Notes From Norway
[Oslo] Standing in front of the taplist at Brygg in central Oslo, you might mistake it for a pub in Ohio. Lots of hazies and other IPAs, some barrel-aged stouts, assorted pales. They even have Guinness. After a few days in Norway, one brewery tour, and three sessions at the Oslo Craft Beer Festival—my reason for coming—I can tell you we’re not in Ohio anymore. In a few days, I should have a report about kveik and the farmhouse brewing for which Norway is famous among yeast nerds, but today I wanted to mention what the craft scene is like.
The Amerikansk Influence
Craft beer is only 20 years old here, and the people I spoke to pegged it at 3-5% of the market. That’s less than a quarter of the US craft segment, but it’s misleading. Most Americans drink “craft” beer (something other than mass market lagers) at least occasionally. Consequently, Americans have achieved a level of general knowledge. That doesn’t seem to be the case in Norway. It’s still a niche product, and the market seems about like it was in the US in the mid-1990s.
Much as American breweries recreated beers from Europe in the early years, Norwegians have imported both the US craft brewery model and also our styles. Yet if you go back to that Brygg taplist, you begin to notice the gaps. Just one lager, no Belgian- or British-derived styles, no non-hazy IPAs. Indeed, breweries seem to focus narrowly on the “Untappd” styles—pastry stouts, smoothie and fruited kettle sours, and hazy IPAs. Many people were in fact using Untappd at the festival, and breweries spoke of it often. Those styles drive the same kind of drinkers in the US, but the difference is that in America they are dwarfed by the number of “regular” craft drinkers.
We go through different developmental stages, and the first one is imitation. Norway has yet to find what they like on their own terms. I expected farmhouse brewing and especially kveik to be quite visible, yet it’s not. In fact, when people at the beer fest asked me about my plans for Norway and I mentioned Voss, 80% of them had never heard of the farmhouse tradition there. (They usually exclaimed in appreciation for my choice; apparently it’s a beautiful place. I write this on the train taking me there, so I’ll let you know.)
On the other hand, I’ve been impressed with the beer in general. The brewers I’ve spoken to have been slightly dismissive of the quality of Norwegian craft beer, but I haven’t seen any evidence of that. The beer I’ve tried has been excellent.
A Tender Situation
Beer laws are always weird, but Norway’s are especially so. I think the draft side is fairly familiar, though a few companies akin to distributors control a lot of the market, making it hard for little players to gain access. But it’s the packaged stuff where the system is really strange.
Breweries can sell beer under 4.7% at grocery stores. If it’s stronger, it has to go through a state-owned monopoly called—truth in advertising!—Vinmonopolet (“wine monopoly”). Sources seemed to differ on the number, but there are just 300-400 stores throughout the country where these beers can be sold. You can’t just call up your local vinmonopolet and ask if they want your latest IPA, though.
The vinmonopolet strictly controls their inventory. Each year, they identify a certain number of styles. When new ones come up, they offer a “tender”—kind of like a job opening in which breweries send beer in that style for consideration. The vinmonopolet has a tasting panel, and they rate all the beers. The best ones get listed, and a brewery then has to be able to supply all the stores with that beer. Some of the categories have year-long tenders and others are temporary, to spice up the selection on the shelves.
Since the products are tasted blind, little breweries enter the competition on equal footing with giants like Heineken. It strikes me as classically Scandinavian: fair, bureaucratic, and egalitarian. In some countries such a system would be rife with corruption (kick the vinmonopolet a little cash and you’re in), but I haven’t heard a whisper of that here.
Also Scandinavian: the Norwegian government taxes beer through the roof. It’s one reason pints go for $10-11. Laws always have such a big—but often unnoticed—effect on the way beer develops. The combination of the high taxes and the restricted availability of craft styles seems to have a couple of effects. Obviously, it limits consumption. Even Norwegians think an $11 pint is expensive. One brewer told me about a vinmonopolet presentation to producers in which the speaker bragged about the low consumption rate in Norway. (The producers didn’t regard this fact with the same delight as the state regulator did.)
The tax rate is flat, though, so a beer of 4.8% and 14.8% have the same tax. [note: this is not quite correct: see Lars Marius Garshol’s comment below.] Since the beer is so expensive, drinkers gravitate to the boozier offerings. I’m extrapolating here, but the reason I saw a lot more double IPAs than session IPAs is because drinkers would rather their 100 kroner buy something with octane. This is what public policy nerds call an unintended consequence. A regulatory body that wants to limit consumption probably didn’t mean to drive people to double-digit ABVs, but in the craft segment, that’s what’s happening.
These factors are going to hamper good-beer adoption for exactly the reason German pricing encourages it: beer is more a luxury here, and you can’t afford too many nights out drinking three or four low-strength beers.
For the moment, however, the beer industry is bubbly with excitement. Craft beer is still relatively new, and drinkers have a vast new world to explore. Breweries proliferate. The Oslo Craft Beer Fest was so much fun because of that unsullied enthusiasm. People aren’t yet cynical—they’re just enjoying the discovery.
A lot will change in coming years as drinkers and brewers become more sophisticated. But of course, that’s the road that leads to mature markets, sharp-elbowed business practices, scandal, and cynicism. So right now things are light and fun and I have to say, I’m totally cool with that. Gimme one of those raspberry-banana smoothie sours, please!