More about Åbro Brewery

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the cooperation between the Swedish brewery Åbro and Cape Brewing Company in Paarl. It was a huge interest from the readers. I got a lot of questions about Åbro Brewery. Instead of mailing and/or phoning the brewery we went to the brewery in Sweden and had a look our self.

Åbro brewery is a family-owned brewery in the small town of Vimmerby in southern part of Sweden. It was established in 1856 and is the oldest family owned brewery in Sweden.

Is Åbro Brewery a craft brewery?
No I would not consider Åbro to be a craft brewery in Sweden. The brewery they will be involved in together with Charles Back is going to be one though.  Wolfgang Ködel will be the brewmaster in South Africa. Åbro mainly brew lagers and ciders and has an annual production of 900 000 hl.

Do they have any other connections to South Africa?
Åbro have a project called Lejon för Lejon (Lion by Lion) with the purpose of improving the situation for lions across the world. They have sponsored a lion project in South Africa and also named one of their beers “Lion”.
Lennarth Anemyr is the brewmaster in Sweden and they have made a short film about his story (in Swedish but you will get a feeling about the brewery).

What about their beers?
This is a tricky one because if you like lagers they are pretty decent but I think they are a little bit boring. I bought a couple of their beers and had a tasting just to make sure.

I put all my ratings on ratebeer.