NOGNE O 2002 -2017 Personal confessions

Nogne Ø 2002 - 2017

PERSONAL CONFESSIONS

Kjetil Jikiun

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Disclaimer This is my story about Nøgne Ø, Norway’s first modern craft brewery. I do not claim that this is an objective story. It is my story, as I remember it. Some people may not recognize all situations and communications I describe in my story. But this is natural, as everything can be perceived differently by individuals. I do not claim that I have the only truth. But I may have a part of it. After all, all communication requires a sender and a receiver, and what is communicated from the sender may not always be what is actually communicated to the receiver.

This story is very honest. Maybe too honest for many individuals. And in the middle of all its directness, you may ask: is it really so black and white? And I can assure you that it is not. The truth is always complicated. And in shades of grey.

And I need to say a few words about myself. Like, how did I end up with all these confrontations? I think I can shed some light on that: 1. I am, according to what friends say, really uncompromising.

2. I am emotional.

3. I am ambitious. I always want the best result. “Good enough” is not in my vocabulary.

4. As an ex-airline pilot, I am result oriented. A process is merely a tool to get to a perfect result.

5. Airline pilots are never 100% satisfied. They analyze and find room for improvement. Always. Even when it appears that things are perfect.

This list, which tells a bit of how I am put together, clearly indicates that I am not easy to work with. At least not in the culture of “lay Norwegians”.

So, when you read this, please have all this in mind; it has probably been challenging also (or in particular) for these people which I mention in my story.

Also keep in mind that this is a personal story. I have written it on my behalf. Nobody else have been involved. No family members, and no ex colleagues. And this story has got nothing to do with my beer brand Σολο http:/solobeer.gr or my Greek company, Grapes & Gratification.

It is my promise, that regardless of how well you think that you know Nøgne Ø, if you read this story (or maybe we can even call it a book) then you will be surprised. There has been so much! So many opportunities. Many of them taken, and brought to fruition. But also many lost opportunities.

This is a personal story, written by me, Kjetil Jikiun. I do not claim that the following is absolutely and indisputably true. But it is my perception of situations, persons, dialogues, actions and processes.

Many individuals may disagree with me in my observations. But this is how it is to be a human being.

We all perceive things differently, and this my story.

I am guilty of starting Nøgne Ø. My wife knew all the time that this was a bad idea. She even told me.

But I was too busy focusing on my bad judgement, to realize that she was right. We are still married.

What a woman!

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The start, and the early days.

In 1997 I started home brewing. I quickly became wildly obsessed with my new-found hobby. At the time, I was flying long haul flights for Scandinavian Airlines as a pilot, and I did all my purchases for homebrewing in the US. I packed 50lb bags of malt, fresh yeast, big pots and cornelius kegs in my bagage, and took it all home to Norway. In this process, I was naturaly influenced by the US craft brew scene.

Some people and places became very important to me at that time, both for educational and inspirational purposes. I would like to mention the following: Brew and Grow homebrew supplies in Chicago Dick Cantwell at Elysian Brewing Company in Seattle Mountain Homebrew in Kirkland, WA Hood Canal Brewery in Poulsbo, WA Bigtime Brewing Company, Seattle Maritime Pacific Brewing Company, Seattle Nynäshamn Ångbryggeri, Sweden Charlie’s , Copenhagen, Denmark Homebrewing was a lonely activity for me. For a long time, I knew no other Norwegian homebrewers.

Then I met Gunnar Wiig, who lived about 40 km away from me. We had and still have very different preferances in beer and brewing. His preferences would be Weissbier and lagers, while I would go for agressively hopped ales.

Gunnar and our brewkettle to be.

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I realized that I could not start a microbrewery on my own. For a while I had some discussions with a group of people who wanted to start a brewpub in Arendal, but these people had too many other activities in their lives, and did not really have time.

I quikly started to persuade Gunnar in joining me in my plans.

Gunnar is a wise and sensible person, so he did not think that this was a great idea at all. But after months of listening to me, I guess he changed his mind. We agreed that we should start a brewery, but everything else was totally in the blue.

The first thing we started to discuss was name, logo and design. We approached a good friend of mine, Tor Jessen who is an industrial designer. At that time Tor was married to Cecilie Mohr, who is a grafic designer. In this story you will hear many references to Tor and his work, but bear in mind that behind every successful man, there is a very clever woman. Cecilie has done lots of the design job for Nøgne Ø, and she continued to do so, even after she and Tor split up.

So when we approached Tor to help us out with the design work, we also had to tell him that we could not pay for it, but that he could have some shares in the brewery. Tor’s response was that that was OK, as long as he had a good name to work with, and that we accepted that he had his bottom line and would have to be trusted as an authority on design matters. That sounded allright we thought, but we quickly ran into some challenges just by trying to find a name for the brewery. All suggestions were scrapped by Tor, until we suggested Nøgne Ø and Det Kompromissløse Bryggeri, the latter meaning “The Uncompromising Brewery. “I can work with both” he said. “Which one do you choose?” Gunnar is not a quick decision maker and I did not want to offend him in any way, by pushing for one or the other. A decision had to be taken, and I suggested that we should use both.

In Januar 2002 we registered “Nøgne Ø Det Kompromissløse Bryggeri AS”.

So, there we were, Gunnar and I with a brewery by name, and nothing else. We then started looking for a place to start brewing. We had already decided that we should have our brewery in Grimstad because that was between Lillesand, where Gunnar lived and Arendal, where I lived. After a couple of months, we found an old garage at Bergemoen for rent. Bergemoen was a not so charming industrial area in the outskirts of Grimstad. The place was really run down but it was cheap. In May 2002 we started working on turning this garage or storage into a brewery.

First of all, we had no money. We realized that we had to build the brewery ourselves. Actually, that was Gunnar’s idea. I was the one who wanted to get a big mortgage and buy whatever we needed.

There was no doubt in my mind that there was a big market for our beers, and that we would have instant and immense success the moment our beers became available on the market. Well, Gunnar was successful in pursuading me to go along with his financially careful approach. In hindsight I can conclude that if we had spent a lot of money on the brewery as I wanted, we would have gone bancrupt really quickly.

So how does one go along when you build a brewery? For starters you need to get the building right.

We had to make new interiour walls and rooms. Cover windows, install “burglar bars”. Make our own simple ventilation system. Make drains in the floor. Make sure that all walls, ceiling and floors were decent and sanitary. This took quite a while.

Then how about the brewhouse and fermenters? We had to get in touch with someone who could weld stainless steel. Gunnar was able to find Roger Evensen. At this point I cannot remember how, but the fact is that Gunnar found Roger, and Roger thought that this could be an interesting project. I think we presented the project like this: “Roger, we want to build a brewery, for brewing beers which there are no markets for in Norway. We need you to build it for us, but we have no money, and cannot pay you, but we think that this is a great idea, and our intentions are to pay you later.”

Roger agreed to help us out. He probably regrets this decision sorely.

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Roger mashing in Big books could be written about Roger Evensen. He is a really colourful guy, with lots of talents. If he is set to do something, then he is the most creative and energetic person on the planet. I thoroughly enjoyed working with him.

Our brewery was supposed to be a micro brewery. Both Gunnar and I wanted it to be small. We thought 3-4 hl would be suitable. Then I got an advice from Dick Cantwell at Elysian in Seattle. He said: “Make sure you get a big enough brewery to generate enough income to enable you to grow and take the next step”. This proved to be a very valuable piece of advice. We then planned to go for a 6-8 hl system.

One day Roger found a large tank for sale. It was a 5000 l milk tank, about 120cm in dameter. We bought it and cut it in three sections. One end would be mash and lauter vessel, the other end would be the brew kettle. And the mid section would end up as whirlpool. The technical solutions to make this, was all governed by what equipment we were able to find on the scrap yard.

All these processes were actually progressing rather slowly. Then in January 2003, I decided to cancel my family’s annual trip to Malaysia, and instead use the 6-week holiday on building the brewery. From that day and onwards there was no time for rest or time off.

Gunnar, Kjetil and Roger 5

The brewkettle was also used as hot water tank. We put a cylinder through the vessel. This was about 50 cm in diameter, and was closed off in both ends. In one end there were 7x6kw electric heaters. The sylinder was filled with used transformer oil. There was a thermostat to prevent the oil from overheating, and an expansion tank so that the oil could expand as temperature increased. This cylinder was located about 30 cm above the bottom of the brewkettle, and to prevent cold pockets below, we put an electric motor on top of the kettle with a long axle and a propeller at at the end of it to circulate the wort during the boil. Now, you may want to know about our experiences with this brewkettle.

It actually worked ok. But it had its hitches: When we pumped the wort from brewkettle to whirlpool there would always be problems with the wort whirlpooling in the kettle because the outlet was in the middle. Putting a shovel at the bottom fixed it, by breaking the whirl.

Because of the design of the whirlpool, we had to use whole hops. When the transfer of wort to the whirlpool had taken place, there would be lots of hops left in the kettle. The only way to get this out was to climb into the kettle, and stand at the bottom with the 200 degrees C cylinder between ones legs, and hose, spray and shovel the hops out through the one inch hole. That would typically take 10 minutes and the brewer would come out looking like a boiled lobster, often with some burns from the cylinder.

The cylinder would very often build a layer of burnt wort. Then the brewer would have to scrub it. This would take time, and very often involved sores from the caustic wash, as one would have to lie down below with dripping caustic from the cylinder.

Initially the temperature control of the cylinder worked very well. But after some time, the boil was less rigorous, and we had to take away the thermostat for the oil in the cylinder to obtain a proper boil. This resulted in very high temperatures, and whenever we used the brewkettle, the whole brewery would smell like burning oil, and if the doors were not open it would be hard to breathe. The insulation on the pipes running to the expansion tank would also melt and burn with resulting odours and smoke.

The brewkettle The whirlpool was somewhat more successful, though it had it hitches. For one we did not insulate it.

As such the brewer got frequent burns from inadvertantly toucing it. It did not function as good as it should, and as such we had to sieve the wort as it came out through the whirlpool. The mesh which it 6

sieved through would be boiled with the wort to make sure it would be sanitary. For some odd reason there was also a lot of steam associated with the use of the whirlpool. Sometimes the whole brewery would be packed in steam. Almost as if there was a thick fog in there.

The whirlpool The mashing/lauter tun was a nightmare. First it was a nightmare to build, then it was horrible to use. I actually cut every slot in the false bottom by hand using an angle cutter. It took me 10 dusty and noisy hours.

But let me describe the mashing process: It all starts with milling the malt. The malt would be up on the attic, and one would start by carrying it down to the mill. The mill was initially a homebrew mill, but we quickly wore it out. We then bought a cattle feed mill. It was cheap, but felt expensive for us who at the time had no money. This mill actually worked alright, but it was very dusty. If we did not have a fresh dust mask, we would cough for days after using it. The mask had to be fairly new, because the combination of sweat and dust would gum it up, making it impossible to breathe through it.

The milled malt, typically 2-300 kg, would then have to be carried over to the brewhouse, carried up a 2 meter staircase and dumped in with the water. Water would be either cold or hot, so mashing in would typically be too hot/too cold/too hot/too cold/too hot/too cold. We had a mixer, but it did not work very well. High levels of activity with a shovel was therefore required. Runoff was certainly a challenge when brewing 17 Plato beers or stronger. Countless were our stuck mashes.

But when the spent grains were going out, we had to take it out by shovel, put it in buckets and take every bucket down the stairs and carry it outside. That brewery really kept us fit!

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Mashtun The process of making these components was mainly taken care of by Roger and me. In principle it worked like this: - I told what I wanted - Roger told what he thought could be done based on available parts - I came up with a revised solution - Roger made the final adjustments and lined out how the parts were going to be cut - I cut out and adjusted the parts - Roger welded it - I polished and made the final finish In the middle of all this, we had no money, so all parts had to be virtually free.

We realized that we had to buy a pump. We got one unit from Alfa Laval. At 10 000 kr we thought it was prohibitively expencive. We could only buy one, so we put it on wheels and moved it to the area where it was required. I tell you: that thing was working hard!

Oh! There were more hard-working units there too. Like our wort chiller/heat exchanger. That was an old pasteurizing unit from a dairy.

The infamous pasteurizer 8

That thing clogged up with hops every second time we used it, and had to be dismantled and reassembelled. As we did this frequently, the gaskets were falling apart, and we very often had to glue it all back on.

We had fermenters too. 5 x 8 hl fermenters. These were old milk tanks with cooling units and agitators. We removed the coolers and agitators, and made new cooling jackets on the side. Originally the cooling was in the bottom. These tanks were insulated. The insulation (a yellow and hard foamy substance) was vicious. When you cut it with angle cutter, it emitted a very poisonous smoke and when welding near it, it caught fire and would be very hard to extinguish.

These tanks were connected to our homemade glycol system. It would take too much time describing it here, but it was a terrible system which froze up frequently. I need to mention the control panel for the cooling of the individual tank though. It was designed and made by one of Gunnars friends. It worked very well, and carries the name “Jalmar”. The residual heat from the glycol system were emitted inside the brewery. During summer the temperature would easily hit 40 degrees C.

Fermenters. These were later put on 1 meter tall legs.

While we were working on building on this brewery (which now makes me sick to my stomach by thinking of it, but at the time made me really proud and happy). Tor started to come up with ideas for the labels and bottles. When Tor showed us the suggested label design for the first time, Gunnar and I were both shocked. We both thought it was ugly. “How can we sell beer looking like that?” we thought. But we allowed him to carry on. After all he did not interfere with the flavour of the beers!

Tor was the one who chose the bottle too. But at this point we all agreed. We wanted the half liter bottle because it is not big nor small. Small bottles become expencive and carries a higher tax compared to the volume of beer. Large bottles can scare away the customer as it seems too large to drink alone.

The shape seemed like a good idea because it had the same shape as a wine bottle. We liked the idea of being compared to wine and not average light lager beer. The bottle also resembled the old 0,7 l beer bottle which was commonly called “murer” or “maison” because the maisons had reputation of consuming them in high numbers.

In April 2003 we were close to finishing the building process of the brewery, and we applied for a permit to brew. We got the permit some time in May, and quickly made two brews. I think it was one pale ale

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and one amber. The two brews were put on casks. We had about 30 which we bought second hand from the UK.

Cask washer These brews were then taken to Copenhagen Beer Festival where we were part of Charlie’s stand.

I remember very well Iain Russel’s responce when we got to his stand (Iain is the owner of Charlie’s).

We had made some really nice (we thought) pump clips for the occation, an Ian’s response was: “You’ve got to be kidding. This is not a tractor, it is beer. We’re not selling earth moving equipment you know!”

I guess Tor found it really provoking. Heck, we all did! But we did not change it. And Iain has never had our beers on ever again!!

I actually had my homebrew for sale on Iains pub, Charlie’s, in Copenhagen a couple of times before Nøgne Ø became reality. It was fun and satisfying. Iain is a person of good intentions. There has been a couple of homebrewers and small microbrewers who has had their beers on at Charlie’s. It is funny though that when things are starting to materialize for these small brewers, then Iain all of a sudden was not interested. I guess Iain likes British Beer, and that is of course totally OK. The first brew, I believe it was a pale ale, was the first time we used our brewhouse. Looking back, I realize that so many things could have gone wrong. We did not focus much about it at the time; I guess we were high on our future success which we were so sure of.

We did not know whether the mash/lauter tun would work, or if we would have a proper boil in the kettle, or how hop utilization would be or if the whirlpool would actually work or if the pasteurizer would actually cool the wort, or if the temperature control on the fermenters would work or if our standpipe system would be sufficient to get clear beer out of the fermenters.

There were so many individual things that could have gone wrong. But it did not!

After we got back from Copenhagen Beer Festival in May 2003, we had some 10-12 casks of amber and pale ale. I thought that these casks would sell out really quickly, but to my surprise there were no customers for cask condidtioned ale in Norway. It was time to rethink the business concept very quickly, because we were about to run out of cash. We realized that we had to go for bottled beers right

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away, and got a three-head manual bottle filler and a manual crowner.

The process of bottling would take 4 persons 6 hours for a 7 hl/1400 bottle brew.

It is really important for me to emphasize that it would have been impossible to keep Nøgne Ø going without countless helpers who worked a countless number of unpaid hours out of pure enthusiasm and good will. Many thanks to all family members, friends and enthusiasts!!!

From there on we went from 2 beer types to 8 in a couple of months. By the end of the summer, we were doing Bitter, Brown Ale, Porter, IPA, Pale Ale, Amber Ale, Wit and Weiss. I guess we thought that the wide portefolio would make us more interesting on the market.

At this time, we were about to go bancrupt every day. The first battle was to sell beer for more than 50 000 kr. When that happened, we would get reimbursed the moms/vat/tax we had paid to the government so far.

In June/July I drove around to all pubs and restaurants I could think of and virtually begged them to buy a case of beer. To most pubs it was unthinkable to start selling a beer different from the ones they already had. The fact that the beers were of beer styles they had never heard of did not help.

Initially, Gunnar and I had some discussions about what beers to make. Gunnar thought that we should be careful not to provoke anyone, while I thought that history proved that anyone who tried to make bland beer went out of business quikly, and as such we should have rather assertive flavour profiles.

We agreed to have both, but Gunnar never really had much time to brew or work in the brewery, and as a result of that the only beers he was able to brew with his flavour profile was Weiss and Wit. His intention was to do a Dortmunder Export, and a Bock. But that never happened.

I guess it is fair to say that Gunnar and I have very different energy levels. As such, I was there much more than him. The brewhouse was extremely tiresome to work with, and I think it really drained him of energy. If he had brewed one day, he would require two to three days to recuperate afterwords. Also, if he was bottling, he needed a chair to relax while working. With me putting in a whole lot more hours than him, it ended up with Nøgne Ø being more a brewery in my spirit than Gunnars.

During this summer and fall the company really struggled to survive. It was interesting to see how all the three of us had different opinions on how to survive.

“We need to brew more and have more different beer styles” I said “We need to sell more beer” Roger said “We need to cut costs” said Gunnar The result was that we did all the above. The whole situation was very uncomfortable of course. I remember one day I was working in the brewery, and the forklift (a vinage Datsun with no brakes) did not start. I had to move a pallet of beer to get the newly delivered malt into our store. We had no pallet jack and I did not like the idea of moving the beer by hand – case by case, and then get the malts inside – sack by sack. Gunnar had said “No more spending money!” and I did not know what to do. I called Gunnar and said: “Now, you either accept that I will go and buy a pallet jack or you come over here and help out!” “Buy that pallet jack” he responded.

At the end of the summer, when everything was quite awful, and we thought we were not going to make it, I got a phone call from Jon Bertelsen, a representative from Moestue Grape Selections who imports quality wines and liquors. “I have heard that you make good beers” he said. “May I come and visit you?” To cut a long story short, he came, he tasted, he brought with him some beers back to Moestue Grape Selections, and were able to get some of our beers accepted by Vinmonopolet, the government owned outlet system for alcoholic beverages above 4,7% abv.

This was really a turning point. Initially I think they took the IPA and Amber, followed by Porter and Pale ale.

At this time the newspapers were starting to write about us. It was the first time Vinmonopolet sold craft

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beer, and the first time any Norwegian newspaper wrote about beer outside of Christmas beer season.

In September Jon Bertelsen called again. “Could you make us a Christmas beer” he asked. “We need some samples in two weeks”. I promptly rejected the offer. There was simply not enough time. After some discussions with Gunnar we reconsidered. Gunnar brewed a Christmas beer. He had lots of experience with the style. Unfortunately, it did not work out very well, and we had to mix it with a porter which was ready for bottling in another fermenter. (The next brew was then a calculation of the mix of the two beers, and it actually worked quite well). To get the Chrristmas beer ready for Vinmonopolet, I had to put a small amount into a cornelius keg, then filter it over to another keg, and then shake in a lot of carbondioxide before bottling it the day after. We just made it, the beer was accepted, and we got order for more. This was the largest order we had ever had. What a thrill. Lots of attention from media, and we worked like mad.

Change of ownership Now, this was the point when I started to believe that Nøgne Ø was going to stay around for a while.

I was therefore shocked when Gunnar sent me an email where he explaned that he wanted to leave Nøgne Ø.

His reasons were quite clear: that he found it difficult to cooperate with me. He felt harassed by me and my behaviour.

I think it is fair to write a few words about me and my background. As an airline pilot, I am used to work in an environment were focus is 100% quality oriented. We pilots work together and correct each other all the time. We all now that all humans make mistakes and we check on each other to catch those mistakes as early as possile.

When we started Nøgne Ø, I thought it would be a great idea to work in the same manner there too.

Gunnar did not like that I always checked on his work. He was not comfortable in checking me either, because I asked him specifically to do so.

We have at a later stage discussed this, Gunnar and I, and his conclusion was that when you are partners you should define area of responsibility and stay away from your partner’s area. My conclusion is that partners are better off checking each other as two brains work better than one, four eyes see better than two etc.

This is all about personalities I think. Maybe most people are like Gunnar? I have come to conclude that airline pilots probably are difficult to work with if you are not used to them and their strong focus on quality and performance.

So, Gunnar wanted to get out. I could not buy him out. Nor could I run the brewery alone. What happened was that Rogers girlfriend or common law spouse, Kjersti Lindtveit, wanted to buy his shares.

And so, she did.

Roger and Kjersti worked hard. Very hard. I brewed, and they bottled. Roger traveled extensively to sell the beer. Roger was to some extent paid during this time. He usually had lots of small business ideas and were always selling something or working for someone. When he dedicated all his time for the brewery, he did not have much of an income.

Roger and Kjersti also had some diverging opinion with me regarding running the company. It was quite frustrating to discuss whether or not the brewery should have a telphone or whether or not we should use email for communication. We ended up having a phone and fax at the brewery to much irritation for Kjersti and Roger. They never started using email.

I guess it is time to write a few words about Roger. He is one of the best welders I have met. Very

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energetic and lots of optimism. When we were finished building the brewery, he started focusing on sales. He was good at that, and without him the berwery would never had survived. But he changed from being positive and goal minded to being pessimistic and moody. I think he was afraid to lose his role in the brewery.

When he was around and worked with sales, there was a huge number of bottles which were given out as samples. Some months as much as 400. At the same time, he was able to get spare parts, tools and favours for apparently no cost. Very strange, and not what you want to do in a country where laws concerning alcohol are very strict.

As we had our discussions on where this brewery should be going, Roger apparently started to dislike me. He never revealed that to me, but frequently had long conversations with Tor, who was the Chairman of the board at that time.

In those days Roger tried to take more and more control of the brewery. He presented himself as general manager, even in articles in newspapers or when he represented the brewery while visiting customers. I did not really understand what was going on at that time, as I was working full time as a pilot with SAS, and brewed all the beers. That kept me very busy.

While I am at it, I might as well say something about Kjersti. She was indeed a very quiet and careful person. She did though have some extremely agressive outburst, and to this date she is probably the only person who has accused me of lying. Not once, but numerous times! I found (and still find) this very disturbing. We could have conversations and come to conclusions together, and the next week she would claim that the conversation never took place, or that she or me had said or did not say something which was far away from how I remembered it. If I had the same kind of experience with other people, then I would seek professional help. But I only experienced this with her!

It became quite obvious that the way we were operating the brewery was no way to continue. We were all exhausted. The brewery was working at full capacity (800 hl pr year). We did not earn much money.

We discussed to try to find an investor. Roger and Kjersti were against it. Kjersti and I did go to Oslo and had a meeting with Moestue Grape Selections, but this resulted in nothing. We had several conversations with potential investors, but everybody wanted thorough analysis and lofty budgets. We were just an airline pilot, a welder and a housewife with no qualifications for making budgets and analysis.

At a board meeting in April 2004 Tor and I discussed the theme “investors” with full force against Roger and Kjersti. They became very angry, and the day after they announced that she wanted to sell her shares, and he quit his job. This was the last time I talked to them. It is quite clear that they disliked me very thoroughly. All of a sudden, the brewery was at a stand still.

Nøgne Ø Porter Our Porter is a great beer. I like it a lot. This beer was created when I was homebrewing. I found a recipe for Elysian Brewing Company’s Perseus Porter, and I tried to brew it. My beer ended up being too strong, and also more malty. On one of my flights to Seattle, I brought one bottle and asked Dick Cantwell (the brewmaster of Elysian) to taste it with me. We both concluded that I had failed to come near the flavour profile of his Porter.

But I concluded that I liked mine better. After this, the recipe never changed.

New shareholders (again) Then I contacted Tore Nybø, who had previously said that he wanted to buy shares. He got in touch with Kjersti and Roger who wanted a huge amount of money for their shares. At the same time Roger started to negotiate with Harald Berentsen at Berentsen Brygghus in Egersund. Harald wanted 51%, that we should be personally responsible for Nøgne Ø’s debt, and that we should work for free in the future.

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For a long time, I think 2-3 months the brewery was doing nothing while Tore negotiated with Roger and Kjersti.

In this period, I felt that everything was about to collaps. I even at one point offered all my shares to Roger and Kjersti just to make sure that Nøgne Ø would not disappear. They declined though.

In early June they reached an agreement. Tore and his sister Anne Cecilie Nybø (Cili) bought Kjersti’s shares. Now it was time to focus on the future. But, what a future. The same day Kjersti sold her shares, she emptied Nøgne Ø’s bank account under the pretence that it was salary for Roger. So, we were back to square one with no money and hard work.

Tore and Cili worked hard. And their friends worked hard. And their families worked hard. These people are stayers and I really admire their effort to try to make things work at Nøgne Ø.

I might as well reveal right now that both Tore and Cili have revealed to me that they would never had bought those shares if they knew what struggles that was lined up ahead.

Cili, Tore and Kjetil But now Nøgne Ø consisted of a group of people who had the same motivation and pulled in the same direction.

In the summer of 2004, after Tore and Cili became part of the brewery, Roger demanded that he should be payed for his effort of welding our brewhouse together. Personally, I think that was quite fair. He had after all done a great job! But he wanted a settlement right away, which was impossible for the brewery.

After all he had just emptied our bank account! This too became a lengthy discussion. Tore took it on behalf of the brewery. After all Roger disliked me very much at that time. But despite of Tore’s diplomatic negotiations, Rogers responce was that “Kjetil is behind this. Tore is just his representative.” We had no choice but to hand the whole thing over to our financial advicer and auditor, Tom Johansen, who is very clever and likeable. Now, I think Tom were really rough with Roger, but I guess he just represented his client, Nøgne Ø, to the best of his abilities. The result was that Roger got much less than he (or me, for that matter) expected. That has of course not helped in Rogers feelings for me or Nøgne Ø.

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Another financial and legal struggle took place at the same time. In fall 2004 we were approached by a consultant company which offered us to register for tax refund “Skattefunn”. We signed an agreement where we sould pay them a certain percentage of the tax refund they were able to get for us. This was refund for hours of labour we had done for the brewery. They did a good job, and the refund was approved. But then the tax authorities made some changes to how these rules were interpreted, and we were told that we could get no tax refund until we had prepaid the personal income tax and emplyers tax for the person mentioned in the application for the tax refund. We did not have any money for that, and as such we could not get the refund. ”Well, the refund is technically approved” said the concultants, and claimed that we had to pay them. I think they demanded close to 100 000 kr, money which we did not have.

Tore’s diplomatic skills were again challenged, and again he succeeded. He was able to negiate th sum down to something we could live with.

I need to emphasize that the government in 2006 realized that this practice regarding “Skattefunn” was unfair to small companies, and made a new rule, so these refunds could be paid out. We got it that year, and the greedy consultants got their share.

It is important to me to write write a few lines about Tor and Cecilie and their work. Through the existence of the brewery, they have allways been there to do new labels, signs, posters, letterheads and such. They have done a fantastic job. A job of brand building. The label is clearly different from other breweries. It has been used by “Innovasjon Norge” as a good example of succesful modern Norwegian design, and students have done papers on Nøgne Ø as a good example of Norwegian brand building.

This would not have been possible without them.

Nøgne Ø stand at festival After Tore and Cili became partners the company gradually turned profitable. The only reason for this is of course hard work and tough control with expences. The brewery was working at max capacity and it became evident that the place was subject to heavy wear and tear. It became really ugly and run down, and it was quite evident that the place and equipment would not last.

At this time, we were desperately looking for investors. We could not raise enough money in a new brewery ourselves.

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New cash and new brewery In January 2005 we made a deal with local investor Anne Hestnes Trommestad. She invested in our company and got about 40% of the shares (I cannot remember exactly). From this point and onwards, we had the cash to grow, and we entered a totally new era.

First of all, we needed a new building. We found a charming and industrial building by the Nidelven river. This building from 1914, used to be a hydroelectric powerplant. Now it was empty. We rented most of it from spring 2005. The landlord had his offices in parts of the building.

Then we started to look for brewing equipment. Our consultant was my good (and now unfortunately, late) friend Nick Ricketts, who, at that time had just stopped working for Danbrew in Copenhagen. Nick was a very knowledgeable brewer, and was always able to think out of the box to find better and often cheaper solutions to most challenges.

First, we needed to find a Brewhouse. I got in touch with a broker in Chicago, and he had a used 25 hl brewery with fermenters and “everything”. Coincidentally I had a flight to Chicago. I think this must have been in the spring of 2015. But when I got to Chicago, the broker told me that the 25-hl brewery was already sold. He was actually quite embarrassed about it, but told that coincidentally he had just received an offer for a 45 hl 4 vessel brewhouse. This was of course way larger than what we needed, but the price was very attractive. The system was in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Nick went there and checked it out. It was operated by the Barcelo cruise and resort group. Apparently, they had had some challenges in getting beer of descent quality to their resorts, and solved the situation by brewing the beer themselves. But now there was a supplier of acceptable beer in the country, and they could buy the beer instead of brewing it themselves. The brewhouse seemed to be OK, though not very well maintained, and we decided to buy it. Nick went there with the team from the Chicago based broker, and dismantled and packaged it. It all went according to the plan. But when the equipment reached Oslo, then we got a surprise. The shipping agent in Santo Domingo all of a sudden wanted more money for the shipping. And he refused that the equipment could be released to us before we had paid his “new” extra charge. It appeared that he had all power in this, and we really did not know what to do. At this time a person by the name Kim Jeffries was at the board of directors at Nøgne Ø.

Kim is a lawyer of maritime law, and she wrote the most fantastic letter to this Dominican broker, where she in very clear ways described the legal actions we would take to solve the situation. In two days the problem was solved. The broker released the shipment, and we heard no more about his extra charge.

When we received the brewhouse, we were quite surprised how little TLC it had received in its recent years. The electrical control panel was a mess and had to be scrapped. This was also the case for the grain auger, mill and spent grains system. Designing and making a new electrical control panel proved to be a costly project. As for the grain and spent grains handling, and also for the mill, then Nick was able to source low cost, but high-quality solutions for us.

Then, surely, we needed some fermenters as well. Again, with the help of our friends in Chicago, we got some Chinese made fermenters. These were called Stromberg Tanks. And it was a company in San Diego which designed and sold them.

I inspected some Stromberg tanks in Philadelphia. I had a layover in New York, and rented a car and drove down to Yards Brewery. They had just received some Stromberg tanks. We ordered 3 fermentors and 1 BBT. All at 45 hl net. When we received the tanks, it was apparent that they were not delivered to specs. Like two cooling jackets instead of three. Some design on pipes, which was not in accordance with agreed specs. The tanks were actually OK from a quality perspective.

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The funny thing is that when we tried to approach Clint Stromberg about the off specs details, he totally did not respond. Not on emails. And he did not pick up the phone. Needless to say, we never bought more tanks from that company.

And then I need to mention our experience with the boiler. We had no experience with steam, and we knew nothing about boilers or steam equipment. We got in touch with a Norwegian company, and got an offer for a used, small oil burning boiler. The price included installation and commissioning and “everything”. We thought that this sounded like a good deal.

First the brewing equipment was installed. Then the boiler company came and installed the boiler.

Then, they concluded that they were finished. We went to have a look, and to see how this would be operated, and to our surprise there was no steam piping between the boiler and the brewhouse. “So how can this be finished, and ready to use?” we asked. And they responded that the boiler was now 100% operational, but they knew nothing about how to connect it to our brewing equipment. Did we feel cheated? Absolutely!

Then we got in touch with a company which could connect the boiler to the brewhouse. They gave us an offer. Again, with everything included. We thought it was expensive, but we had no choice. So, they did the job, and showed us the result, and concluded that it was now finished, and ready for use.

But then I noticed that the steam pipes were uninsulated. The risk of personnel getting burned, not to mention the heat loss was significant. And I asked if it was normal to have absolutely uninsulated steam pipes. The response: No, it is usual to insulate these. And they would recommend it. But this could only be done for an additional charge.

Again, we felt cheated! But when you are inexperienced, it is easy to be cheated. And we were apparently learning the hard way!

It was quite demanding to plan and rig up the new brewery in the old power station. In May 2005 we decided that we needed to have a brewer operating our old brewery. An American, who previously had work for Breckenridge Brewing in Colorado, started as our assistant brewer. It was a very interesting process, to have him employed. He was very concerned about the health and safety aspects of working at our old and homemade brewery. The brewing was all very manual, with heavy lifting and a very dusty mill. The fact that he was living in Oslo, and had to take the bus for 4 hours to get to Grimstad, was of course quite cumbersome for him.

After about a month, he demanded higher salary and that the malt should be milled by someone else.

After another couple of months, he demanded even higher salary, and that someone else should take out the spent grains.

And a few months later, he demanded that his travel cost to/from Grimstad from Oslo should be covered, and that someone would have to do the mashing in for him.

And another two months later, he concluded that he wanted to quit, and he clearly communicated that not even the best salary on the planet would be able to tempt him to brew for us ever again. The reason for this decision was the fact that there was lots of dusty conditions from malt, and heavy lifting, and a CIP system with some leaks and shortcomings.

During his time with us, this brewer took initiative to launch our Saison and Imperial Stout. The Saison is still in accordance with his recipe.

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In April 2005, we got our first bottling machine. It was a 6 head Meheen. Up to this point, all bottling had been manual. It took 6 hours to fill 1000 bottles. With the Meheen, it took less than an hour. For us, this was no short of a revolution. Lots have been said about Meheen fillers. Lots of people hate them. And I can see their shortcomings. But we operated our Meheen filler as our primary filler from 2005 to 2011, and I think that we became quite good at problem solving and handling it. At its last year of regular operation, the filler was at work almost every day, doing 40 hl or 8 000 half liter bottles daily.

Anne I think it is time to write a few words about Anne Hestness Trommestad.

At the time when she invested in Nøgne Ø, she was quite young. In her 20s. With money from her family, to invest. I think Nøgne Ø was her first independent project, in her career as investor. To a great extent, I also think that her brothers-in-law recommended her to do this investment.

At the time when Anne invested, we all thought that we were going to be profitable quite soon. This quickly proved not to be the case. I can imagine that Anne must have felt pretty disappointed when she realized that we were many years away from profitability. But, she really handled this very well.

Instead of complaining, she focused on being as active as she could, in order to give good advice and to share her network with the brewery, in order to get to key people and new markets.

But there were other traits which made cooperation among us difficult. For starters, she did not like to take decisions. She would frequently criticize other’s decisions. And in decision making processes, she would wait until all others had voiced their opinions before she would decide with whom she would agree.

Her decisions would very often be based, not on the case or result, but on which scenario that would lead to the least amount of noise or confrontations. Choosing allies would for her not so much be about the outcome of certain matters, but would be more about building the right network and alliances. And in discussions, she would focus more on the personality of a person, than his/her actual opinions and strategies.

Me, being very direct, and caring more about the matter than the person or persons, did not work out well in cooperation or confrontation with Anne. She would very often get very upset with me (and my directness). On one occasion she even explained that she was shameful of just the mere fact that she was a partner with me in Nøgne Ø.

Anne’s mood swings and what appeared to be low self-esteem could be another problem. During board meetings she could start crying because of someone’s comment, or because she would have a hard time making up her mind.

I strongly felt guilty for our lacking ability of making her investment worthwhile during the first 5-6 years after she became a partner. Now, after she has cashed in multiple times of her investment, I feel proud.

We did not let her down! In fact, it is my understanding that this is likely to be of her best investments.

To this point she has never said thank you to us, who worked for free, years after years, to make Nøgne Ø successful. To my knowledge, she never thanked her brothers-in-law as well.

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Our first export sales Through my years of flying, I always left beers behind in craft beer bars. And I came back. And left some more beers. Over some period of time this had an effect. And I am not in doubt that this had an effect on Nøgne Øs success with export sales.

The first export market for us was Denmark. I was on a layover in Copenhagen in 2005, and I met up with friends in Charlies, which is an iconic pub serving cask conditioned ales. Ian Russel, the owner, was there. And Nick Ricketts. Nick had guided Gregg Glaser, an American beer writer, all over Denmark to cover the Danish craft brew scene, and it was Greggs’s last night in Denmark. I had brought some samples from Nøgne Ø, and Gregg tasted them. I remember his comment: “Is it not ironic, that the best beers I have tasted in Denmark are Norwegian!” Next to us some people started to pay attention. It was Helle and Jan Filip, the owners of the craft beer shop “Barley Wine”. They asked if they could taste the beers, and I gave them some samples to bring home. A few days later Jan Filip got in touch and asked if he could start to import Nøgne Ø to Denmark. This was a very proud moment for me!

One of the places I also left behind beers was The Spuyten Duyvil in Brooklyn, New York. Joe Carrol, the owner, is good friend with Daniel Shelton of Shelton Brothers Import. One day, Daniel called me, and I remember very well his words: “I have come across your beers many times now. To be honest with you, I am not so impressed. But there is such a buzz around your brand right now, so if we do not start to import it, then surely someone else will. May we be your importer to the US?” Daniel is great guy, but diplomacy is not one of his strengths. We ended up exporting our beers to the USA through him and his company.

The first manager After the summer 2005, we concluded that it was time to have an employee who would manage, sell and organize the company. After all, we were producing and selling almost 800 hl of beer, and exporting to Denmark and about to start soon to the US. We had many discussions on what kind of person we needed. Some of us thought that this person must be a multi tasker, who would be able to do sales, office work and budgets, as well as physical warehouse work and some occasional hours by the bottling line. Others were more focused on the academic requirements.

We got in touch with a recruitment agency. They were not cheap, but had good references. Anne and Tor started a process with this agency. We were all very excited when the advertisement appeared in the newspapers. But I remember that I was shocked for the following reasons: The ad had a presentation of the recruitment agency. And a presentation of Nøgne Ø. And of course, the text about the person we wanted to recruit. But the presentation of the recruitment agency took the majority of the space of the ad! Apparently, this was more about them than about us.

And then it was the content of the add. What I remember mostly was the fact that it emphasized that we wanted to recruit a woman with good sense of humour. I was flabbergasted. We had never discussed that humour was a criterion. Neither that the gender of this person was important.

So, what did this lead to?

We received many applications. The recruitment agency picked three candidates. And we chose one.

A man. Without humour. And with no social antennas.

The next four or five months was very stressful. The individual we had hired was very disorganized. He was busy in meetings and phone calls all days, and constantly complained that he never had enough

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time. I remember that many of our suppliers later told us that they were tempted to cut all contact with us, because our manager was rude and always demanded discounts and lower prices.

It became evident that his references were not good at all. It appeared that he had been fired from many previous companies, and caused grave financial difficulties in more than one incident. But this was never discovered by the recruitment agency.

The worst thing about this situation was the fact that we, the shareholders of Nøgne Ø disagreed on how to deal with this. Those who had been part of the dialogue with the recruitment agency, wanted to give this guy second chances. While the rest of us, wanted to let him go. This lead to some serious fighting among us. Very uncomfortable indeed. But at the end of 2005 we concluded to fire him.

In hindsight, we all know that this was the right decision, as we now know that he did damage to another company who recruited him later.

First brew in new brewery On February 11th 2006, we did the first brew on our new equipment. It was all very exciting. I remember that I had a real adrenaline rush when we milled and mashed in, in parallel. Mashing in was done in 10 minutes!

But surely, the mill was not adjusted very well, and I got a stuck mash beyond any other stuck mashes I have ever had. The spent grains system was not finished yet, and we ended up with thin mash all over the brewery at 0300 in the morning.

Going from 6 to 45 hl in batch size was a big jump. But I am actually quite proud of the fact that I was able to scale up the recipes in the correct way, from the first attempt. We are talking hop utilization rates from 30 to 50%. A big adjustment.

The main change for us in using cylindroconical tanks, was the fact that we could start to dry hop.

Clearly our IPAs improved a lot because of it.

But just because the batch size changed, did not mean that sales improved a lot. The first few months, we actually brewed every two weeks only! A batch of beer would sit in our warehouse for maybe as much as a year. But at this stage, people were not so educated about craft beer, and nobody demanded or even expected to have very fresh hoppy beers.

First collab In spring 2006 Anders Kissmeyer at Nørrebro Bryghus in Copenhagen invited us to brew with him. It was really an honour to brew with professional brewers. At that time, I still felt as an advanced homebrewer.

We decided to brew a strong brown ale. The malts at Nørrebro Bryghus were of different specs than the malts we were used to. Hence the beer became lighter in colour than planned. We decided to call it Double Knot Brown.

After we got back to Nøgne Ø, we decided to brew it again, but this time with the “right” colour. This time it worked out well, and we gave it the name Imperial Brown Ale. This is indeed one of the beers I am very proud of. Rich, full bodied, nutty, dried fruit and a touch of caramel.

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The first commercial visit to Nøgne Ă˜ A couple of years after we got started, we got a request from a company. The company, I think they were making computer software, was receiving customers , and would usually take hem out for a dinner. But instead they came to us and asked if we could receive them in our brewery, and serve beer and some finger food. Our brewery was not only really small, but the brewing system was home made from dairy tanks and scrap metal. It was far from pretty. And we had no chairs or tables. We politely declined the offer, and suggested that they should instead arrange so that a restaurant of their choice could serve them our beers. But the person in charge of the coming event practically begged us to facilitate this. We felt very uncomfortable about this situation, but were finally persuaded, and agreed to to do it.

We ended up rigging some snacks and beer on the table where we used to hand fill bottles, let’s call it our bottling line. And with no chairs, and everybody standing, it felt really awkward. But to my surprise, the atmosphere was really good and everybody enjoyed themselves thoroughly. After a while I was asked to tell about the brewery and our beers. I was caught by surprise. Who wanted to know about our rustic, not to describe it as crappy, homemade brewery? It felt like an embarrasing moment. But when I got started, I noticed that everybody paid attention and found my presentation interesting and entertaining. I expected to be finished in 5 minutes, but there were so many questions and interaction, so the whole ordeal took hours, and from how I remember we had to work hard in order to make them leave late at night.

For me, this evening was a turning point. A turning point in understanding the real power of craft beer.

Was it the beer which made our visitors stay so long? Hopefully it was partly the beers, but what was even more important was the interaction, the passion, and our honesty.

After this, we realized the power of interaction and our story. And we had lots of people coming to visit our brewery. To illustrate the significance of these guided tours of our brewery: In 2008 we lost a significant contract, and our volumes were down by almost 50%. For a while we contemplated to fire some employees, to cut costs. Instead we started to actively market our visits/guided tours, and this was able to generate about 20% of the revenue and 50% of the profits for the following year.

Second attempt to recruit a General Manager In the summer of 2006 we concluded again that we needed a general manager. I cannot really remember how we got introduced to Kjell Einar Karlsen. But this time we did not go to any recruitment agency.

Nor did we have adverts in the newspapers.

Kjell Einar had a tough start in September that year. A company to run. But no employees, except himself.

Brewing was easy. That was done by me, on my days off between flying. The bottling was more of a challenge. As the company, production and sales increased it was not possible for the shareholders and their family members to bottle during weekends anymore. After all, bottling 8 000 bottles takes a whole day; it is not an evening activity.

So Kjell Einar was very clever in recruiting part timers for these activities. Many of these were people who was unemployed for various reasons: Disabilities, language problems or mental problems. This meant that the Norwegian welfare system paid parts of their salaries, or their salaries for a period of

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time, which was very important, as the brewery was not profitable enough to pay full salaries.

Many of these employees were great people, and many later got permanent employment with Nøgne Ø.

Some words about the local culture in the south of Norway Norwegians are not very fond of confrontations. In fact, they like friendly relations, without heavy debates or disagreements. This story about Nøgne Ø is a lot about this culture. And one of the reasons that I have ended up in confrontations with people at Nøgne Ø, is the fact that I am focused on results.

For me the most important thing is the product, the beer, and its quality. And I care a lot about how Nøgne Ø is perceived. If this means that some individual, that being a partner, a manager or an employee, must change, then the change needs to be implemented even if this is uncomfortable for the individual.

For the majority of Norwegians in the southernmost part of Norway, this is very challenging. Most would rather live with a mediocre result, but with a good atmosphere and uncomplicated human relations.

In this part of Norway, we also have a term which is best translated to “Someone have talked together.”

This means that individuals have discussed a subject in an informal arena, like on telephone or in a corridor. And concluded before the real meeting where this subject is supposed to be discussed, takes place.

On countless occasions, I have come to meetings at Nøgne Ø, both board meetings and meetings among managers, to discover that all discussions apparently had taken place before, without me, and alliances had been built, and with a clear majority. As a result of this, all of us who expected to have real discussions at the meeting were side-lined and had no influence in the outcome.

This is not only a phenomenon at Nøgne Ø, but it is very common in this part of Norway.

I think this is a very unfortunate thing. It takes away the real potential for new ideas and healthy debates, which is imperative for a company and an organization to reach its full power, quality and effectiveness.

Cathie One key person which must be mentioned is my wife, Cathie. She was a relentless supporter and unpaid worker for many years. Especially after we moved into the power station, she was there every day. Holidays was never in her vocabulary, and the day was only over when the work was done. I think she got paid only in 2009, after years of unpaid work.

The list of her responsibilities and activities at Nøgne Ø is pretty much endless. I think it is quicker to make a list of what she did not do, and that is only one thing: Beer brewing. Everything else she was involved in. Not to mention sake brewing, where she was a key resource. I think it is fair to say that Nøgne Ø would not be the success story it is today, without her.

After my exit in 2015 and the termination of Tor as designer in 2017, Cathie was fired from Nøgne Ø in 2018, as the brewery were unprofitable an had to reduce staff. After her exit, none of the original staff/ founders were left.

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The first employed brewer In 2007 we became gradually busier. It was decided that we needed to employ a brewer. Most breweries who want a brewer would hire a trained brewer. At this time, there were not so many trained craft brewers around. We thought that we did not want a skilled brewer, who had been damaged by the industrial lager culture. We wanted a person who would focus on flavours. So, we recruited Rolf Tore Vik, or Toa as he is called. He was the sous-chef at the best restaurant in Grimstad. Now he wanted to switch from food to beer. He had zero knowledge about brewing at the time when he was employed.

And I had the responsibility for training him. I have to admit that the first few months I got many phone calls from him while I was on my other job with the airline. But Toa was dedicated to master the skill of brewing, and it all worked out very well.

Toa resigned from Nøgne Ø in 2020.

Kjell Einar’s advice (which I sadly disregarded) After Kjell Einar started with Nøgne Ø, we very often discussed strategies and also the roles of individuals. One day he took me aside and told me that it was quite clear that I was the individual behind Nøgne Ø. Without me, there would be nothing. He asked me why I was so loyal to my partners, Tore and Cili. After all they were just acting as labourers without visions, ideas and creative powers. I explained that I considered also their efforts to be important, and that I expected this loyalty to go both ways. He then said that he regarded that they took advantage of me, and that I gave them a free ride to success; a success they did not deserve, as they had no creativity or vision.

When writing this book/story about Nøgne Ø, then I see that Kjell Einar had a very valid point. I was naïve and gullible. But it is of course now too late to regret this decision to trust my partners.

Plevna In 2007 we did a collaboration brew with Plevna, which is a brewpub in the Finnish town of Tampere.

The brewer is Sam, a great guy.

The plan was to brew on day one, and have a beer dinner with specially invited guests the day after.

I travelled first for the brewing, and then our manager, Kjell Einar and brewer, Toa came the day after.

Kjell Einar has been operating bars and restaurants and Toa used to be a gourmet chef, so they were focused on the food and cooking and would be working with the kitchen staff of Plevna.

Before I continue my story, I need to mention that there are some big differences between Finnish and Norwegian cultures. We, Norwegians are not the most extrovert of all peoples, but we are absolutely more talkative and expressive than the Finns. There are some jokes which express their culture: “How can you spot the difference between an introvert and an extrovert Finn? The extrovert looks at the tips of your shoes while he is talking to you, while the introvert looks at the tips of his own shoes while addressing you.” And then there are all the stories about Pekka and Toivonen. “Pekka and Toivonen was gathered in a cabin in the forest to get drunk. Cheers, said Pekka. Did you come here to talk or to drink? Responded Toivonen.”

I also need to mention that Sam never responded to some emails which I sent to him to plan our event.

When I arrived I noticed that everything was prepared, according to my suggestions. I was surprised, and Sam told me: “Just because I do not write emails, does not mean that I do not read them!”

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So, when Kjell Einar and Toa arrived, I was busy brewing with Sam. They started to plan the dinner with the chef at Plevna right away. After a couple of hours, Kjell Einar took me aside, and asked me if everything was OK, or if there was a disagreement or misunderstanding. I was puzzled. No, absolutely not. I thought the atmosphere was fine. But Kjell Einar could not drop this theme and went on about that people seem to be so serious and quiet. Then I realized that this was a cultural issue, and I asked if this was his first time to Finland. It was! And I explained to him that this is just the way the Fins are.

The dinner the day after, went very well. But the atmosphere was very odd. Like very serious. Almost as if it was a funeral. Again, just a cultural difference. After the dinner, we, the Norwegians were a bit tired, and wanted to relax. But then, all of a sudden, the staff of Plevna suggested that we should go out. We were surprised, but surely could not reject such a friendly invite. From this moment, the Finns were totally changed. They bought huge trays with lots of shots of liquor. And we were toasting constantly, and I think we got quite drunk. At the end of the evening, our Finnish friends were giving us hugs and confessed that we were their best friends for life.

I think this is the right time to mention how I got to judge at World Beer Cup. During the above mentioned dinner at Plevna, I met a beer writer by the name Mikko Montonen. He was wildly impressed with our beers. He told me that he used to judge in World Beer Cup, but for health reasons could not do this in 2008. He then asked me if I could take over for him in this task. I politely accepted his proposal, but thought that these were just empty words. But a couple of months later I got an invitation to judge at this prestigious competition.

Coop Denmark After a few years cooperating with Barley Wine, and with the development of the Danish craft brew scene, we felt that it would be natural with some larger volumes in Denmark. We asked Helle and jan Filip if they could see any potential for some larger volumes and broader distribution, but they did not share our goal and enthusiasm.

Kjell Einar was however able to get a deal with the Danish supermarket chain, COOP, and all of a sudden, we saw a dramatic increase in volumes. This took place in 2007. But the Danish craft brew scene expanded rapidly as well, and the year after COOP concluded that they would focus on Danish brands instead. This was very dramatic for us. Export sales at this time was almost 70% of total sales, and overnight most of it dried up.

As for Denmark, we thought that we could go back to the regular sales through specialty beer shops.

But there is lots to learn about every single market. They are all different. In Denmark, there is a dramatic schism between beers sold in supermarkets or beers sold in specialty shops. A beer sold in a supermarket would never be accepted in a specialty shop or a craft beer bar. Well, almost. The exception would be the larger high quality Belgian brands. Like Westmalle Tripel. I asked some craft beer bar owners why brands like Westmalle was OK in their bar, at the same time as it was available at the supermarket. The response: “Those breweries are so big anyway, so that we can never have an influence on them anyway.”

So, Nøgne Ø was out of Denmark, totally, after this. It would take 5 years until we would get forgiveness for allowing our beers to be sold in supermarkets in Denmark.

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New incomes After we had lost COOP Denmark, we were not profitable. It was time to act. And to act fast!

Two things were decided: 1. Start with draught beer. And 2. Arrange guided tours of the brewery.

At this time, no craft beers were available on draft in Norway. And disposable keks were at its infancy.

There were Keykegs and Petainer. But both were very new. We decided to go with Petainer. We also developed our own draft beer tower. Black and masculine, made from a massive steel pipe. It was hard to get draft beer equipment as well in 2008. Not much equipment to choose from, and very expensive. All our customers were in Oslo, almost 4 hours’ drive away. This launch was very challenging for us. First of all because most bar managers did not understand how to use dispensing systems. On one occasion I had to drive from Grimstad to Oslo to “fix” a non-functioning dispensing system, only to disciver that the CO2 was turned off. After turning it on again, I drove 4 hours back to Grimstad.

But it was also challenging because the Petainer was not yet fully developed and tested yet. In fact, they had sold us prototypes, and though we did not know it, we were doing product testing for them.

Our customers had massive problems both with leaks and foaming issues. And Petainer issued us first with rubber bands to put pressure to the coupler, and then with some metal clamps to hold the coupler in place. After months of problems and very annoyed (but patient) customers, we had to give in and switch to Keykeg. We contacted Petainer to ask if they could cover some of the losses we had with their product testing, but they did not respond to our requests. Needless to say, for this reason I have concluded that I will never purchase a Petainer ever again.

But gradually we were able to increase our sales through our draft beer project.

The other thing we did to survive financially, was to focus on having people visiting the brewery. We made some “fixed packages” with a 6 beers and 6 finger foods guided tour. We also had conferences and meetings and multi course dinners. This was very demanding for all of us, but I think in particular for Kjell Einar and Cathie.

World Beer Cup 2008 In 2008 (or probably late 2007) I was invited to judge at World Beer Cup in San Diego. This was indeed an honour. I felt (and still feel) very proud. But not only did I judge in this competition. Nøgne Ø also got two awards. A Gold for Dark Horizon, and a Silver for our Porter.

Tore was there as well. And when we first got the Gold, I suggested that he should go and pick it up.

Then when we got the Silver, I picked that up.

I have been severely criticized for this many times. At that time, I thought that people were overreacting. But now, in hindsight, when I feel backstabbed by people I thought were loyal to me, I see that I have been too trusting. These beers were both my creations and products. It was the result of my creativity, effort and focus, and I should have taken credit for it myself.

All I can say now, is that I have learned this the hard way.

An extraordinary experience

My goal, as the head brewer was to always be very clear on how a beer is supposed to be brewed. In an airline we have SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures). A brewery should be no different.

But sometimes you realize that communication is about the sender and the receiver, and that sometimes it just does not work out.

On one specific day, I came to the brewery in the evening, when the brewer on duty was about to finish the brewing. But he had left. And the beer was in the whirlpool! I called him, and he told that his family

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had a family dinner, so he had to go. “And what about the beer?� I asked. He then told me that Tore would come back to brewery later in the night to finish the brew. The brew was an IIPA. This incident left me dumbstruck!

Here I was, with a brewer I had trained and with a partner which I also thought that I had trained, and they were totally clueless about how to brew, and the processes that takes place while brewing!

Our draft beer towers.

We were quite proud of our draft beer towers. They were made by a local mechanical workshop in Arendal. In 2008 James Watt from Brewdog contacted me. He had been in Oslo, and had noticed them, and he wanted to know if he could use them as well. We agreed that he could contact the same workshop as where we had them made, and buy them as well.

But there was one condition: That Brewdog was not going to use these towers in Norway. To my knowledge, Brewdog has honoured this agreement.

Ivory Coast

At some stage, a person from Ivory Coast approached us, and asked if we wanted to help him to set up a craft brewery outside Abidjan. As for financing the project, the plan was to apply for Norwegian development aid funding available for African ventures.

We made a brief business plan, and sent in the required documentation for the financing of the prestudy. It went through, and we got the funding for it!

What an adventure which was ahead of us!

But then a Norwegian internet based newspaper got to hear about it, and wrote about it. You cannot imagine what kind of stir-up it made. Many organizations and politicians were furious. Getting government financial support to make alcohol to poor Africans was apparently politically incorrect, and soon after the minister for development aid concluded that this scheme was not for projects involving alcohol, and he would see to that this would be changed with immediate effect, and he would also investigate how the approval of our project could possibly be reversed.

I was on vacation at the time, and even though I did not meet Anne, I did get her emails. She was furious. And very afraid! And she was lashing out on Tore and my, who had started this process. She thought that we had showed severely bad judgement, and demanded that we should send out press releases to state that we apologized, and had scrapped the project.

We did.

And that was the end of it.

Shortly after there was a coo or civil war in Ivory Coast. I guess this project was not meant to happen!

Thomas Kjell Einar was great at recruiting the right people. One of these were Thomas Shing. He is from Burma/Myanmar. His Norwegian skills were not great. For that reason, he had a hard time getting a job.

We recruited him, for packaging beer. In a cooperation with the local municipality. Initially, it was not easy. Not for Thomas. Nor for us. Language is after all an important part of how we communicate.

But Thomas showed such a dedication. And even though languages is probably not his strength, he showed initiative, perseverance and loyalty.

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I am so proud to state that Thomas was one of the corner stones of Nøgne Ø. Loyal and hardworking people must be respected. And Thomas is surely one of those!

In 2017, when Nøgne Ø was starting its downsizing, Thomas was the first to be fired. I regard this a very shameful act.

Arendal harbour restaurant Our success with receiving guests in the brewery made us motivated to do more of this. And the summer 2009 we got a contract with the port of Arendal to run the restaurant in the port. This restaurant is only open during summer, which is very short in Norway. Opening mid-June and closing mid-August.

This proved to be overly ambitious. Everybody was working like mad. Especially Kjell Einar, Toa and Cathie. We had great food for reasonable prices and great craft beer. But this was quite early for craft beer in Norway, and people came back primarily for the food. At the end of the season we could conclude that we had not been profitable. Maybe the increased beer sale here could justify it as a break-even project.

Bragging I would like to grab this opportunity to brag. Actually, I think there is a lot to brag about.

I made the first modern craft brewery in Norway, and among the first in Scandinavia.

I made the first commercial IPA brewed in Norway.

I made the first commercial Wit brewed in Norway.

I made the first commercial Tripel brewed in Norway.

I made the first commercial Amber brewed in Norway.

I made the first commercial Pale Ale brewed in Norway.

I made the first commercial Oatmeal Stout brewed in Norway.

I made the first non-alcohol imperial stout on the planet.

I made the first brewery in Norway based on bottle conditioning.

I made the first craft beer to ever be accepted by Vinmonopolet (Norwegian government outlet system for alcoholic beverages).

I made the first commercial sake in Europe.

I made the wash/recipe for the first shochu in Europe.

This, I am very proud of. No-one can take this away from me!

With Nøgne Ø, I and we made history. We changed Norway. We changed people!

Beer by brewers, design by designer One of the things which made Nøgne Ø very different from other breweries, was the fact that we were focused on the product. In a very extreme way. The brewer(s) decided on how a beer should be. Flavour profile, strength, quality, everything.

And the designer(s) decided on the design, labels, etc.

This is like an upside-down hierarchy or pyramid. It may sound strange, but this is about putting the most important detail in focus. And what is the most important? The beer and its packaging!

No manager or board of director will ever understand the beer or the design better than the brewer and the designer.

In 2007 Kjell Einar suggested that we should make Pilsner. Sure, I said. We can make a 5.2% 30 IBU

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Pilsner fermented with a Czech yeast. No, he commented. We need a 4.5% 18 IBU Pilsner with a neutral yeast profile. The conclusion was that there would be no Pilsner.

The year after we had the same discussion. This time he agreed: “Just make a good Pilsner, your way!” And a Pilsner we brewed. A really good Pilsner. Years after, I still got telephone calls from fans/ customers who wanted this Pilsner back.

(Why did we stop brewing this beer, you may ask? Well, our experience is that craft beer drinkers are not so enthusiastic about this beer style. It sold OK during the summer, but it was never any best seller.)

This philosophy about beer and design is now scrapped at Nøgne Ø. The pyramids are now standing the traditional way, and people in management get to control the beer (as flavour profiles and quality) and the design. And it is one of the reasons that made me conclude that it was time to leave the company.

Exit Kjell Einar After this summer, Kjell Einar left as general manager. He was invited as partner in the same mechanical workshop as where the tap towers were made, and he was going to focus on quality control systems, so they could do projects for the oil industry.

After him, it was decided that an American, who had been working with export sales, should take over.

Sadly, Nøgne Ø now entered a phase where it was administered, not managed.

The following fall, winter and spring, was merely about existing. And the cash flow was tight as well.

Typically, we the shareholders have always been working hard during the summer holiday. When normal people had summer holiday, and so also the employees at Nøgne Ø, then it was manned by the owners/shareholders. This summer, of 2009 we all got a surprise. We discovered that the warehouse was full of beers like Dark Horizon 3rd, Sweet Horizon, Red Horizon, and it was not labelled or packaged. An there were beers in bottles without labels, and the labels had not even been ordered. We realized that something had to be done, and for weeks we were packaging and labelling like crazy, and then trying to sell the beer.

The conclusion to this was that we absolutely needed to recruit a general manager, again.

Sake production Through my work as a pilot, I went to Japan quite frequently. On one occasion, a friend of mine in Tokyo introduced me to sake. I was quite prejudice, as I had only had bad experiences with sake before, but to my surprise I found a new world of wonderful flavours. From this point I tried to learn more about this great beverage.

In 2006 I took John Gauntner’s Sake Professional Course, and two years later his level 2 of the same course. Through the network I got in these courses I got the opportunities to have short internships in some sake breweries in Japan. These two were Masumi in Nagano and Daimon Shuzo in Osaka.

The rice was Ginpu rice from Hokkaido. This was arranged by Fred Kaufmann, who runs the company, Ezo Beer in Sapporo.

Back in Norway it was time to get ready for making sake, and in January 2010 we got started as the first commercial sake maker in Norway. The first 10 batches were made solely by my wife and I. Some of the equipment for making sake was purchased from Japan. Like the textiles for koji making and the bags for rice soaking.

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The remaining equipment was designed by me.

The rice steamer was the old mash/lauter tun from our first brewery. The koji room was designed and partly built by me.

The boxes for the koji was ordered from a local workshop. I elected to use aspen wood, as this has very little odor/smell.

For yeast starter (shubo) I used my old homebrew mash tuns.

For fermentation (moromi) I converted the old brewhouse and whirlpool from the old brewery into fermenting vessels.

And the press (fune) was made from a local mechanical workshop.

The best of all, was the fact that all this equipment worked very well, and we were very proud of the sake we were able to produce.

After some time we decided to recruit a sake brewer, and about a year later, we recruited Brock Bennet, a Canadian National, to brew our sake. We had met at an internship with Daimon Shuzo in Osaka.

Brock took this task very seriously, and was very keen to learn. He eventually learned how to master sake brewing, and did the sake brewing at Nøgne Ø, until the project was terminated in 2018.

Shochu Shochu is a distilled beverage. It can be made in many ways. One of these ways, is that it can be made from sake lees (kasu). From the first few batches of sake we refermented the sake lees, and then had them distilled in a local distillery. This was the first European shochu. While I was at Nøgne Ø, I suggested many times that we should bottle it, and release it. But everybody was always against it, without being able to tell me why.

Sales rep In 2009 we concluded that it was time to have a sales rep. We recruited a foreign individual, who was quite knowledgeable about craft beer. This guy was really a powerhouse of a sales person. He went to extreme lengths to please his customers. He even spent his holidays to travel with them to the US to visit breweries. (Long after, I believe that he actually told his wife about this and said that he was sent to the US by Nøgne Ø.)

But all qualities are often balanced by some not so great virtues. This guy was driving our accountant crazy with bar bills from 0300 in the morning, claiming that it was from a meeting. And numerous parking fees.

Not to mention that he never answered the phone before 1100 and never called back and never responded to text messages or emails. At least very rarely.

At the end of his career he just did not show up for work at all, and it became evident that he had started to work for beer distributor. When he was confronted with this, he admitted that he actually wanted to quit. He was then asked when he wanted to quit. (Typically, this would be after one to three months in Norway.) He responded, “Right now.” And there was a hand shake and he walked out the door.

This day there was a sigh of relief at Nøgne Ø.

Later, after I decided to leave Nøgne Ø, this guy started to post lots of bad things about me on social media. I do not why. I do not know his motivation. But it is quite evident that he does not like me very much.

I do not mind if people do not like me. It is natural that we like some people and dislike others. But it is always good to understand why. With this guy, I do not understand the reasons for his animosity.

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Manager 3 After our discovery of the state of the company during the summer 2010, we concluded that we needed to hire a new manager. During fall, we discussed many candidates through Anne’s network. We concluded to hire a guy who worked as a sales team manager with an insurance company. He was and is an easy guy to like, and he did a great job in many ways. The employees loved him. Partly because he always wanted to be legal and correct. All insurances, contracts, health and safety aspects and so on were 100% in order.

But he was also very “soft”. When an employee asked for a salary hike, he would immediately agree.

And those who did not ask for more salary got no increase. After he left, it was quite a challenge to adjust salary levels among the employees as to reflect responsibilities, background or seniority.

This manager came into the company when the craft beer development really took off in Norway. In his first year, we had 100% growth. And he coped well with the expansion. Well, almost……..he did not have a cash flow budget. And he liked spending…….. (As Tore said: “It is easy to spend money which is not your own!”)

I always asked before ordering ingredients or equipment. And when he was the manager, I had easy days. He always approved of my plans.

In spring 2011, we ran out of cash.

And he went on a holiday. He knew. But still he went on a holiday. No information to the board of directors. No info to Cili, who could not pay the bills. And while he was on vacation, and we the shareholders were in a state of panic, he texted us from his cabin in the mountains: “It is so fantastic to recharge my batteries here in this wonderful weather!”

Well, we survived.

And after the summer, Scott, our export sales manager was moving back to the US. We wanted him to work for us in the US markets, and at a board meeting our manager was instructed to work out a new contract and salary for him. A salary in line with the size of our volumes and margins in the US. He confirmed this. Both at this meeting, and at subsequent meetings. After the manager left, it became evident that we had paid Scott full salary while in the US, and that he had three months’ notice time.

Our manager had not followed the orders from the board of directors.

Our manager was a very easy person to cooperate with. If there was a challenge, he would immediately ask anyone around: “What do you think?” And to the first response, he would state: “That is a great suggestion. Let’s do it this way!”

This surely brought a good atmosphere, dynamics and communication into life, but as we experienced this frequently, we started to suspect that he had no clue about how solve problems himself.

In early 2012 we changed manager again.

Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis We have good friends in many places. One of them being Ben Kraus of Bridgeroad Brewers in Beechworth, Australia.

On two occasions we decided to brew a strong beer (in both breweries) and to ship it to each other, in barrels. The first time it was a quad, and the second time it was a tripel. We used cognac and whiskey barrels, while Ben used wine barrels. The whole project was motivated by the Norwegian tradition to age aquavit on the sea in barrels. This is still done, to get the climatic changes and motion during the journey around the world.

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The beer from Australia was called Aurora Australis, while the beer from us was called Aurora Borealis.

The first beer we shipped from Nøgne Ø was at 12% abv when it was dispatched, but had reached 15% when it arrived in Australia.

There was quite a bit of waste through these shipments, as some barrels always ruptured because of pressure inside, and the pressure release mechanism failed to release. And the aromas and vapours were always intense when opening the doors to the container upon arrival.

All these beers picked up medals in the AIBA. But our beer got the highest, which is ironic, as it was actually brewed by Ben. We just packaged it, and stuck our label to it.

The beer truck In 2011 there was an interesting incident.

Let me give some background information first: We had concluded that distribution with our own vehicles was a loss-making venture. The distances in Norway were too long, and the number of accounts too low, as well as that we only had small vehicles.

To my surprise, over one Christmas Holiday, the general manager had agreed with one sales person, that he needed a 4WD vehicle in order to supply beers to our clients in Bergen. Bergen is 8 hours’ drive away, and can be reached either via mountainous terrain, or a coastal road. And apparently the thought was to use the mountain road, and to self-distribute to Bergen (where we already had two distributors). The sales guy purchased an expensive and macho pick-up truck, with the capacity of maybe 40 small cases max.

We were all kind of shocked by this irrational thought and action. The board of directors intervened, and the truck was sold. And the negative atmosphere from the sales guy after this was immense. To be honest, I think the disappointment of “losing” this car, was one of the reasons why he later quit.

Shelf life One of Nøgne Øs strengths was shelf life. “How can you do it?” people frequently asked. My response was that you have to be friends with your yeast.

Up to 2011 we bottle conditioned all our beers. Then, we ran out of space for bottle conditioning. Instead we then added yeast to the beer before bottling, and heated the bottles and kegs after packaging, to get the yeast into an active state. The effect was the same as bottle conditioning, with regards to keeping shelf life long and avoid oxidation.

These procedures were planned and designed by me.

But one day, perhaps in 2014, I noticed that the bottling crew did not follow my procedure anymore.

And upon investigating, Tore revealed to me that the brewers did not like my procedure, so the discontinued it. Without discussing it with me. After all, I was the head brewer and my signature was on the bottles. It was apparent that I did not have much influence in the organization that I once founded.

The result of this change was evident. At this stage, I started to come across Nøgne Ø beers with signs of oxidation. That had never happened before.

Bottling with oxygen The effect of live yeast in a beer while bottling it, is disputed. People in the brewing industry have many opinions and feelings about this.

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I would like to write about one of my experiences with this.

One one specific bottling run, we ran out of CO2. The brewer who operated the bottling line then changed the CO2 tank for a new one. Well, that is what he thought that he did. After another hour and a pallet and a half of bottled IPA, he discovered that he had hooked up a tank of Oxygen. When he realized this, he became so angry with himself, so that he screamed loudly. I remember that everyone in the building came running. We all thought that there must have been a serious accident!

We quickly concluded that the IPA that had been counter pressure filled with oxygen, could not be sold and it was set aside.

A few weeks later, we tasted it. It was fine. And after some more weeks it was still fine. At some stage, we concluded that the beer was perfect, and did not have any flaws or different flavours or aromas than our regular IPA, so we released it for the markets.

In my opinion, this tells a lot about the power of live yeast!

Our auditor and his not so careful comment.

As we needed to get rid of our general manager in 2012, the chairman of the board was able to negotiate a deal with him, in order for him to step down. For this he was supposed to receive some extra months of salary. It was all agreed upon, and when the agreement was going to be signed, our auditor commented that he was surprized that the manager agreed to this package, because Nøgne Ø was prepared to pay 3 months more. The result of this unnecessary remark, was that the general manager refused to sign, and demanded three months more of salary.

What an interesting story!

Northernmost brewery?

On one occation, Nøgne Ø was invited to take part in setting up a new brewery in Mehamn, which is one of the northernmost villages in Norway. Tore and I accepted the challenge. We thought that sounded intriguing to set up a small brewing operation in such a remote area. After all it would have been the northernmost brewery in the world at that time. And there are quite a number of ingredients growing in this area, which are very unique. We visited Mehamn twice for research, to look for a location for the brewery and to discuss with investors. The plan was to rent an old fish processing factory in the nearby village of Gamvik. With a population of 300, and the roaring Barents Sea right outside, it would certainly have been a very dramatic scene for a craft brewery.

Our local hosts also took us on what can best be described as a snowmobile safari. On a crisp and cold day, with not a single cloud in the sky and no wind, we cruised into the endless mountain plains. Each of us in the group were on individual snomobiles. Our destibation: a tent out on a lake, with a burning stove inside. Somebody had just fished a ton of big, fat trouts through a hole in the ice, and this was being fried as we arrived in the brightest sunshine you can ever imagine.

A very exotic experience, indeed.

The conclusion of this story: We failed to find investors, and the project was shelved.

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Selling by discount In 2011 we recruited a sales manager. She used to sell mobile phones. Now she was going to sell craft beer. This was certainly a big transition for her. For me, it was a very interesting process to observe her work. It was clear that she based all her efforts on pricing and distribution. Not on product knowledge and on the story behind the beer. And the longer she worked, the more evident it was that she did not reach out with our products, nor our philosophy.

I learned so much about craft beer from this. That craft beer is about the story behind the brewery and the beer. And it is about people. It is not mainly about prices and discounts.

On one occasion, she purchased a lot of Mikkeller beers. Our warehouse was full of it, and we were supposed to sell it together with our own beers. But the Mikkeller beers did not move. And they became old, and Mikkeller asked why we did not reorder. When they understood that we had ordered too much, they responded by switching importer in Norway. And then Nøgne Ø tried to lower the prices on the Mikkeller beers, to get rid of them. This in turn made a rather strained relation between Mikkeller and Nøgne Ø. A very sad thing.

Oh, and the sales manager always complained that she could not perform well because she did not have the right computer software. So, she got the permission to by some specialized software, worth 100 000 NOK. But she never used it. And when she quit, it was decided not to ever use it. Money out the window, indeed!

Homebrew event Back in 2007 or 2008 I got the idea that we should make an annual homebrew event. The concept was (and still is) to brew a beer, and have an open day at the brewery. Open does not mean that everyone can just show up. But everyone can book a ticket for the event online. I think we put the limit to 50 persons, and the event was typically fully booked about two or three minutes after the online booking was opened. The participants would then arrive in the morning, and we would all brew a beer together.

During the day, everyone would get to buy malts and hops at a discounted price, and there would be a couple of presentations from professionals about brewing related subjects. At the end of the day, the participants would bring home 25 liters of wort from the brewing, and a yeast of their choice, which they chose when they booked the ticket for the event.

Two months later, everybody would get back for a competition on who made the best beer, as well as a dinner in the brewery.

In the years between 2007 and 2011 we brewed several beer for Mikkeller. One of these was his Beer Geek Breakfast stout. In 2010 we asked if we could brew this beer on the homebrewday. Mikkel thought it was a good idea, and he also wanted to come for the brewday, where he presented the beer and the idea of it for the participants.

The brewer of the day was an Italian female intern in her twenties. She was (and probably still is) a great brewer, and she explained the difference between Italian and Norwegian culture by telling us that in Italy nobody would respect a young female brewer. And she thought it was great to be the main brewer at our homebrew event, because she was respected as an authority by all the participants, who were all male and most of them older than her. It was a proud moment for her, and she was also looking forward to meeting Mikkel while she was brewing his beer. But to her surprise, Mikkel never went to the brew system. He never came to say hi to her, or to see how the brewing was going. As the day

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progressed she became more and more upset and angry. And when Mikkel had left the brewery at the end of the day, she was about to explode: “I was brewing his beer, and he did not even acknowledge me or my effort. I will never drink a Mikkeller beer ever in my entire life!”

I think she has kept her promise.

Homebrewer competition and Two Captains At some stage we decided to offer any brewer who would win the National Norwegian Homebrewing Championship to brew their winner recipe at Nøgne Ø, and to offer it to our customers as a commercial beer.

In 2009 (I believe) the winner was Jan Halvor Fjell with a Double IPA. Jan Halvor was a colleague of mine from SAS. I remember that he started homebrewing in 2006, or thereabouts, and that he told me about that he had bought his homebrewing equipment and needed some help to formulate his first recipe. This conversation took place in the cockpit of a Boeing 737, and I was sitting on the jump seat on my commute between Oslo and Kristiansand. I wrote down a suggested recipe for him then.

His excellent Double IPA which won the championship was called something like “Hop Hell From Telemark”. We concluded that we could not use this name for a commercial product, and found a new name: Two Captains, inspired by the fact that we were captain colleagues in the same airline.

Jan Halvor moved on to fly long haul routes on Airbus 330 and 340, and I know that he loved to fly to the USA and find his beer on the shelves of beer shops and craft beer bars.

It is interesting to mention that he retired from the airline in 2013, only to start a new career as craft brewer. On his farm, by the name Veholt, in Telemark, where he has sheep, he now has a small commercial brewing operation.

Cili Cili, or Anne Cecilie, which is her real name, is Tore’s sister.

She was employed as secretary/accounts worker in 2011.

After she started to work formally and every day at Nøgne Ø, then things changed a lot. Cili is a person who wants to be involved with everything, and she would almost act as if she would be the general manager. It is my opinion that she made a chaos everywhere, by ordering people to do this or that, disrupting areas of responsibilities and chains of command. I guess I could write a lot about Cili. But I think I should rather limit it to this.

Our cancelled brewpub plans In 2011 we were invited to start a brewpub in a downtown location in Kristiansand. A very interesting project. We had many meetings about this, and we were pretty much on track for it.

Then, a bar and restaurant owner in Kristiansand who was buying a lot of beer from us, told us that if we made a brewpub in this town, then he would discontinue to have Nøgne Ø in his establishments for all future. These were quite strong words. And based on his personality and reputation, he meant it seriously.

I thought that this unfriendly and arrogant way to try to manipulate us was way out of line. I actually also thought that the loss of losing him as a client would be outweighed by the benefit of having a brew

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pub there.

Tore and Kåre Bjørn disagreed, and the project was scrapped.

A year or two later, the above-mentioned client started his own brewpub. With mediocre beers I might add.

Webshop and contact with homebrewers The same year, we started a webshop and shop for homebrewers. The idea was to get closer to homebrewers. To make them come to our brewery for supplies. We made kits of our beers. We gave the fresh yeast for free. This was very successful. People came to our brewery all the time. Friendly and happy people. And they asked for advice, and we shared of our experience.

The great thing about this was the fact that we got to expand our network. And these homebrewers got to know us. They quickly became our loyal ambassadors.

But Tore and Kåre Bjørn were not happy. They claimed that the shop was not profitable. Again, and again, I asked them to consider the marketing effect of having so many loyal and enthusiastic friends.

But since this was a value you could not measure with numbers; this factor was considered worthless.

The brew kits were outsourced to another homebrew shop. Sales of hops and malts were discontinued. And later, homebrewers were told that Nøgne Ø could not be bothered to give yeast to homebrewers. Instead it was dumped in the drain.

An authentic Italian experience In 2012 I did a collab with Birrificio Ticinese in the south of Switzerland. The manager was a colourful Italian guy by the name of Lorenzo. He was also the founder of the company and a partner.

After I arrived at the brewery, it became evident that there were quite some tension and discussions among the owners, about how the brewery was run and managed. The day after the brew, there was a board meeting, and Lorenzo was fired. After this meeting he drove me to the Milan Malpensa Airport.

It was a very sad day for him, and the atmosphere was tense. On our way to the airport, in a Fiat 500, he noticed a friend driving next to us on the highway. He (and the friend) opened their windows and had a conversation while driving on the highway. I truck behind us was irritated by this, which surely led to some disruption of traffic, and used the horn. Lorenzo got really angry because of this, and started to give obscene gesticulations to the truck driver. This resulted in a battle between the truck and the Fiat 500. Like getting in front of each other and braking, and also trying to squeeze the other car to the side of the road. I thought we were going to die. But suddenly we approached an exit, and was able to escape.

Immediately after we got off the highway, Lorenzo turned towards me and shouted: “How was that for an authentic Italian experience!”

Lorenzo was quite popular among the staff at Birrificio Ticinese, and I believe that many of the employees there resigned after he was fired.

Tore’s step to the throne Our frustrations with our general manager in 2012 resulted in Tore and deciding that Tore should take over as general manager. We concluded that though he would have the title and formal responsibili-

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ties, we should take most decisions together. Tore took the job as general manager early 2012. It was quite obvious that he was not comfortable in his new role. He had previously told me that he was not sure whether he would be able to fit the role, and he also was quite clear about that he needed inputs and help. But instead of being open for help and advice, Tore took a radical change of personality. He became more introvert. Wanting to discuss less than before. And his way of communication changed, as he gradually more and more instructed instead of having dialogues with people.

One of the first things he did as a manager, was to employ his brother Kaare Bjørn as financial adviser.

This resulted in a very closed group among the Nybø family members: Tore, Cili, Ingebjørg and Tore.

I quickly realized that the real decisions in Nøgne Ø was taken by this group of people from this point.

This was indeed a very frustrating experience for me. When I commented changes that had been implemented and which I was never informed about and disagreed with, then I was simply told that it was just too bad that I had not been present when the decision was taken.

This way of running the company was quite clear to most employees, and I remember that our brewer Ingrid made the following comment: “It is quite evident that the most important decisions in this company are now taken over the dinner table.”

Ingebjørg Tore has a daughter. Her name is Ingebjørg. In 2010 she started working with Nøgne Ø. She has done many great jobs. One which she did with excellence was working in the warehouse. Another one would be with accounts.

Other things she did not cope well with. Like the perceived value of a product or service. Or how to meet the customer in an enthusiastic and polite way. Her appearance was frequently unkempt and overly casual.

At all times, she has not been very good at being professional at work. She always referred to Tore as “dad” and about Cili and Kåre Bjørn as “my auntie and my uncle”. Even to customers.

If she was in disagreement with something or someone, she would not act professionally there and then. She would instead say that she would have to check with her father first.

Even though she would have defined roles as for what job she would do, she would clearly be assigned to lots of different tasks by Tore. As such, she would be a person who would step in and out of other’s responsibilities and take over or manipulate or control them. Not because she had the authority, but because that she would tell that these are direct orders from her dad.

Her roles and actions had to a great extent been kept secret, and it was treated as if this is more of a family matter than company matter.

In 2014 or thereabouts she was sent to Siebel’s in Chicago for a 3 or 4-week course on brewing. This was done in secret, and she claimed to have been on holidays. Allow me to emphasize that when I write that this was done in secret, then I do not know whether it was really planned and executed as a secret, or whether it was simply not communicated to me, who had the role and title as head brewer.

From March 2017 she was given the title Sales Manager, and this concluded the process of bringing manager roles to all the Nybø family members. She left Nøgne Ø in 2018.

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The malt project we did not support In 2013, after I was not a member of the board anymore, I got an interesting request. A person in the eastern part of Norway had the intention of starting a malting operation, based on local barley. He was in dialogue with Innovation Norway about getting financial support/funding for his project. But Innovation Norway required some documentation which supported that there was an actual market demand for local Norwegian malt.

I told him that I would do what I could to make this happen, and asked Tore if we could produce a letter which stated that we would find it interesting to use malt based on Norwegian barley, provided the quality and price was acceptable. Tore’s response was that he did not wish to take this decision alone. This would have to be discussed among the board members. So, I wrote a letter to the board of directors, to explain the issue of producing this letter.

I thought that this was a real no-brainer. After all, this letter would not commit Nøgne Ø to anything. But to my surprise, the board concluded that it was not in their interest to support or endorse this project.

I asked Tore about why they came to this conclusion. The response was remarkable. His eyes went black, and he just watched me without saying a word. Then he turned around and left the room.

Still puzzled about this, I asked Anne about what had happened at the board meeting, and she merely said that nobody there really understood much of what this malting project was all about, and when Tore recommended that they should not waste their time on this, the remaining board members did not see any reason to disagree.

The outcome of this, was that the malting project never materialized. What a shame

Barrel aging and (later) Stephen At some stage we started to age beers in barrels. It must have been around 2009. This was very demanding, as barrel aging is very labour intensive and requires a lot of attention.

We tried to learn more and quickly, and I remember that my friend Molly Browning come over from Scottland, where she was studying on Herriot Watt to give us a one-day seminar on the subject.

I think I should take a quick break to write more about Molly. I met her first time in Tokyo. Way back in 2003 or 2004 I guess. At the time she was an English teacher. In Ibaraki prefecture, if I am not mistaken. She was drawn to the craft beer scene, and asked our common friend, Bryan Harrel, about advice to get to start brewing. Bryan got her in touch with Bryan Baird of Baird Brewing Co in Numazu in Shizuoka prefecture. She started her brewing career there, and continued to Jolly Pumpkin in the USA, before she took her brewing degree in Scotland.

After she graduated from Herriot Watt, she started to work for Brooklyn Brewing Co. At that time, I approached her to ask for advice to recruit a barrel aging manager for Nøgne Ø. She got me in contact with Stephen Andrews, and after a long time of paperwork and Tore trying to handle the formalities, he finally came to Norway in 2012.

I thought that this was going to change “everything”. But surely, it is not only about having the right resources, it is also about how you manage your resources.

Stephen was not very efficient. Not because he did not want to. But because he was not allowed to.

First of all because he was not given enough beer or barrels. He had lazy days, when he had nothing

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to do. Because he had no beer. Or because he had no barrels or foeders.

Another obstruction for Stephen, as he told me, was the fact that when he designed a beer, the wort or finished beer, did very often not correspond to his specs. Someone had done a modification, without consulting him.

After I quit at Nøgne Ø, there were not many brewers who could travel to festivals. For various reasons: Personalities, preferences or family situation. Because of this, Stephen travelled a lot. And this, in turn, did not allow him to focus much on the barrel aging program.

Stephen is indeed a great brewer, and he understands beer. In fact, I think he was the only person to really understand how to taste and assess a beer with regards to quality. But the management team at Nøgne Ø did not want him to be part of the quality control panel. Both Stephen’s and my opinion is that he had too high standards. Hence, his qualification was never utilized by the company.

KåreBjørn’s letter For some reason, it appeared that Kåre Bjørn did not like me much. I think the main reason is that he is a numbers guy. Anything that cannot be measured in numbers, is irrelevant to him. While I am focused on flavours, quality, values and brand. These things cannot be measured in money, and were quite abstract to him. In fact, he admitted this on numerous occasions himself. At a time, when he was in charge of sales, we had the following encounter: In early 2013 a friend of mine visited a bar in Oslo, where they had Nøgne Ø on tap. He observed that they served the beer without a head on the glass, and this gave the impression that the beer was flat. I informed Kåre Bjørn about it in an email, explaining how easy it would be to instruct the staff at this bar to serve our beer differently and with an appealing head. The response was shocking. In an email, Kåre Bjørn told me how fed up he was with me getting involved in other people’s business. That I was arrogant and thought I knew everything, and did not believe much in other people. Furthermore, he asked me to stick to making good beer, and leave it at that. Because the rest of the people at Nøgne Ø would do a much better job if I would stop getting involved in other things than brewing. He finished the email by writing “Unkind regards, Kåre Bjørn”.

I thought that this tone and attitude was quite shocking, and I confronted Tore with it. After all, he was the general manager, and all employees and their lacking ability to work in team would be his responsibility. But Tore’s response was even more shocking. He said: “Kjetil, I want you to know that I will never defend or help you if you have a confrontation or problem with any other employee at this company.

You have to deal with these matters yourself.”

So, it was evident that I was alone at Nøgne Ø.

I realized that this was just the beginning, and took the decision that I wanted to leave Nøgne Ø.

An important decision My decision to sell my shares in Nøgne Ø took place in February or March 2013. I simply could not live with the fact that I was totally sidelined by my partners, and that my partners had adopted a completely new set of ideas of how Nøgne Ø was going to be and develop.

I got in touch with a mergers and aquisitions company, and over the summer, they started a dialogue with The Hansa Borg Brewery Group.

During this process we agreed that they should by shares from me, Anne, Cili, Tor and Cecilie. This would bring the ownership to slightly more than 50% for Hansa.

The deal was signed a few weeks before Christmas 2013.

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After this date, Lars Midtgaard became the chairman of the board of directors at Nøgne Ø. Lars Midtgaard was the CEO of the Hansa Borg Brewery Group.

Lars Midtgaard

When Hansa became the majority owner of Nøgne Ø, and Lars Midtgaard becoem the chairman of the board, I was very excited. Because i thought that this could save the company i had founded. This could be the life line for Nøgne Ø.

I quickly realized that it was not.

I expected that the CEO of the second largest brewery in Norway would be very proffesional, strategic and goal oriented. What a surprise it was for me to observe the total opposite. I am not saying that Lars Midtgaard is unproffesional and unstrategic. I am just an amateur myself, so I am not in a position to pass judgement on him. But my subjective perseption is excactly that. After Lars Midtgaard took charge, absolutely nothing became better, in my opinion. Things just continued as it used to. With unstrategic decision making and alliances between individuals and family members and friends ruling the show without much reasoning or foundation.

Mikkeller We brewed many beers for Mikkeller between 2007 and 2011. Some of these were also sold to Vinmonopolet, which is the government owned outlet system for alcoholic beverages exceeding 4,7% abv.

At some stage we realized that we had forgotten to invoice Mikkeller for a whole batch of beers brewed the year before. We politely informed about the blunder, and sent them an invoice, according to our agreement. The response was kind of puzzling: “Why are you sending us this invoice now? This is just motivated by the fact that you see that we are successful.” And this was actually the start of a long and quite ugly discussion, between Kåre Bjørn and Tore from Nøgne Ø, and the management of Mikkeller, which escalated to many new details.

In the middle of this discussion, Mikkeller accused Nøgne Ø for having produced additional batches of Mikkeller beers, and sold it at the Norwegian market. We produced all the required documentation for all our previous production. All of it confirmed by the Norwegian tax authorities, accountant and auditor.

But the response from Mikkeller: “We do not care what kind of documentation you can produce or show us. We do not believe you anyway!”

That is of course not a very good base for a discussion, and I think the atmosphere after this has not been great between the individuals involved on these wars of words.

Annual meeting 2013 In 2013 I suggested that it would be beneficial for the company to get more professional members of the board of directors.

To this point, actually through the 11-year history of Nøgne Ø, the board meetings were dominated by: - lengthy debates about insignificant details - inability (or maybe lack of will) to take decisions - lots of decisions taken beforehand the meeting by individuals making agreements between them - weak or lacking reports/documentation from management In his days, as general manager, Kjell Einar was quite annoyed by this. He commented “How can I become a better manager, if the board of directors does not have clear demands, and does not actively challenge me?”

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Several members of the board, in the past, left because they did not want to waste their time on discussions leading to nothing.

So, I suggested to get better and get new members. Actually, both Anne and Tore agreed to this, at least partially. And when we met at the annual meeting, then they concluded that they did not want to get professional people, but local friends. The outcome was that one member of the local fan club of the brewery was elected. And also, a local boat builder, who was a friend of Tore. These two were elected, in order to make it easier for Anne and Tore to continue their ways of having strong alliances and hence control of decision making. Not because of skills or competent people, but based on friendship.

Up to this time, I had been a member of the board since the beginning. This time I realized that my voice on the board would have no effect or value as all the other member were controlled by Tore and Anne. My solution was to request that my seat was represented by my lawyer, Finn Olav Elde. This was accepted by Anne and Tore, and subsequent cases and discussions proved that this was a very wise decision from my part.

The proposed new brewery in Østerhus In early 2013 it was dedided that we had to find a new location and larger building for expanding the brewery. We had already a warehouse about 1 km away, and we had even put in some fermenters there. The wort and beer were moved with a tank, we had put on a trailer, and moved with a tractor.

We discussed many locations, but ended up contemplating an industrial area called Østerhus. Østerhus is far from charming, and the building which Tore and the architect started to plan was very ugly and industrial. My arguments about making it at least somewhat charming to the eye, and to have some green areas around it, was apparently not accepted as relevant.

This was at the stage where I concluded that I wanted to get out of Nøgne Ø, and the process to sell to Hansa quickly got on tracks. My lawyer, who then represented my interests in the board of directors, understood the danger of starting this 50 million NOK project, and did everything he could to make the board postpone this.

He did a great job, together with my other partner, Anne, I might add. Tore was so adamant that he wanted this project to go through at this very vulnerable stage, so that he actually called all directors before the board meetings, to get them to be loyal to his suggestion. Not only that, but when the board agreed that it was premature to conclude on this project, then he even suggested to have the matter for discussions on subsequent meetings because he claimed that the board was not adequately informed previously……..

What I remember as the most significant thing about this project and this development, is the fact that Tore wanted to build this massive building of corrugated steel sheets next to a sewage treatment plant.

I cannot think of any worse setting for a craft brewery. This would surely had been the downfall of Nøgne Ø…….

Kåre Bjørn and greed After Kåre Bjørn, Tore’s brother came into the company, many things started to change quickly. He is an economist, and he thinks like one. As a matter of fact, I do not believe that he understands any other language than numbers. He quickly broke down the cost of making a beer, and concluded that we

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were too cheap. In my opinion, and based on comparing our prices to other craft breweries, we were actually quite expensive. And, we were already profitable, with good margins. But he got the final say in all these matters, and quickly all prices increased a lot. This had a significant impact on export sales.

But, they craziest thing was the fact that he sometimes concluded that some beers had to be destroyed. And he took pallets of beautiful beers out of the warehouse, and had them crushed and taken to the garbage. Many delicious beers ended this way, because he had estimated a certain warehouse occupancy time, and when this time was “overstayed” then he concluded that these beers were at a loss to us. I still remember our beautiful Brett beer Funky Geyser, and also a well-aged Doppelbock.

They were all destroyed because of numbers in his spread sheets which did not add up.

Kåre Bjørn fiercely agitated that we should stop doing experimental and seasonal products, as well as discontinue doing collaboration brews.

The demoting of Cathie At the time Tore took over as general manager, Cathie was in charge of export sales, and she had the title Export Sales Manager. Over the next two years, her title changed twice. First to Export Sales Coordinator, and then to Sales Person Export Sales. This happened quietly. She was never directly informed about these changes or the reason for them. She merely observed that the organization chart and responsibilities had these changes implemented.

Parallel to this, Cili was promoted from Secretary to Office Manager and then to Administration And HR manager.

I think it is not required for me to comment this.

Due diligence When the dialogue with Hansa got started in 2013, we also had to start the due diligence process which was required for the agreement and confirming all details of Nøgne Ø as a company.

In this process, the lawyers required cooperation from all employees. This process was however very tough. Mainly because Tore appeared to be dragging his feet. In fact, one lawyer told me that Tore almost succeeded in toppling the whole due diligence process because he was so slow.

At the issue of who should pay the cost of the due diligence process, it was confirmed at board meeting that Nøgne Ø should cover their side of the costs. However, Tore expressed that he disagreed, and a couple of days after the decision was taken by the board members, he demanded a new meeting to discuss this again. This time he was well prepared, and had instructed/sweet talked/agreed with many of the members, who were also his friends. And the outcome of the next meeting was that Anne and I had to share this cost.

This reminds me about another implication of this subject: Later in the process, Cili asked if she could sell some of her shares as well. Hansa said yes, and the agreement was going to be signed and concluded. But then Cili was asked if she could take her share of the cost with the due diligence process.

And her response was negative. I do not think she ever understood the implications of first her brother’s decision, and second her own decision in this matter. She was about to get the same shareholder’s agreement as Anne and I had, but by refusing to share the bill, she lost that opportunity. At the moment she has no shareholder’s agreement with the other shareholders. Nor does Tore.

The way I see it, this is their loss for being selfish and uncooperative.

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Hansa’s vow that Nøgne Ø should stay loyal to its roots.

When I decided to sell my shares in Nøgne Ø, I wanted to sell all my shares and to leave the company.

After all, my motivation for selling was to get out of the situation where I was working for other people’s goals.

But when we started to discuss the sales of shares to Hansa, they clearly indicated that they were not interested to buy, unless I kept about 10% of the shares of the company, and that I continued to work for the company. I was quite clear about that the reason for me wanting to leave in the first place, was the fact that the Nybø family (supported by Anne) wanted to take the brewery in a much more commercial direction, which would jeopardize the friendly and personal profile of the brand and the company.

Hansa’s response to this was that they did not want to see these changes at Nøgne Ø. And that the best way to make sure that these changes would not take place, was to have me at Nøgne Ø, both as a shareholder and as head brewer.

To hear this was fantastic, though I must admit that I thought that it sounded as too good to be true.

The conclusion was that I should continue, and this and my “new and even more influential” role was clearly communicated on the press conference where we announced that Hansa now was the majority shareholder of Nøgne Ø.

But it quickly became evident that this promise was nothing but empty words. I should not list all the issues where the Nybø family and I disagreed here, after all it is thoroughly mentioned elsewhere in this document. But when there were confrontations, then Lars always, without exceptions, concluded that Tore had the mandate to conclude, as he held the position as general manager.

Did I feel cheated? Yes, I totally felt that I had been deceived.

The design manual One of Nøgne Ø’s strengths was the name and its logo. It was really brilliant. It stood out. It was different. Both name and logo.

But not only that. We put it all into a system. A design manual. Or actually, together with another manual, which we called the value-manual, it was a complete brand manual. For a small company, I think this was really unique. And it worked. We were so consistent in what we did. All labels, glass ware, work clothes etc were so accurately decorated/designed.

But apparently not everybody liked this. First, Tore started to make changes, based on his personal likings when he ordered glasses. Every time he ordered glasses, he had changed a colour or a font size or a background etc.

I never understood the reason and motivation for this. It made us less clear and accurate. Not better.

And then, when Tom Young joined the company as marketing manager, he acted like he was an autonomous part of the company. He made his own designs on coasters and clothes and brochures and car decoration. It was a complete chaos.

But it appeared that this was not a coincidence. When I tried to discuss this in 2014, then I was told

by Tore, that he had gone through the minutes of previous board meetings, and he could not find that the brand/design manual(s) had ever been approved. And for that reason, it was now scrapped, and there was no reason to make a new one, because Nøgne Ø did not need this kind of documentation.

I think I need to add that the Chairman of the board, Lars Midtgaard, did not intervene or disagree with Tore’s decision.

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500 vs 330 ml bottles From the time we started to sell our beers to export markets, it became evident that our 500 ml bottles were very unpopular. (With one exception: Poland.)

I even did a survey with all our foreign customers, and the conclusion was: 330 ml bottles would sell better. For many reasons: 500 ml is too expensive, too large volume for one person and does not fit into standard fridges.

I suggested switching to 330 ml bottles, to get access to larger and more markets, but Tore was against it. For emotional reasons only.

It is interesting that 2 years after I resigned, Nøgne Ø switched to 330 ml bottles.

As with so many other subjects, I was never listened to while I was there, but after my time, the changes I previously suggested have been implemented!

Lars and nepotism In late 2013 Lars Midtgård stated: “I have zero tolerance for nepotism!”

This is a very interesting statement, in view of the development at Nøgne Ø, where, after his statement, Cili Nybø has been promoted to Administration Manager, Kåre Bjørn Nybø was promoted to CFO, and Ingebjørg Nybø has been promoted to Sales Manager.

I also need to add that Tore’s wife, his other daughter, his son, his nephew and niece have also been on the payroll at Nøgne Ø.

Scandinavian Airlines and Tore’s “NO” I used to be an airline pilot. I flew for Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) between 1990 and 2011. Mostly on long haul routes as a co-pilot on Boeing 767, Airbus 330 and Airbus 340. And I even had a short stunt as flight engineer on the Boeing 747 classic. But during my last 4 years, I was a captain on Boeing 737.

Anyways, from the moment I started Nøgne Ø, I always dreamed of having my beers on SAS. It was the absolutely ultimate goal. On several occasions, I communicated this to Tore and pretty much everyone at Nøgne Ø.

The story which I am now going to write is not something I have heard from Tore or anyone else at Nøgne Ø. It is what I have been told from people in SAS. In 2013 Tore was asked by SAS if we wanted to sell our beers to them, to be served on board the flights. His response was that he was going to get back to them about this. After a couple of months, without any reply from Tore, SAS asked him again if Nøgne Ø was interested. Tore said “No. Nøgne Ø is not interested.”

Then SAS contacted Mikkeller with the same question. Mikkeller said yes. And their beers have been on SAS flights ever since.

To this point in 2017, I have never tasted the Mikkeller beer on SAS. I fly with SAS a lot. Because I get sick to my stomach of thinking about this lost opportunity.

When I got to know about this decision of Tore’s, in 2014, I confronted Tore and Lars with this. Tore confirmed that the dialogue with SAS had taken place, but did not want to explain the motivation or reasoning behind his conclusion. This is the first time I have seen Lars go pale. When he learned about this, he went pale and quiet. For minutes. There was no doubt that he was totally shocked. Also by the fact that Tore had taken this decision without discussing it with anyone else. Nobody from sales,

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marketing or him, the chairman of the board, were never informed.

I have very often contemplated how this could happen, and what Tore was thinking. One thing is the business aspect of it. The other is the fact that he knew how important this would have been for me.

But maybe the fact that this was important to me, was the most important factor for Tore? I am asking myself whether his way of handling this was purely motivated by doing something evil to me? I will never know the answer or explanation to this, but water under the bridge has made it easier for me to get to terms with what happened.

Oslo Central Station Østbanehallen is the name for the old building in what is now Oslo Central Station. The owners renovated it and rebranded it in 2014. And the made a new logo. A logo which was quite similar to the Nøgne Ø logo. Our designer made us aware of it, and recommended us to tell Østbanehallen to stop the launch of this logo. A lawyer I discussed it with, agreed.

But Tore, and Lars disagreed. They thought that this was just a minor detail without significance.

Tom Young even made a Nøgne Ø beer label with this logo, and published it in social media. This is indeed very negligent and shows a severe lack of good judgement.

Three years later, Nøgne Ø changed their logo altogether. We are not talking about a facelift or some new font or colour. No, a totally new logo. I would like to quote Tor Jessen, the designer: It is OK to renew a logo. It is OK to evolve. But to change the logo totally, is a carnal sin. Have Nike ever changed their swoosh? Did Mercedes ever change their star?

The psychologists and their conclusion (or lack thereof) When the confrontations between me and the Nybø’s escalated, Lars became excessively tired. But instead of addressing the issues individually, he addressed the relation between Tore and I. To this point I still conclude that the problems where not about the personalities Tore vs Kjetil. It was about having different goals and agendas.

As a way to improve the atmosphere and cooperation at the brewery, Lars decided to hire two psychologists to work with the organization.

This was indeed a very interesting process to take part in. The two psychologists were very clever. I think we had 3 or 4 meetings. And it was interesting that even though they were told by Lars, that my role was to make sure that Nøgne Ø stayed loyal to its roots and origin, then there were numerous confrontations where Lars and Tore told me about certain matters where they could not accept “the Nøgne Ø tradition and way”.

I do not particularly enjoy fighting and confrontations, and asked the psychologists in private whether I was difficult or unstable in these processes. I remember the response: “No, Kjetil. If there is one person here who is easy and predictable, then it is you. You are 100% clear about your opinions and goals. And when you state that will do something, then you end up doing exactly as you have told.”

Well, not much of a comfort, but at least I could stand proud.

I remember the last meeting with the psychologists. It ended with me resigning. And after this meeting, Lars concluded that Nøgne Ø did not need the psychologists more. Frankly I think they actually needed them more than before, but I am not the one to judge in this matter.

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The last word or conclusion that I got from them, before they left, was: “When Tore and Lars clearly indicate that they want you to be on the operational team on the deck of the ship, they should not be surprised when you get angry after they throw you the squeegee and ask you to shut up!”

New logo

I may follow up from my previous subject about the Nøgne Ø new logo. I am not going to comment whether it is good or not, neither from a personal or professional angle. Though I cannot avoid mentioning that the new cans are poorly designed in the way that the text and name of beer is on the ridge or curve, at the upper area of the can (where the can becomes narrower).

But I would like to comment that one year after the new logo was used first time, there is still a chaos of beers, labels, metal signs, web pages, glassware etc, which has a mix of new and old. This is very unprofessional, and should have been avoided.

I think the main motivation for the new logo is very simple: The present owners have a strong need to get rid of anything that reminds them of me and Tor Jessen. They want to show that they can manage without us, who were there from the start. The new design had a very high price tag, both in design, investment in new labeller and also in the labels themselves, as the new design requires two labels instead of one.

Andrew who got fired, (and Ingebjørg and Stephen who were not) Andrew Wintwood worked at the webshop/homebrewshop at Nøgne Ø. A very keen and dedicated person. He was so keen so that he wanted to open his own brewery in his hometown of Risør, about 70 km to the East of Grimstad. He would base it on contract brewing. One day he told about his plans.

Tore’s response was that this was totally unacceptable, as this new brewery would take market shares from Nøgne Ø. Three days later, Andrew was fired.

Then, about one year later, it was revealed that Stephen Andrews and Ingebjørg had started a brewery, based in Grimstad. This brewery was also based on contract brewing. Lars was clearly shocked, and assured me that this would be discussed and concluded soon. But, to my surprise this never happened.

Stephen even promoted and sold beers from his own brewery when he was travelling for Nøgne Ø.

And still nothing happened from the board or the management.

About a year later, they both resigned.

I have a theory about how this could happen. I mean why they were not fired. First of all, because Ingebjørg is Tore’s daughter, and as described elsewhere in this document, the Nybø family is very close, and their loyalty is about family first. Second, because Stephen was a very important person for Nøgne Ø. He was the only person who could assess the quality of a beer and determine whether it had off-flavours. But he was also the only brewer Nøgne Ø could send to festivals and events. For this reason, I think they elected not to fire him.

My resignation and what prompted it So, how was the meeting, where I actually resigned? Well, it was such a weird performance.

Lars asked Tom Young to present a new plan. Tom told that we were now going to have Asian Pale Ale in a 500 ml can, instead of in a bottle.

I asked “Why?. He said “Why not?”

I asked “Do we have a plan for the packaging of the other beers?” He said “No.” 45

I asked, “No plan?” He confirmed “No plan”.

I asked “Then, why this beer?” He said, “It seems like a good idea.”

I asked “What about the other beers?” He said “I do not know.”

I asked “Why 500 ml can?” He said “It seems like a good idea.”

I asked “Why?” He said “I do not know.”

I asked “But is it a good idea to have beers in cans and bottles next to each other in the shop?” He said “it does not matter.”

Next to him, Tore and Lars sat, nodding to his explanations.

My summary of this is that again this trio, Lars, Tore and Tom did unstrategic choices. Doing changes and actions without having a master plan and a total strategy. They had done this without including me (even though I had been given the role of making sure that Nøgne Ø was going to stay loyal to its origin and roots).

I concluded that I could not be part of this, and I announced my resignation, which I handed in, in written form a couple of days later.

Fond memories The first few years with Nøgne Ø was very focused on the Norwegian domestic market. After all, the motivation to start the brewery was dominated by the urge to open the eyes of the Norwegians to new and wonderful flavours.

But after 2007 this changed a lot. It was like a rolling snowball, as we got more and more global attention and international sales.

One of the reasons for this success could be that there were not so many craft breweries at that time.

I had the pleasure to be invited to judge and to take part in festivals and events and to do collaboration brews in many places, and with a lot of great people.

What do I remember?

- Visiting Ezo Beer and Phred Kaufmann in Sapporo in a snowstorm and eating the best seafood obtainable in the middle of the night.

- Our first beer makers dinner in Helsingborg in Sweden was magic!

- Our collab with Plevna in Tampere, Finland is mentioned somewhere else in this document.

- The beer event I did in Ukraine was a surprise. For a very small craft beer market, people were very dedicated.

- Visiting South Korea was a shock. Such a small market back in 2012, but with importer Maximus BumSoo working relentlessly to bring in good beer to Seoul.

- I had the pleasure of partaking in the first beer festival in Barcelona.

- Coming to Brazil was fantastic. Marcelo Carneiro, the founder of Cervajaria Colorado even allowed us to use his apartment in Rio de Janeiro.

- When I brewed with Brasserie Pays Flamand, I got a urinary tract infection. That was a very long and painful brewday!

- In San Diego, when brewing with Stone, Greg Koch moved out of his house to allow me and my family to stay there.

- In New Delhi, our potential new importer lended me his car and driver to go to visit Taj Mahal.

- In Bangkok, I visited Koh Kret, where a retired army officer by the name Chit has his illegal brewing operation. What a beautiful place.

- Coming to a beer festival in Calgary, Canada, was a shock. I have never seen so many drunk people at a beer festival.

- Russia has always been dear to me. The Russian craft beer scene is just full of fantastic people.

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On one occasion I took a bath in sub-zero temperatures in a sacred/holy spring near a holy city!

- Coming over to the UK, and brewing with Batemans for Wetherspoon was an incredible experience. Open fermenters and cask conditioning is a true English tradition.

- Several times I visited Singapore for the Asia Beer Awards and the Beerfest Asia. We judged beers in a nightclub, where someone had thrown up in the toilet the night before. The stench was overwhelming. It was a miracle that we were able to judge at all!

- In Poland we toured several cities with Ale Browar. I think we did 5 cities with 5 beer events in just as many days!

My notice period and Hansa’s lacking interest in planning my exit.

The time after I put in my resignation, was quite interesting. The notice period was 6 months, and for most of this time, I experienced to be ignored. It was like I did not exist anymore. Well, with one exception. Tore was constantly telling me that he needed information from me about my contacts and appointments. I followed up on his request frequently, and copied him in on most of my emails, but during this period he accused me several times of not giving him enough information.

During this period, I also tried to make Tore and Lars understand that it would be an advantage to agree on what to publish and explain about my departure from Nøgne Ø. But the response was that this was not required.

I clearly expressed that I would have to express something, and when my last day at Nøgne Ø occured, and we still had no agreement about this, then I published my manifesto. After all, I could not leave the company I had founded 13 years before, without any explanation.

My manifesto made both Lars and Tore furious. Lars wanted to take me to court for it. But apparantly his legal advisors told him that his chances to gain something from this were extremely slim, as he had ignored my numerous invitations to write this document together.

Tom Young also get very much involved about this process. He wrote on his facebook account that “The Jikiun Family now had started its campaign to tarnish Nøgne Ø”. This made me very upset, as I acted as an individual. By refferring to my family, he was trying to drag my wife and children into this. I politely told him that if he continued to use the term Jikiun Family, then I would also try to bring his wife and daughters into this war of words. He then understood that he had been out of line, and removed his previous comment referring to my family.

It is also interesting to comment here, that Tom used to be a beer blogger, and he has a huge network among beer bloggers. Most of these bloggers have, after I resigned from Nøgne Ø been 100% successful in ignoring anything I have been involved in. It is like I am untouchable or have seized to exist.

Dividend 2015 In 2016, Hansa as the majority shareholder of Nøgne Ø decided that all the profits from 2015 should be paid as dividend to the shareholders. This was 15 million NOK. A substantial amount for a small brewery, which was in phase of building a new production facility.

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New tanks with wrong specs and no competing offer Tore have always liked relations. As he would employ friends and family, even if they did not have the required qualifications, rather than recruiting a new and experienced person. And in communication, Tore likes to communicate in small groups. And not to copy anyone in on his emails.

When Tore was going to order new fermentors for Nøgne Ø in 2015, it is my understanding that he ordered those from a company he had ordered tanks from before, and with now competing offers. He also failed to order the correct size, as he did not want to involve any brewer or production staff or department in this process.

DH5 bottle size One of the last beers I made at Nøgne Ø, was Dark Horizon 5th edition. It quickly became clear that we did not have enough of it. I suggested that we should package it in 330 ml bottles, as we would have more units to sell by using this bottle size compared to 500 ml.

Tore and Tom was going to discuss this, and concluded that it would be packaged in 500 ml bottles.

Everybody was surprised. And the sales organization in shock. But Edvard, the production manager at that time, had the explanation. He said: “Kjetil don’t you understand that Tore’s and Tom’s agenda is not about doing what is best for the company. It is about going against you, and to take decisions which they can claim is their own, and not yours. If you really think we should use 330 ml bottles for this beer, then you should have suggested 500 ml bottles. Then they would have decided on 330 ml packaging.”

I think Edvard touched on something very right, when he made this comment. And I also think that the same motivation is behind the new logo which was launched in 2017. The message is: See what we can do without Kjetil!”

Decision to dump fresh yeast instead of giving it to homebrewers In 2016 it was decided by the newly appointed production manager, that it was too much of a bother to give yeast to home brewers. Instead it was going to be dumped in the floor drains.

Tom, explaining how creative Nøgne Ø is In 2017 there was a surprising blog entry by Tom Young. He wrote that one person had on some occasion written that Nøgne Ø was going to lose its creativity and diversity. He was surely referring to my manifesto written two years before. In detail he explained how this was wrong and that Nøgne Ø was very creative and why.

I think this blog entry is one of the most ridiculous things he has ever written. If you need to explain that you are creative, then I guess you are not really showing it very well. Good and clever creativity does not need to be told or explained.

Blog entries like this is creating damage to Nøgne Ø.

But having touched into this issue, I think I should follow up with some more comments. Nøgne Ø is doing 40 new beers in 2017. That is of course an impressive number. But what they need to understand, is that this is not a numbers game. It is all about reaching out, and communication. Because beer is communication. And this is how the meta value of beer is created. Making a new beer is not

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the main thing. Anyone can do that. But having a vision and a mission and being able to explain it, is what creative brewing is all about. When I use the word “explain” then I am thinking of two things. First you need to tell the story. The story behind the idea of the specific beer. Maybe behind the ingredients and/or the processes. But absolutely about the structure and the balance in the beer. And second, the beer must be able to communicate exactly that. The beer must deliver.

Sadly, based on ratings posted on ratebeer.com, it is evident that Nøgne Ø is unable to communicate this well. Many beer raters ask what the motivation was/is to brew many of the new beers, and the balance or perhaps lack of balance is often addressed.

Media Over the years, there has been a lot of coverage in media.

I have been in newspapers, blogs, magazines and books. In Norway and abroad.

I think I have a pile as high as one meter with clippings!

But I think the coolest was national Norwegian TV on the morning show, to talk about Christmas beer.

Sure, you can imagine, Norway is a small country, and there are not many tv stations, so being on national tv and talking about beer is simply a great opportunity!

I think that I should also mention that I was in the front page of Beeradvocate Magazine in 2008. This made med very proud,

Tom and his censored story about Nøgne Øs past In 2016 Tom posted the story of Nøgne Ø on the company website. I became aware of this because craft beer drinkers and other craft brewers made me aware of the fact that I was always not mentioned at all. I founded the brewery. I brew pretty much all the first 300 batches of beer, I created all the recipes over a period of 13 years. And my name was mentioned twice. And no photo. The cofounder, Gunnar Wiig, who was with the company for a year and a half only, was presented many times, and with a couple of photos.

For me, this was quite entertaining to notice. Tom Young apparently thought that by using censorship on the history books, then he could change the past. Like some totalitarian state.

But this got a lot of attention, and was about to become a very negative thing for Nøgne Ø. I tipped Lars Midtgaard about it, and a few days later, Tom revised this document.

Summer party After I quit, in the summer of 2015, I was still a share holder in Nøgne Ø until May 2017. As such, I was participating on social events for the employees and owners. There were usually two events per year. One summer party and one Christmas party. In June 2016 there was another summer party, and Cathie and I arrived together. As usual, it was nice to meet all the Nøgne Ø team, and we had lots to talk about. Then Tore took me aside, and told me: “Kjetil I want you to know that you are not welcome here. You are not invited, and I want you to leave.” I was shocked. To meet this hostility was something I was not used to.

I patiently waited in order for Cathie to have a chance to finish her meal, and then we drove home.

When I got home, I read through the minutes of the previous board meeting, where the summer party had been on the agenda. And there it was written: “Summer party for employees and board members.”

I would like to add that all share holders except me were either employees or board members. The summer party was, in other words, designed to include everybody, except me.

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About being uncompromising When we started Nøgne Ø, our slogan or motto was “The Uncompromising Brewery”. This was no bullshit or false motto. It was true, and it really described our mindset very accurately.

As described in this book, over time my partners did not feel very comfortable with this name. I guess that they did not want to be restricted by an expectation which they could not live up to.

Maybe I should give an example: In 2012 we brewed a collab with AleBrowar. It was an IPA with Polish Iunga hops. This beer was registered with Vinmonopolet, but this outlet system has very long lead times, so by the time it was ready for release, it was already many months old. The week before the release, I tasted it. Iunga hops can be wonderful. When fresh, it has very nice pineapple aromas. But it does not always age well. The beer I tasted was very bad. The hops were grassy and in a very harsh and vegetal way.

I blew the whistle, and claimed that we would have to cancel the launch of this beer. This was a very unpopular suggestion. I was told that this was unacceptable by me, this short time before the launch.

But it was agreed that management and brewers should taste the beer together. Everybody agreed that the beer was of really bad quality and should not get to the market. Except Tore. He said nothing about the flavour and aroma, but voiced that he thought that the beer should be released according to the plan. I then asked him directly if he liked the beer. I remember his answer: “No, I do not like it myself, but there could be someone out there who will like it. For that reason, we should release it.»

After some heavy debate, it was concluded to pull back the beer.

But why am I writing this? To explain why the term “uncompromising” did not fit my partners’ mindset.

The Uncompromising Brewery I firmly belive that when you have a motto, slogan or punch line, then it needs to have validity. Anything else will seem dishonest, false or hollow. In 2015 Nøgne Ø took away the word «uncompromising» from logo, website, labels etc. They replaced it with “We brew your best moments.” This sentence is to me just nonsense. It has absolutely no deeper meaning.

But I think that they realized excactly that, because a year or two later they changed it to “The Wild Side”. The Wild Side certainly sounds cool, but to this point they have not been able to communicate what this means, or what this is supposed to express. On a general level, there is nothing wild with the Nøgne Ø beers. As a matter of fact, the general flavour profiles are more muddled than ever before.

But, back to the The Uncompromising Brewery. This is still part of the company’s official name. In 2017 they have not changed that. I think I should quote a Norwegian beer blogger, Geekhouse: «The most uncompromising action Nøgne Ø can do now, is to remove the word uncompromising from its name.»

Lost opportunities/potential As I am getting close to the end of this book, I think I should sum up by stating that I that Nøgne Ø has lost many chances, or at least not taken the full opportunity their many opportunities. These would be: - International presence and sales - Sake - Sochu - Brew pub

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- Brand pubs - Web shop - Social media strength - Branding It could have been developed to great heights. But it was not. Because of people without visions, missions and goals.

A chain is never stronger than its weakest link. So, also a company!

Kjetil’s manifesto when leaving Nøgne Ø in the summer of 2015.

The real world is all about money.

Anyone who ignores this is naive, stupid and have no future. Everything that over time is not profitable is dead. This is an axiom. Anyone who does not recognize this, have few chances to succeed.

This is the basis for what follows. Do not forget it!

I had a dream ............ ..

I had a dream of changing the world. In a good way. With the best there is: Good beer. Good beer is a human right. People need good beer. Good beer is about expectations. It is the total joy at the first sip. It is the frame around a good conversation. It is unsnobbish fraternization and the bridge-builder between people.

I wanted to give people good beer; in a country where only light lagers were available.

There were many things I did not understand, but two things were essential: 1. You cannot hold a good man down!

2. With true love, anything can be realized.

Iain Russell, who runs Charlies in Copenhagen and The Wharf in Aalborg, had an important message for us at the beer festival in Copenhagen in 2003: “You have to remember that you are making and selling beer. You are not selling earthmoving equipment! “ What did Iain mean by that? That craft beer is not just about beer. And it is not about business and transactions. No, craft beer is all about feelings. And people.

And I had a dream to change the world. Change the world by changing people. By moving them. People are not moved by the transactions. They are moved by feelings.

I had a dream of creating an organization in which everyone involved was proud and passionate. Totally overwhelmed by the love of and respect for good beer. Where feeling and commitment in itself would be recruiting and selling to people and customers.

I had a dream of creating an organization that glowed so much of everyone’s commitment so that all customers, restaurants, bars and shops would love to cooperate with us because we would be the most pleasant, would give the best service, would have most information and would be the best.

I had a dream of creating an organization where the beer would be in the center. And where the passion would be so strong that the term “good enough” could not exist. Because everyone would constantly be concerned about how everything could be improved.

Not just beer.

But our service to customers.

And our knowledge.

And how we would communicate.

And how we would appear.

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And how we would convince the world with our energy and charisma.

All this should make us different. And the best.

I had a dream of creating the perfect beer, conveyed to the world by the perfect organization, where only the best people would be working, where everyone would work towards the same goal.

I had a dream of creating a global brand. Powered ahead by the most ambitious team on our planet.

I had a dream to create something that was so different that the organization itself would be noticed and respected even far beyond the beer.

I had a dream to create something so unique that no one else could be perceived as real competitors.

Simply because they would work in regular ways and would be ordinary and average.

I had a dream of making all shareholders and employees rich. Not only rich in pride and joy, but also in terms of money and wealth. For so strong was my faith in the perfect organization and product, that it would also be a recipe for making money.

Once we were on our way. We were actually on our way to become everything I dreamed about!

But then somebody introduced some new values. Not through discussions, meetings or documents, but through agreements in small forums: by phone, or over the dinner table.

These were: Good Enough. Mediocre. Average. Normal. Common. Careful. Slow. Calm. Safe. Predictable.

This was a new phenomenon. To my amazement, these new values were applauded, and over a relatively short time, the original mindset was replaced.

Creativity was perceived as disturbance.

Dynamism was perceived as impatience.

Being different was perceived as a risk.

Perfectionism was perceived as a cost.

Compromise was seen as inflexibility.

Initiative was perceived as dangerous.

And I discovered that the dream I had, was no longer on track to be materialized.

What was supposed to be unique and the best was now on its way to becoming ordinary and mediocre.

Or put another way: Nøgne Ø The Uncompromising Brewery AS was changing into Grey Ø The Average Brewery AS. My friends, Man’s most important and best tool is his conscience. It enables us all to navigate and maneuver right when we are in difficult situations. In this situation, I decided to listen to my conscience.

I could not work for other people to realize their dream, totally on opposite course with my own. I had to be loyal to my own dream and vision. And therefore, we are here today: Towards a schism, where I leave Nøgne Ø. This will probably be good for ............ »New Nøgne Ø”. My departure will lead get less noise and the management can sharpen its efforts to perfect Nøgne Ø to be the ordinary, calm, predictable and safe. Unlike current owners, board of directors and management, I do not think that this will lead to something good. Neither of products, people, or bottom line. But because of my strong solidarity to those who are left in Nøgne Ø, I have to say that I hope that I’m wrong.

So what about my dream? Yes, I still have a dream. It is perhaps a little smaller than it used to be, but I refuse to be influenced by an average world.

I had a dream.

I still have a dream.

Without dreams the world stops.

I choose to continue to live out my dream!

Kjetil Jikiun

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