Devilishly cool brewing adventure!

It´s half past seven on a weekend morning of March 2003. In the mother´s kitchen at Christian X Allé:, Rune and Stinus are stirring what is to become the first Djævlebryg ever. The beer in question is a strong, black stout type - the Djævlebryg boys´ style does, after all, have a certain dark touch to it...

HIGH FOAM!

The first successful efforts in the said mother´s kitchen have since then amounted in numerous liters of different kinds of beer. Today you come across Bryggeriet Djævlebryg (trans. "The Brewery Devil's Brew") on kegs and shelves throughout the country. Rune Lindgreen, the beer developer of the brewery, says: "When you develop and brew beer, you must constantly follow your heart - but also your brain. There are lots of different and fascinating challenges when you want to establish a brewery". The transition from kitchen based hand-brewing to commercial micro-brewing started in the autumn of 2005 when Per Olaf Huusfeldt, who is now the director of the brewery, turned up. Like so many others, Per Olaf was impressed with the beer which Rune and Stinus had brewed on pure hobby level. As a matter of fact, he liked the beer to the extent that he thought it should be available to larger numbers of quality aware Danes. Thus, Per Olaf and Rune started working on business plans and marketing strategies and Bryggeriet Djævlebryg ApS was formed in June 2006. At that time, also Morten Bartvig had joined the enterprise.

Vision, innovation & reason

"It is our distinct target that a bottle of Djævlebryg has to be an exceptional tasting experience for the customer. What we are selling, is Relish with no Reservations", Per Olaf Huusfeldt says. And exactly quality and professionalism is the centre point for the four academics behind Bryggeriet Djævlebryg. Per Olaf has a M.SC. Degree in organic chemistry and Rune has a Bachelor Degree in biology. As Rune explains: "It is our philosophy, that the more knowledge you have within a certain field, the more innovative you are able to be. You simply have more buttons to press. Actually, beer-brewing is applied biochemistry and we encounter the brewing challenges wearing both academic and creative spectacles in the process". At the moment, there is quite a lot of micro breweries in Denmark. Bryggeriet Djævlebryg stands out by neither being very romantic, nor very local-patriotic. "Our focus is on making good beer. In principle, it's of no interest where the beer is brewed - what is important is the taste", Stinus Lindgreen says. The fact that Bryggeriet Djævlebryg would like to see their future small-scale innovation brewery located in Kongens Lyngby is another matter.

Collaboration with colleagues - 'Phantombrewery'

Bryggeriet Djævlebryg cooperates with the brewery Herslev in Roskilde. "We have arranged a really good deal with Herslev; they have a surplus capacity which we can benefit from. We appear with our own recipes and brew our beer using their brewing capacities. It's a clear win/win-situation", Per Olaf Huusfeldt explains. The deal with Herslev has now been running since February 2009 (until then they brewed at the now defunct Brøckhouse) and according to Bryggeriet Djævlebryg, the plan is to continue this collaboration for much longer.

Devilishly Delightful Beers!

The first Djævlebryg were introduced at the market in December 2006. Since then, two new members of the Djævlebryg family have seen the light of day. Thus, in this very moment, the brewery offers four different beers (as of march 2007 when this article was written. For information about the rest of our products please visit the product page); something for each taste. The names of the beers stand out as well. For instance, Schopenhauers Vilje (trans. "Schopenhauer’s Will"), a hopped ale named after the bitter philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Or Nekron and Son of Nekron - respectively, a strong stout and a less strong porter, named after the death prince of the lyric-universe of an Italian heavy metal band. And last, but definitely not least, Mystikale which with its 6 spices exposes the taster to a riddle: Which spices? "It all has to be coherent and come together in a whole. Priority number one is, of course, that the beers must be superb. Secondly, we have to get the aesthetics straight - the labels, the names and the story behind. To work on the basis of a cohesive and complete concept is very inspiring for us", Rune Lindgreen expresses.

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