Eskilstuna Ölkultur, part 1

Me and Karin made a roadtrip to Eskilstuna on friday. First we visited the Zoo and then we drove into the centre of town. Karin went to look at the local shops and I went to Eskilstuna Ölkultur. It's a home brewers club that has their own pub and a fairly large brewery. To enter the club you need to be either a member or a guest and you can read on their website how that works.

The pub doesn't have a sign so it might be hard to spot if you don't know what you are looking for. I missed it completely and had to call them to show me the way.

The pub-brewery is located on a small island in a river. It used to be an arms factory and the area has several museums and a hotel. The old factory look really gives the right atmosphere for a pub.

This is the view you get when crossing the river.

The club has exploded since it started and in a year they have gone from 400 to 2200 members. I can really understand why. If I lived in Eskilstuna I would be there all the time. The staff are all members that work without pay, they were all very friendly and loved to chat about beer and happy to answer any questions I had.

The guys working the opposite side of the counter for the evening.

The pub is basically one big room where the brewery is present close to and around the big bar, they also had a smaller room downstairs with some sofas, books and empty beer bottles. I was suprised to see the size of the brewery and apparently they can brew 1000 litres at the time. Which made the only comparable place in Stockholm, ie Monks, seem like a home brewery in comparison. At the moment they have 5 of their own beer on tap and I managed to try them all and you will get a review of them in the next post.

A view of the bar with a bunch of different taps and fridges with bottled beer. In the background you see two big copper containers which are part of the brewery.

Besides their own beer they also had a large number of swedish micro brewerys on tap. A left over from the Swedish Micro Brewery Associations meeting that was hosted here recently. They also had a nice supply of bottled beer.

Overall this was one of the high points of my vacation and I hope to visit this place again. It's just a 1 hour train ride from Stockholm and the pub is very close to the train station. So I might "force" some friends to come with me some time. I hope these types of clubs spread and I would love to have one close to where I live.