Normally in the Brewing Heroes section we are featuring local breweries. This time we are going international, because we of Zurich Beer Tour believe that international collaborations and exchange of knowledge are really important for the craft beer movement worldwide. So in September the Team of Zurich Beer Tour made a trip to #Gothenburg, #Sweden. Gothenburg is a city every European beer fan should have heard of, being the home of some of the best #breweries in Scandinavia, Europe or even the world. Well known breweries like Stigbergets and Beerbliothek have made themselves a name in the beer world and are already famous for their high quality beers. Another great brewery from this awesome beer city is O/O Brewing. Having a mutual friend made it possible for us to visit this fantastic brewery and to speak to one of the founders.
The Brewery
On a Friday just after lunch we made our way to the brewery of O/O, which is about 20 minutes outside of Gothenburg's city center in the industrial district. We were welcomed by Olof Andersson, who founded this brewery together with Olle Andersson. Olof gave us a thorough tour and showed us the whole brewery. We saw their brewing equipment, a DME system from #Canada. We also met the rest of the team including co-founder and head brewer Olle, who unfortunately had to leave, brewer Erika and the workers Ivan and Patrik. We also saw their storage, barrel ageing and sour beer project. Olof told us that they will soon get their own canning line, so that they can package more efficiently. At the moment their beer is getting canned by a mobile canning company. Check out the gallery below for some impressions of the brewery.
Their Story
While we tried some beers directly from the tanks, including their core beer Pivot Pils and an unreleased Winter Warmer, Olof told us about the story of the brewery. He and co-founder Olle are childhood friends who have known each other for years. As they grew older they started to get interested in beer and started homebrewing. Their brewing skills quickly improved so that 2013 they founded their own brewery O/O. They didn't buy a big brewing system back then but they asked Stigbergets brewery that was already bigger back then, if they could use their system. Stigbergets gave their ok, so Olle and Olof started brewing there in the evening and on the weekends. Their beers were so good that Olle even started to work for Stigbergets as his main job for a while. Production grew and grew, so that in 2017 they were able to open up their own brewing location including a brewing system. That is the same place where they are brewing until today.
The Beers
Meanwhile Olof went to the cold storage with us and we grabbed some cans to taste. While enjoying a fresh Pretty Pale Ale we talked a bit more about their range of beers. Olof told us that he is a big pilsner fan and gave us a taster of their core range pilsner dry hopped with big amounts of American aroma hops and it was fantastic. O/O is most famous for their Hazy IPA's that they were brewing even before they were called New England IPA's. Prefect example for this is their Narangi IPA, being one of very few European IPA's on Ratebeer.com's 50 Top rated IPA's list (Ranked 20th).
Another well known and tasty series are their 50/50 beers, beers that always follow the same recipe and only the hop bill changes. They use 2 different hops in every version always in a 50/50 ratio, for example Mosaic/Nelson Sauvin or Amarillo/Citra. Those beers also stand out because of their simple can design. Every hop gets a color, and the labels are in those 2 colors 50/50. Which means if you already know some of those brews, you can tell just by the label what hops were used.
In general their can designs are really cool, they are made by a Swedish design studio. We asked Olof what we can expect for the future. While opening up a can of Balamundi IPA for us to taste, he started to tell us about their barrel ageing project. They age both stout and barley wine for different amount of time in mostly bourbon and some calvados barrels (Beer in a barrel? Check our blog here to learn more).
Another project, one that O/O is not yet known for, is their sour beer project. They have a couple of barrels with spontaneously fermented sour beers ( you can read our blog about sours here) and are soon starting to blend some of those for the first time. We are already looking forward to those beers.
Check some of their beers and barrels in this gallery:
We want to thank Olof for taking so much time to answer our questions and show us around, and also the rest of the team for having us and being so welcoming. Special thanks goes out to Ivan Larsson who showed us a couple of great beer bars in Gothenburg later that day. Thanks again and we hope to see you soon.
Have you guys ever had beers from O/O? Which one was your favorite?
Tell us in the comments!
Cheers,
Your Zurich Beer Tour Guides