Gypsy Brewers - What, Why, Where?

Gypsy Brewers are a relatively new development within the craft beer brewing community. I have seen them described as “a supersubculture of the craft beer industry”. A Gypsy brewer is one that does not have their own brewery, but instead brews his/her beers at someone else’s brewery.

The Original and probably the most famous gypsy brewer is Mikkel Borg Bjergsø otherwise known as Mikkeller. I asked him what is Gypsy Brewing? “To me gypsy brewing is a brewer who does not own its own brewery but travels around the globe and brews beers in his/her own name. If differs from contract brewing in a way that the brewer is much more a part of the process than in contract brewing. A gypsy brewer can choose to 'settle down' at a brewery and brew a number of beers on a regular basis.”

Gypsy Brewers will arrange to be at a particular brewery on a date. They will arrange their special ingredients to be there and will then brew a batch of beer. They tend to use numerous different breweries often depending on the beer style to be brewed.

Tobias Email Jensen is an upcoming Gypsy brewer, whose “Brewery” goes under the name To Øl. “To Øl works with the idea that a beer should be produced where it tastes the best. That means that for the moment, we use De Proef brewery in Belgium (As does Mikkeller and some others). Our current range is produced consistently at De Proef. But we are planning a small scale production in Denmark and a single production at Brewdog. We don't regard us as a particularly Danish brewery. But we are based in Denmark. Overall IIPA will taste the same, until we decide to change the recipe. A good taste and flavour is not only obtained by luck, you gotta know what you are aiming at.”

Effectively, the brewer rents the equipment of an existing brewer, with spare capacity, and brews a small batch of a particular beer. This ability to brew in small batches frees the brewer to experiment with brewing recipes. So they can create some of the most exciting, exploratory beers in the world. Under normal circumstances of a brewery, with loans to re-pay and capital costs to cover, there would be commercial pressure to brew fewer beers and beers that would have more mass appeal. Mikkeller brews up to 80 different beers every year, with new recipes being added every year.

The Gypsy brewer is often referred to as a client brewer. As these guys build up a reputation for the quality of their beers, brewed without any compromise, they are approached to brew beers for clients. This is like the artists of old having a patron or in modern parlance I guess a sponsor. In particular they can take a food menu, study the ingredients in recipes and brew a special beer to ideally complement the food on the menu. For e.g. Mikkeller brews the House beer for the Copenhagen restaurant Noma, which has been voted the Best Restaurant in the World for the past 2 years in the S. Pellegrino awards.

So is Gypsy Brewing for you? I think if you are a craft beer fan, this is the ultimate in craft brewing. I certainly think so. As a craft beer importer, I was overwhelmed to hear about this development some time back. And now we import Mikkellers' beers with more gypsy brewers to follow. Get in touch if you want to know where you can them here in Ireland.

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