ell, what a difference three years makes!  The last time we visited Denmark the country was beginning to wake from it's enforced beer famine under the Carlsberg empire and Danes were rediscovering a love for craft beer made not by computers in a huge industrial complex but people on a small scale in small breweries.  At the start of the century the country had a mere 20 breweries, in 2004 this had risen to a more respectable 50, but now the count easily exceeds 100 with more starting all the time, fuelled by the growing demand from Danish drinkers for tasty, craft-brewed beer.

I said at the start of the last report "The next few years may see Denmark return to the position of having a beer culture to be proud of if the encouraging growth in micro beer is maintained, and there is no reason to bet against it.  All they need is a few Vikings to kick some arse and away we go" and am very pleased to have been proved correct to a degree I never though could be possible; Denmark is now one of the world's most buzzing and innovative beer cultures with dozens of micros producing beers in an amazing myriad of styles ranging from American-influenced IPA's through stouts and porters to smoked milds and fruit beers!  If only our own micros made such delights instead of insipid pale bitters...

The report from the 2007 trip to Copenhagen is here.

My previous (2004) report is here, and it makes amusing reading 3 years on!