The Egtved Girl’s Brew

It may well be that the climatic changes in 117 years will make it possible to produce wine in large volumes in Denmark. But until then, I look forward to living in what is, once again, a beer country. It almost went completely wrong.

In 1929 when Poul Henningsen stood in the bathroom in Dronninglund Castle and whilst still under the influence of a drunken stupor wrote the wonderful song “The beer dog howls”, immortalised by Osvald Helmuth, Poul Henningson had hundreds of different beers to choose from. But soon homogeneity and standardisation of beer production and flavour took hold and until a few years ago, made it boring – and not particularly trendy – to be a beer enthusiast. Such an enthusiast should not be confused with an alcoholic, beer-drinking and big-bellied, pub-visiting Dane. We beer lovers almost had to hide ourselves and in fine restaurants it was frowned upon to prefer a draught beer instead of a vintage wine (as if not all wines have a vintage).

So I look forward to having good local beer almost everywhere in the country. A long hurray and three short ones for micro-breweries! May they have success for many years to come. Now we’re the ones who are trendy. We can choose between lots of beer varieties from even more breweries, which are almost all linked together with one serving place. Nice words: Serving place. They indicate that the beer is served and not just slapped on the table. It is served in a proper glass and at the right temperature. You enjoy it together with like-minded people who, of course, also know the expression “Now I’ll show you where David bought the beer”. The origin of the expression is lost, but there is no doubt about the meaning: I will show you that I know better than you.

It is true. We know that beer in decent volumes is good for the body and soul. We know that tins and plastic are unacceptable in this context. And we also always know where we are. If we begin to doubt, we just go into the nearest micro-brewery and take a look at the label on the bottle and we immediately know whether we are in Ørbæk, in Svaneke, in Nørrebro or Gjøl, in Refsvindinge - or Aalborg. By the way, a quite ordinary Thor pilsner is still not to be scorned...

Ernst Trillingsgaard