Sunday 19th June 2016
Bob Thompson
I had arranged to meet Patrick in this brewpub early on a Sunday evening. As I approached its corner location there was something familiar-looking about it. I couldn’t think what it was but I remembered later. It’s about one kilometre north of Stockholm Central railway station and I had elected to walk from there. Probably a wrong decision as I am not the speediest thing on two legs, yet I made it.
Patrick had graciously offered to take my bag to our hotel and I was very thankful for that. After about fifteen minutes he arrived and we set about consuming some of the draught beers offered. As mentioned before this pub reminded me of another. That was Schlander in the Friedrichshain district of Berlin. There is a small article on it in BeerVisits.
Look at the exterior photographs of the pair and tell me I’m not wrong. The interior layouts are also very similar.
Passing the few tables out on the street I entered and turned to the right for the main bar, passing a cloakroom counter on the way in. The bar counter is on the left of the long narrow room. There are no stools but opposite is a row of tall tables with matching seats, not unlike the type you find in British micropubs. Above I noticed many blackboards displaying details of the large range of beers offered.
At the end of the counter the room broadens into what best described as the restaurant part of the pub. In fact, there was a large group of diners in that night. In one corner of this area there is a glass wall which protected a huge amount of bottles on shelves behind. In front of this there is a “lounge” area with a group of four armchairs around a low table.
Whilst on the subject of bottles I observed the many fridges behind the bar holding their speciality beers. They major on beers from Belgium including a great selection of Trappist beers. They also have a connection with the Brauerei Riegele of Augsburg, Germany. This brewery has been featured in an earlier BeerVisits article. Earlier in June they had a “tap-takeover” of their beers and were advertising many of their experimental bottled beers when we visited.
If I had gone left when I entered the pub I would have discovered the brewery. This is situated at the rear of the room that forms the other side of the V-shaped building. It is separated from the rest of the room by a wooden-framed wall with a wrought iron gate giving access to the production area.
The room is furnished with varnished wood tables and chairs and the window to the street is taken up with another display of bottles, a feature of this pub. There is large wall display of award certificates for their beer.
I don’t think I’ve come across a range as varied as this lot of beers. Firstly those from the pub brewery itself. There was Humletrollets Vetesaison (The Hop Troll’s Wheat Saison) (6.5%); Monk’s Brewery Raspberry Beer (4.9%); Monk’s Milda Maj (3.7%) and Aussie Light Lager (2.4%). Please see the pump clip (left) for the Troll’s beer, handsome little fellow, isn’t he? Amongst this selection the Mild was surprisingly good and very true to the style. The Aussie Lager failed the “try me” test on so many levels we didn’t even consider it.
The remainder of the beers were no less strange either. They were Crazy Mountain (Edwards, Colorado, USA) Porch Life Lemongrass Blonde (4.9%); Lindeman’s (St Pieters Leeuw-Vlezenbeek, Belgium) Apple Lambic (3.5%); Scandinavian Zombie Brewery (Åkersberga, Sweden) Zombie of Hops Black Pepper Blonde (7.4%); Maui Brewing Co (Maui, Hawaii, USA) Big Swell IPA (6.2%) and something (relatively) normal: Riegele (Augsburg, Germany) Weisse (5.0%).
The Scandinavian Zombie Brewery would appear to be located at the home of Emil Hillung in Åkersberga. It is described as a Belgian Ale and contains black pepper, coriander, orange peel and some Curacao, just the usual stuff then. I won’t even start to tell you what was available in bottles. However, despite all the oddities this pub is worth visiting for the unique house-brewed beers.
They have a couple of other pubs in the city but this is the one you want to visit, simply because it is where the beer is brewed.
Important Information:
There is a bus stop called Wallingatan which is right by the pub. The route 50 serves it and seems to run in one direction only, although you can come from Stockholm Central Station on it. Every fifteen minutes during the day, dropping to every twenty minutes and then it is half-hourly in the later evening.
The simplest way to get to the pub is go to Hötorget T-bana (underground) station on lines 17, 18 and 19. Exit into the main road Sveavägen. Go north on this road to Adolf Fredricks kyrkogata, third street on left. Turn left into it and continue to the end and turn right into Drottninggaten. Then go left into Wallingatan. Continue along this road until you see the pub on the right in a V-shaped property.
