Copenhagen’s Mikkeller brewery ties up with San Diego’s AleSmith
Craft brewers going international: Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, the Danish brewer who roams the globe making beer under the Mikkeller label, is forming a partnership with San Diego’s craft brewer AleSmith to produce his beers locally, U.S. media report.
The as-yet-unnamed brewery will open in June this year in the old AleSmith plant, which will be vacated when AleSmith moves to larger facilities nearby.
Mr Bjergsø, who owns a beer bar in San Francisco and operates a Copenhagen brewery, Warpigs, with Indiana’s Three Floyds, was quoted as saying that he intends to continue brewing at numerous European breweries.
But in the U.S., his base will be San Diego. “It comes down to the fact that I am able to work with one of the best brewers in the world,” he said, referring to Peter Zien, owner and brewer at AleSmith. “Peter is a great, great brewer and AleSmith makes some of the best beers in the world.”
Friendship may have been one reason for the tie-up, economics another. Making his beers in Europe and shipping them to the U.S., Mr Bjergsø said, “it’s hard to keep them fresh and keep them at a fair price.”
Both Mikkeller and AleSmith will hold equity in the brewery, which will make Beer Geek Breakfast and other Mikkeller mainstays, while experimenting with new beers.
It is expected that Mr Bjergsø will invite many brewing contemporaries to San Diego to craft an interesting array of collaboration beers, all of which will be available in the tasting room that will be revamped to reflect a style consistent with Mikkeller’s bars, which are scattered across the globe in locales such as Bangkok, Stockholm, and San Francisco
Mikkeller and Alesmith enjoy quite some cult following among craft beer lovers. AleSmith was founded in 1995 and produces about 17,000 hl beer annually. Beers from the brewery have been rated on RateBeer.com website as #1 Top Brewer in the World 2006 and again in 2013. Mikkeller was founded in 2006 and produces an estimated 8,000 hl beer.
