rye beers, American Pale Ales and IPAs, Porters, and Stouts are slowly nudging their way into the market.
In Catalonia, the nationality within Spain that comprises the provinces of Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Tarragona, we discovered a nascent brewing scene in and around Barcelona, still very much under the radar.
Dutch beer culture has always lived in the shadow of the more flavorful Dubbels and Tripels from its famous neighbors. But over the last 10 years, there’s been a dramatic surge in small brewers and adventurous consumers in the Netherlands.
There were many parallels between the circumstances in Britain and Holland in the early years of World War II. Raw materials were getting scarcer, and the strength of beer was falling. There were also limitations on the types of beer brewed. Drinkers couldn’t always get what they wanted.
Despite the economic woes, 2012 is going to see large increases in export sales of small-scale craft beers from producers in Australasia, South America and the European “new wave,” as well as from North America.
