New stuff

A quick update on whats going on at Lervig these days:

new beers:

Lervig Jul a 6,5% Christmas beer, this years attempt at doing something new and different for a christmas beer, we have made a belgian style ale, it is medium bodied with lots of fruity esters from the Belgian Ale yeast, it also has been spiced with Star Anise and ginger. The beer is going to be packaged unfiltered and unpasteurized like all the Brewers reserve beers.

This years version of Lervig Winter Ale is in the bottle and ready for the winter. It is very simullar to last years version, but I have worked out a few things for the better and this years brew is smoother and the alcohol is well hidden.

Some of you may have tasted the new Rye IPA, it's not moving into the Vinmonoplet as fast as we had hoped but we are working on it and now it is pretty much in the hands of the vinmonoplet to get them in the stores. Feel free to ask your local polet for some! (Give them some pressure) Meanwhile you can find it around town here in Stavanger and perhaps soon it will be in Oslo and Bergen too. If you like flavor and hops this beer is for you. Check out what Tore Bruland has to say about the new Rye IPA ( Norsk).

I have brewed more Barely wine and soon I hope to get them into some barrels for aging. This time I will double the volume as I had last year to get them in the pollet.

In my life I am expecting to become a dad for the first time in about a week so I expect to be busy the next few months.

My plans for the future brews for Lervig are going to be to build on what we have and get the production dialed in and consistant, as well as improved qualtiy control.

I hope that the growth we have seen over the past few months will continue to climb. I am very excited to see where we can take this brewery too!

Update

Hello, I have been extremely busy this summer so I haven't been good at updating my blog.

So far this summer since my last update alot of new developments have happened:

We released the Konrad Stout to Vinmonopolet, this is a 10,4% Russian Impy stout. We have brewed about 3000L so we have a good supply for the rest of the year. It is also available on draft.

Another new beer we made a small batch of an IPA made with Rye Malt. This was well recieved and we have now brewed a larger amount for distribution.

Lervig went to the Copenhagen Beer Festival, we represented Stavanger with some of our beers, the Lucky Jack, White Dog, Konrad stout, and Rye IPA.

I traveled to Rome Italy to celebrate Ma Che Siete Venuta a fá's 10th anniversary party with a huge cruise from rome to Barcelona, on that ship were represented over 50 microbreweries from all over the world. Lervig was there with Lucky Jack and Rye IPA.

This year at Gladmat we released a new brand series ( White Dog , Lucky Jack) the Betty Brown, yep its a 4,7% Brown ale, I wanted to keep it low key but make it good, I get tired quicky when I drink beers with alot of caramel malts so I used less than most would when brewing a brown ale, i used more chocolate malt and brown malt to boost the chocolate flavor as well as nutty flavors from the malt, I decieded to go with Pacific Gem hops to help pull out more of the berry / forest flavors that these hops can provide. I am quite happy with the results and hope that our customers will be just as impressed with it as they were with the Lucky Jack.

I have brewed also a new beer for an upcoming homebrewers festival in Nærbø, it is very simular to the Lucky Jack except the Hops were all Nelson Savin and this beer turned out to be awesome! so look out for that soon.

Lervig has had 2 great months in sales it seems like things are starting to move in a positive direction around here! I really appreciate the support, and my soon to be born daughter Nina will be happy for the continued support in the future!

There are still many new things to develop this year!
Enjoy the Norwegian summer while it lasts!

Time for Consumers to Revolt?

Apparently I am not alone with my thoughts on the crap we are stuck to choose from here in Norwegian supermarkets, read the article below!

Grocery business dodges bullets : Views and News from Norway

www.newsinenglish.no

NEWS ANALYSIS: Norwegian grocery stores have the highest prices in Europe and the worst selection of goods, according to consumer advocates, and, reportedly, a government commission charged with finding out why. Food producers, retailers and wholesalers all blame each other, while Norwegian consumer.

more about me

here is a story about myself...but in Italian...

Thanks Paolo!

Kissmeyer's beer launch

Last week Anders Kissmeyer opened his new projects to tasting at Mikkellers Bar in Vesterbrø... Hopefully he will find success and produce more great beers in the future, I am very happy to have helped him with a small part of this launch, and so it seems we will have a cooperation for some more cotract brewing in the near future. http://beerticker.dk/kissmeyer-beer-nu-lanceret-31360

Bourbon Barrel Barley Wine

In a few weeks I will be taking a 10% barley wine out of the barrels it has been sitting in since early November, this beer will be filled into 33cl bottles and sold in april. More to come!

Team Building Brewing

Lervig's first team building experiment was completed yesterday when a group of Geophysicists from a local Oil drilling company bottled their own beer. The project began when the Lead Geophysicist came to the brewery to purchase some beer for himself. A week or so later he was back for more beer and to ask about the possiblity to produce some beer for his team. We had a meeting and a few beers later decided how to go about it.

My co worker and myself met his whole team at the Cardinal Pub in town and had arranged a beer tasting of 12 beers which cover a broad range of what beer is and what beer can be from Pilsner to a Smoked Impierial Stout. We had a fun filled eveing but before it was over the team had a better understanding for what beer is and how it is made. We also decided what sort of beer they desired to produce with our 800Liter system....

Two weeks later the team visited the brewery, with my help they were instructed on milling the malts, and mashing in the malt to start the brew, Many persons toured the rest of the brewery while enjoying our beers and some grilled food thanks to our friend Magne. After about 6 hours their beer was in the fermenter....

They ended up with over 1700 bottles of beer with their own label and fitting name 'Explore Me' as they are normaly an oil field exploring team and now they can add beer exploring to their list of discoveries