HAANDBRYGGERIET

I have done it.
I visited the HAANDBRYGGERIET yesterday
I made the 45min train trip yesterday to Drammen in the hope of being able to visit the makes of my favourite beer "Norwegian Wood"
I was aware that they do brewery tours for 15 or more on Weekends pre-booked and I was at fourteen people short and the wrong day but if nothing else I had gone on a day trip and I could have had a look at the AASS brewery in the same town, as it was I didn't have to.
After giving the taxi driver instructions of how to find the local institution. I lobbed up to the door and wandered in. At first it seemed almost deserted with just one young bloke who turned out to be an assistant brewer or brewer assistant to the head brewer, the head brewer as it happened had just left on his holidays that morning Shortly a man came and asked me if he could help who turned out to be the sales manager, Ole Lund
Ole very graciously - considering I was fourteen men down - showed me around the brewery and told me something about its aims and gains. we also had a couple of tastes of the product
I have to admit that I was sort of caught up in the visit and forgot to take notes and so I cant remember what the first beer was called (I did afterwards write down a brown ale but???) but I do know the second one which was a porter aged in an Akavit Barrel  and I have written this in fact I copied it from the bottle and hat Fatlgret Porter. The first beer was as good as I would expect, the porter was great. Anther brewer who had turned up said that I was pretty special to have been allowed a taste of that one and I have to agree as it was a beautiful beer and I will have to keep an eye open to see if any turn up in Australia. Ole had gone off to his office to print a couple of maps of what in his opinion where the best pubs in town but more of that in the next post.
They where in the process of making there next Christmas beer while I was there apparently they do two batches a year but I didn't find out how that worked
For a brewery with such a high reputation it turned out to be a compact operation so it must be very efficient and as I say I didn't take notes but I think I was told that the brewer has twenty five or so beers available. A lot goes overseas from Norway and I was relieved to see that there was a pallet load heading for Australia .
That makes three out of three breweries for me I had hoped to visit, there are others I have visited and may a couple more still to go but these where the main three De-Molen; Bodegal and Haand bryggeriet. All three breweries went out of the way to be welcoming and helpful , all three answered all my questions and seemed to interested in my journey and iI think I have achieved a hundred percent of my goals with these breweries - indeed on meeting Ole he seemed to know immediately where I came from and also gave the impression that he rememberd that I had sent an email three months earlier. Along with not notes I didn't take any pictures of inside the brewery.