I (f*cking) made it is not just the name of one of our new beers, but also something a lot of students and final year scholars have been saying in the last two weeks here in Sweden, as some of them finished years of school whilst others their university studies. To all of you we say good luck. You (f’cking) made it.
Sweden is a country with great traditions, and why should finishing school be any different. Since the 1980s and especially after the university reforms in the 1990s, when vocational training was three years having previously been two, as well as it becoming easier to obtain large quantities of strong drink, the graduation celebrations have increased, and became more and more public and, in part, localised to the streets.
By Einarspetz (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
The weather in Gothenburg particularly doesn’t always play along, but who cares if you’ve just finished school right?
In addition, with fewer and fewer young people in Sweden being confirmed or doing military service, the graduation celebrations seems to have become an important rite of passage. Which is why a lot of these parties include elements of singing, dancing, waving and shouting.
In many instances there’s an arranged student cortege or ”student train”. The cortege can consist of tractors with trailers, cars, motorcycles or ”student trucks”. Often adorned the floats with birch twigs, balloons and sheets with texts, slogans or the class name.
It is also common for a student reception held in the home of each student.
And this is where we, together with our friends at Haket in Gothenburg brewed a Dry Hopped Pils to celebrate their daughter, Nicole, finishing school. That’s why you can see Henrik and Axel walking down the road yesterday, as we were on our way to just such a home welcoming festival. But honestly, it’s not often we take a keg of beer with us.
It is our hope that a lot of people will be able to try this beer, and even just for a moment, think about what you have achieved, and say to yourself I (f*cking) made it.
As part of our way of sharing the excitement of having a canning line, we’re going to be posting some video on our YouTube channel and on our blog, just to show some parts of the process of canning beer. In this clip, you can see the can being filled with CO2, then beer, then a cap, just before moving on to be sealed. In this case it is cans of Bobek Citra, our American Pale Ale.
Moving into summer one would think it’ll all be just about Pale Ales and IPAs, or even a Berliner thrown into the mix. And yes, that is true. But some beer needs to spend some time in the bottle to settle. That beer is Eternal Darkness, and if you want to talk about a long brew day, then that would be a good starting point. We brewed this beer now, so that it’ll be ready once the seasons turn again, because as the label says: ”The winter nights in Sweden are long, dark and cold. We created this beer to keep you company through those hours of eternal darkness.”
Along with ”I (f*cking) made it, which we released yesterday, we’ve also released the bottles of ”Sally the Saler”, our kettle soured Saison.
Next week we have a surprise release of a new IPA. And no, it’s not called ”Say my name, say my name”.
In March we had our third birthday, and as part of my personal journey into this beer world, having come from Cape Town and drinking wine, is to find aged beer. Yes indeed, beer can age. Now granted, we’re only three and a bit years old, but I’ve been going around to some of our regular customers to see which of our first beers they might still have in stock.
Last week Thursday on our way home, Richard and I stumbled onto the first Barley Wine we brewed, the ”Brewer’s Edition 2013”. It was beer #26, and if you understand, we’ve just brewed #160, so it feels older than the three years. On the label it says: ”We have combined a complex hop profile including a first wort, and a rich malt body to create a beer that is nice now but is designed to age.” In my opinion, it has aged well, but maybe not our best try. We’ll apologise now for not telling where these beers are, because then there’ll be none left for us 😉
With all of that said, we wish you all a good weekend. And if you’re Swedish, enjoy the long weekend and the Swedish National Day on Monday.
Cheers from us.
#FreshestCanInTheLand #Competition
Compete in our freshest can in the land competition and stand a chance to win tickets to the All in Beer Festival.
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Festivals
All in Beer Festival 4-5 November 2016
One of our favourite festivals is the All In Beer Fest. The reason? It’s just about beer.
We’ll be attending again this year, but if you’d like to attend, then there’s two ways to go about it. Buy a ticket, or enter our #FreshestCanInTheLand competition, where you stand the chance to win two entrance tickets.
Finding our beers in Sweden
Systembolaget
Have a look at our Systembolaget page, where you’ll find a map that features the stores that have our beers on their shelves. If you live in other parts of Sweden, then you can follow this link to order the beers directly from Systembolaget.se to your closest store.
Folköl (Low ABV Beers)
Visit our Folköl page if you’d like to find out which Stores & Supermarkets, such as ICA & Hemköp stock our low ABV or “folköl” across Sweden.
You can also follow us on Instagram
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