Norwegian Brewery Mack brews with Fuller’s
Norwegian Brewery Mack, known as the world’s northernmost brewery, recently travelled to The Griffin Brewery in London to begin brewing their unique collaboration beer for the Fuller’s & Friends project – where it will feature as one of the brews for the highly anticipated mixed pack.
Returning for its second instalment, Fuller’s & Friends is a collaboration project between Fuller’s and six breweries – this time from all around the world. Each partner brewery is hand-picked by Fuller’s and paired with a Fuller’s brewer and they are given full creative freedom – including the style of beer, flavour, name and design. The beers are packaged together for sale in Waitrose.
Mack Brewmaster Rune Lennart Andreassen travelled from Tromsø in Norway to kick-off the brewing process on 29 January. While he was busy brewing with Fuller’s Head Brewer Georgina Young, we stopped to enjoy a cup of Meadowsweet Tea and to ask them both about the beer they’re creating together for the Fuller’s & Friends project.
Q&A with Rune from Mack Brewery, Norway
Why did you say yes to taking part in the Fuller’s & Friends project?
“Harald, the director of Mack Brewery and the fifth-generation owner, talked to George [Fuller’s Head Brewer Georgina Young] about the project and we thought it was a fantastic idea and a great opportunity to learn from a genuine English brewery.”
Fuller’s Head Brewer Georgina Young added: “I met Harald through Brewers of Europe, which is a group that share good practice and all things technical. We jokingly said that we would make a beer together, so when we were doing round two of Fuller's & Friends and wanted to take it international I knew immediately that I wanted to ask Harald.”
How did Mack Brewery start out?
“Mack is from a city in Norway called Tromsø which is far up north, and it has existed since 1877. It was a German baker’s son who started it – at the time the city had a lot of fisherman and they really loved beer, so he saw the potential.
“People thought he was crazy because it was just a small fisherman and whale hunting village back then, but now it's a university city with more than 75,000 residents. The brewery has gone through many generations and Harald is now the fifth-generation owner. The German founder's last name was Mack, which is how the brewery got its name.”
What’s your favourite Fuller’s beer?
“I really like London Pride – we get it in Norway in some supermarket chains. I like the real cask ales and you can only get the hand pumped fresh beer in England. It takes a lot of focus to be able to do real cask because it needs to be fresh. I also like Off-Piste IPA because it's really well balanced, but London Pride is definitely my favourite.”
What beer did you choose to make for the Fuller’s & Friends project and why?
Georgina Young said: “Quite early on we knew we wanted to do a lager. Mack make a lot of lagers so it's good to learn from them, and the idea was to use local ingredients from Norway.”
Rune added: “We are making a crisp lager and are spicing it a bit with crowberries, which is like a sloe. It's not overly sweet and is high in antioxidants and will be a subtle touch in the beer. Then we are also using dried meadowsweet which is usually used as tea but there's a long tradition to use it in beer. It was used in beer that Vikings produced before they had hops – it has a bit of bitterness and we will add it at the stage when we are adding the aroma hops. We are also using Fuller’s Lager yeast strain, smooth English pale barley malt and some English wheat malt, as well as superb Kentish hops from ‘The garden of England’.”
What inspired your beer’s name and design?
"We were looking for a Northern name and started to think about the ingredients we were bringing across from home. In the southern part of Norway the translation for Crowberries is Krekling, but in the north we use a more Norse name – Krøke name (the language in the north is generally tougher and more unpolished). So we are naming the beer Krøke.”
What was the best part of the project and why?
“It's been really interesting to see how to brew using a traditional mash tun with no separate lauter tun, because we've never done that before. The equipment is really modern and it's been a great experience.”
Fuller’s & Friends is brewing…
Fuller’s and Mack's collaboration beer Krøke will be available as part of the Fuller’s & Friend’s mixed pack launching in Waitrose later in 2019.
Read more about the Fuller’s & Friends project: Fuller's & Friends Round Two.
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