Copenhagen’s 2nd craft beer revolution

In mid-2012 - by my rough estimate - the lineup of craft beer bars in Copenhagen (a city of half a million inhabitants) with 5 taps or more looked like this:

- Fermentoren (10 taps)

- Bishops Arms (30 taps)

- Den Tatoverede Enke (16 taps)

- Ølbaren Nørrebro (15 taps)

- Ørsted Ølbar (13 taps)

- Café Langebro (24 taps)

- Kareten (10 taps)

- Nørrebro Bryghus (12 taps)

- BrewPub (12 taps)

- Lord Nelson (14 taps)

- Pegasus Øl & Vinbar (15 taps)

- Black Swan Bar (11 taps)

- Café Bartof (22 taps)

- Mikkeller Bar (20 taps)



This is how it’s scheduled to have been improved going from mid-2012 to mid-2013:

- Mikkeller & Friends (40 taps)

- Søernes Ølbar (20 taps)

- Bryggens Ølbar (12 taps)

- Ølsnedkeren (8 taps)

- Café Habengut (10 taps)

- Fermentoren (up to 20 taps)

- Taproom (possibly 30 taps)

- Amager Ølhus (12 taps)


In other words an increase from 224 to 346 taps - roughly equal to a 50 percent increase year over year.



There has never been a better time to visit Copenhagen ;-)



Do you see similar development in your local towns and cities or is this a specific Copenhagen-thing?



My theory is that since the well paid and discriminating post-college >25yo segment tends to stay in Copenhagen rather than move out to the suburbs they are a more powerful influence on the makeup of Copenhagen bars and cafés. Where in the past these people would ask for non-alcoholic drinks as they had to drive home these days with lots of disposable income and easy access to bicycles and public transit to their city apartment there is a stronger audience for craft beer in Copenhagen.

Interesting theory.

I´ll tel about the Madrid (Spain) case. I lived there for many years, and had no other options than belgian and german classics on tap. But suddenly, in the last year and a half, a bunch of places focusing on craft beer opened. Now you have Animal(8 taps), Irreale (6-7 taps), La Tape (6 i think), Fabrica Maravillas (brewpub with about 3-4 own beers at the same time),El Pedal, El Estribo, and then some other classic places in town, that now try to tap at least one or two new age craft beers, so i may say there´s never been a better time to have beer in Madrid.

I live now in Oviedo, small city in NW Spain. Only two places focusing in craft beer, with 2 and about 3-4 rotating taps, and a new brewpub with 3. So this is 8-9 new taps in the last year. Pretty good for a region of cider tradition.

I don´t think in Spain this may be due to people moving, but for the incipient interest in beer, in the so called "spanish craft beer revolution" that we are experiencing. 10 years ago we had no craft breweries (maybe 1 or 2 pioneers that didn´t succeed). Now there are several dozens, and every day we hear about shops, places, tastings, festivals.... so, for sure, there´s never been a better time for beer in Spain. Of course we´ll see in few years how many of these breweries prevail, but this is another story...

Cheers.

By the way: i visited Copenhagen several years ago, and found only one brewpub. I may think of visiting again...

The thing is, outside of these bars, you are lucky to get one tap Norrebro and the rest is Carlsberg. Same group of people and visiting beernerds frequent these bars.

Thanks for the feedback. Great to hear from your observations and experience guys. I guess in Copenhagen and Denmark the rise of interest in craft beer as such that Spain is currently experiencing could be termed as the "1st craft beer revolution of Copenhagen". That was the time when the beer festival boomed and the super markets started carrying fancy craft beer apart from the Carlsberg portfolio. Of course now the market has sort of matured and the supermarkets started to exert their price/turnover pressure on their suppliers of ’craft’ beer meaning that only the mediocre brewers with broad mainstream appeal are left on the shelves.

The draught taps at the craft beer bars offer the original brewers a relief from the pressure of the supermarkets demanding mediocre mainstream tastes to ensure a high turnover and the fact that a relatively small city of half a million inhabitants is able to command more than 300 taps for craft beer is quite encouraging to me.

Originally posted by haukur
The thing is, outside of these bars, you are lucky to get one tap Norrebro and the rest is Carlsberg. Same group of people and visiting beernerds frequent these bars.

Originally posted by humlelala

Originally posted by haukur
The thing is, outside of these bars, you are lucky to get one tap Norrebro and the rest is Carlsberg. Same group of people and visiting beernerds frequent these bars.

I don’t see how this is different from any other place in the world...?

Interesting. In Osaka the growth has been even more prominent. Rough numbers for places I consider craft-centered (not typical Irish pubs or over-priced Belgian cafes) are:
May 2012: 80 taps
Now: 175+
More than double. We locals are happy. There has been similar growth in Tokyo and Yokohama, though the numbers there are several times these. Kyoto is still stuck at around 50, though that’s still 10 more than last year.

And I plan to visit Copenhagen in September!

Originally posted by KyotoLefty
Interesting. In Osaka the growth has been even more prominent.

Sick.

I love Copenhagen. One of the best place I’ve ever visited.

And in the meantime, Brussels lingers.