In gods’ country

Ketil Berg travels to Ægir brewery, to meet the man making beer fit for the gods

Welcome to Ægir, a craft brewery with a strange name in a small township, tucked away on a strip of land between the snowy mountains and the icy fjord. According to myth, Ægir was a Norse god who brewed the greatest beer in the world, and held annual banquets for Odin and the Norse pantheon, Valhalla. In Ægir’s hall the gods were never allowed to fight, and anyone making trouble was banished for all eternity. This spirit has served as inspiration for the people behind Ægir beer.

The founder of Ægir, American brewmaster Evan Lewis, originally from New York, then a programmer in Silicon Valley, has created his own start-up adventure in a very natural valley on the west coast of Norway. “My passion for beer started early, and I played in a rock band. Beer has much in common with music; it should have balance, harmony, some parts accented differently, yet nothing should be out of place,” Evan says. Ægir Beer has an impressive selection of brews in Norwegian stores and public houses. This year, it is conquering Britain and the rest of the world. 

True to the mythology, Evan is serving frothy Ægir beer from his alehouse brewery pub at Flåm, a remote tourist destination along the Sogn Fjord on the west coast of Norway, two hours from Bergen and five hours from the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The best way to reach Flåm is by train, so that is what we did. An antique railway connects at Myrvoll Station on the main track between Oslo and Bergen. In one hour, the train descends the 865 vertical meters on a 20km track, needling in and out of the mountainsides down to Flåm at sea level.

As the train approaches Flåm, I get a good view of the new Ægir production brewery from the window. Five minutes later, I’m walking a hundred meters out of the station area, and there is no mistaking the brewery pub in the middle of the tourist centre of Flåm, adjacent to a hotel and a restaurant.

The Ægir brewery pub is a timber and wood slate building decorated with ornaments and animals straight from the sagas, and reminiscent of the traditional stave churches unique to Norway. Evan Lewis greets me at the entrance with a friendly smile, and a surprisingly perfect local Norwegian dialect. 

Inside the brewery pub, we sit down by a main fireplace in the middle of a round space, just as you would imagine a Viking banquet hall to be. The ceiling seems high and it is as if light shines in through a smoke hole. Local artists have helped decorate in the Viking style. Tables and chairs are carved from varnished tree roots, displaying natural variation. Seats have spreads of animal hide and fur. Behind me is a bar counter with tap handles made from reindeer antlers. Through glassed walls I can see the very modern stainless steel of brewery tanks and valves.

“I designed and built this brewery pub with a specific vision in mind; there are no coincidences here,” Evan says. “Ægir is a product of my passion for beer and of my vision to change the perception of beer in Norway.”

Evan’s passion for beer started early. In New York he had be 21 to buy beer, but he could not wait. 

“At 17, my buddy Dave and I brewed our first beer in Dave’s parents’ kitchen – a porter,” Evan laughs. “In fact we smuggled beer to school and gave it to our principle teacher. He gave us feedback on how to improve it. I am very grateful for his support.”

Evan went on to major in music and composition. “I think I am better at composing beer than composing music,” he muses. “My wife Aud and I came to Norway and to Flåm to take over what was then a well-run café restaurant, and I saw the potential to expand with hotel rooms and better food. There were many more tourists in the summer then we could serve. The brewery came about out of that need.”

Why not?

“When I arrived in Norway, it dawned on me how difficult it would be to survive here, with everyone drinking just pilsner type beer, and seeming to prefer wine with their food. But that is so wrong! Beer has so many elements that make up its taste; that’s why it goes well with different kinds of food. And its bubbles rinse your palate and make you ready for the next bite in a way that wine does not,” Evan says.

“Then I came upon one of the early craft beers from the south of the country. It occurred to me that I could probably find a market for my own beer. I asked my wife if she thought it might work, and she said the two magic words: ‘Why not?’

“We were already serving around 9000 litres of beer in the restaurant, and I optimistically built this brewery pub with four tanks, for a total capacity for 15,000 litres. I brewed as much as I could in the winter, and we opened the brewery pub in June 2007, at the height of the season. 

“We pretty much sold out in the first month.There were times I was down to only two types of beer, and I was working 15-hour days, seven days a week to try to keep up. As the summer season ended, I was able to create some beer in bottles for sale to stores, and we produced our first Christmas beer.”

In 2012, on the day of the brewery pub’s five-year anniversary, Ægir opened the new production brewery a kilometre up the valley. This facility was built from the ground up to suit its present needs, as well as to allow for growth. The brewery is designed so that capacity may gradually be increased to 2,000,000 litres per year. Current capacity is about one million litres, and they are already increasing this by adding two more tanks. 

Redesign

“2014 was the year we really leapt into the future,” Evan says. “We wemt from being one of very few craft breweries in the country to being at the head of the competition in a thriving market, facing increasing export demands.

“We redesigned just about everything except the logo, refined our philosophy and went all-in for 330ml metal cans. Metal is light-proof and air-tight, and preserves beer much better than glass. For me, there is also anenvironmental angle; metal is lighter and tens of times easier to recycle than glass.”

When Ægir started exporting cans in 2016, sales went through the roof. Ægir’s many varieties of beer are sold in the brew pub, in shops, bars and restaurants throughout Norway, in both cans and kegs, plus a small selection in glass bottles. Ægir also exports beer to other countries in the Nordic region, Russia, the UK and Australia. Approximately 40% of sales are kegs/draught beer and 60% is cans and bottles. 

In 2017, Ægir will produce approximately 35 products including at least 10 new releases. Some will be limited keg-only beers, while others will also see wider distribution in cans. Export sales are showing the biggest growth, and Ægir Brewery expects 25% of 2017 volume to be sold outside Norway, with export to ten countries currently. The brewery expects cans to continue to grow volume in the UK, but is also focusing on new and exciting keg beers this year, primarily in the UK. Ægir also makes an Aquavit, a Norwegian style potato liquor flavoured with caraway (see Ferment #8).

Acclaim

Ægir Brewery has been named “Norway’s BrewPub of the year” three years running. Ægir beers took gold, silver and bronze medals at the Australian International Beer Awards in 2015 and 2016 and, in May 2016, the brewery’s Heidrun Vikingmjød (a mead) was designated a “Speciality brand” by the Norwegian Brewery and Beverage Association.

It’s not just the aroma and flavour that score highly; the redesigned cans and labels have also won at the International Beer Awards.

Evan’s Viking-themed brewery pub keeps producing beer to the same recipe as the production plant.

“I think the power of craft-brewed beer is the flexibility,” says Evan. “Since I still maintain the brewpub, I can do batches of as little as 20 litres, and this gives us room to experiment. 

“Members of my staff frequently come in on weekends to set a batch, because beer is their hobby and their passion. It’s a unique situation, and I am very grateful for all the people that work for me.”

Ægir has nine employees, including four women, making the bulk of its highly experienced brewing staff female.

Evan sums up his vision: “Ægir is passionate about always being able to offer many different types of beer and different flavours, with seasonal variations. I think the basis of our success is to make a good beer in a variety of flavours and create frequent new releases of keg beers to the international market.”