Sold Down the River

You may have noticed that my work is evolving into an industrial brewing job, Although we are still brewing here in Roskilde, for how long is a mystery. I don’t get any more information than you do about the takeover, instead I am left clinging to my job after 4 years of hard work to get this brewery where it is today. Unfortunately l didn't have any say in the matter. I seriously hope that Harboe is interested to continue brewing GB / ØF beer, and will be open to new ideas and not too concerned over the higher costs needed to create such beers. It would be a shame to dumb it down any more than it already is. I believe the beers we are making now at GB & Ølfabrikken are good "Gateway" beers which only encourage new beer drinkers to explore their options about beer quality and form their own opinion’s about drinking the best beers for their tastes. I hope it will not result in the reduction of our beer to an industrial attempt to make the beer bland, tasteless and cost effective. I certainly don’t wish the brands to simply fade away. I believe our beers have given new choices to the market and with out that there are fewer options for the consumer.

Nor do I see this as another sign that craft beer is dying in DK, in fact this is quite healthy for the segment of the beer market, this is merely a correction in the market and it has been seen before in every craft beer boom. Perhaps the market isn’t as big as once thought by many craft brewers who have expanded to rapidly, borrowed too much or in our case got in the fight against the big breweries and would be hard pressed to survive. Instead craft brewing is built on slow sustained growth. Craft brewers by nature are hard working, honest people, they make their beer not for wealth but for passion, they don’t take advantage of others who are trying to make an honest living and they support businesses who share this mindset. Denmark is a small country, but there are plenty of honest hard working persons who love beer and will support their local brewery. So there will also be brewers who realize that life isn't always about volume and sales, nor is it about dumbing down the product or consumer. The consumers will continue grow and so will the sales % of the craft beer segment. In the end there are people who do care about who makes the products as much as what goes into the product. I once heard the comparison “People who only drink industrial beers probably only eat at McDonalds too…”, perhaps these people exist, but that’s another issue.

I have on the other hand been working on a few things and although I don’t have my own resources to get my own brewery started (I have most of the equipment however to start one) I have made an agreement to begin brewing a small amount of Craft beer for sale at the best beer places around KBH. Hopefully there will be enough of you guys to support my quest to make the perfect IPA!