Good Times

Lots of great things happening these days, for me personally and for Lervig...

I have finally had a baby girl, Nina, she was born on the 4th of October... I guess I am lucky to have found a nice woman who would actually want to have my baby... But we are all happy and I feel really lucky to have found such a great partner and am very happy to have my own family now.

I have been nominated for a local prize here in Stavanger called Firsprangprisen which is given every year to a local person who has done something remarkable to build local patriotism.... I was chosen for the fact that locals are very proud of their local beer and the fact that we are getting more and more national attention for it. Which I am very honored and I am very grateful for being recognized... Even though I doubt I will win as the paper published a 2 page story on it and placed a very large photo of me drinking a beer. How can you give a guy a reward for being able to do what most guys only wish they can do....right?

The national newspaper Dagbladet has judged our jul øl to be the best in the butik øl class (4,7%) and we have underestimated the surge of sales,,, now one week after sales started for this years Christmas beers we are already sold out, and there is nothing I can do about it, unless they want a full batch to sell the week before Christmas. Here is the link to the test.

The Local paper, Rogalands Avis, has their own test written by their wine and foody critic Tøre Bruland, here he has given both of our Christmas beers and our Winter ale six out of six on the Norwegian dice scale... Which is also great for us and me personally as I was concerned how the class F (over 4,7%alc) beer would do in the public's eye as I wanted to make a different beer this year for Christmas, not just another caramel flavored stronger beer, which is the norm here for any other Christmas beer... I think I may do something different again next year... but happily most of that beer too is also been moved out of our warehouse to Vin-polet.

I am hopeful for the results of the Norges beste Øl, So far after the first round our best chance in the race is our Lucky Jack, I think this beer has a great shot because its is already available in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and beyond and the sales are going up every month. This beer is a great beer for all beer drinking levels as it is a a gateway beer for people who only drink pilsners and havent ventured into craft beer yet, this beer will surely get them on their way... It is my goal to get this beer widely available nationally and beyond to be competitive

with the pilsner market in price, but unmatched in it's flavor and quality. I am currently

brewing larger and larger volumes of this beer but never sacrificing on the quality...

Lervig is currently working on exporting Lucky Jack to Italy and Spain, perhaps Finland. Already in the last months we have begun to export to Sweden and lately we finally got a shipment off to Denmark to be hitting the shelves in Irma stores, This is the first time Irma has imported beer directly from a brewery, so I am very very hopeful for a great result there and I would be extremely proud to see my beers back on the shelves in Denmark. I want to eventually have one of the more accessible pale ales on the market in northern Europe, oh what the hell all of Europe... more to come in the near future for Lucky Jack.

Oh yeah...

Rye IPA is available from the Polet, finally, We are shipping a lot of it to Bergen these weeks so get ready up there.... Be sure to order it and tell the polet shops to put it on the shelves! I expect that it wont take too long to see it as a year round shelf lurker in the polet...

New batches are being brewed and are ready, the 3rd brew of Konrad stout is ready to go, and I must say it is the best one so far!

I think now I will as I stated last post, focus on solidifying the long term success of lervig and focusing on the production, getting it to be able to handle the growth it has seen already as well as the growth that I am anticipating. Remember that for every new beer we add that only makes it more difficult to keep up with demand on all the other products... and if you look back 1,5 years to the recent past of Lervig there where 4 beers, all of which were pilsner... we have come a long way, we are looking forward to the future...