Thousands of years of beer

Do you enjoy a beer! Without a doubt Norwegians do and have done for thousands of years. In fact for hundreds of years beer was drunk daily by both adults and children, although that beer was noticeably weaker than the beer drunk at celebrations. Right up to the 1900’s this weak beer was an important source of nutrients as a part of the daily diet, especially important when there was no access to clean water as the disease carrying bacteria found in water could not survive in beer. Of course the art of brewing is just as old and every farm once had their own beer. In fact there is actually an old Norwegian law that states that farmers can be evicted if they have not brewed beer for three years. As the cities grew, along came the industrialised production of beer and many of the smaller breweries with their own types of beer disappeared. Today however, the diversity of beer is making a comeback and steadily more and more local breweries are being established and creating local speciality beers. One of these breweries is Haand brewery in Drammen, which specialises in new types of beer, amongst them the beer Dresin which has been developed in partnership with Vy.