I was in Stockholm, Sweden a few weeks ago. I wrote about my visit in my last entry. It was a great trip that allowed me to sample some fine Swedish craft beers. The Swedish craft beer industry is growing steadily. New breweries are opening up every year and one in particular had peaked my interest – Nya Carnegie Bryggeriet (New Carnegie Brewery). The brewery is a joint venture between New York’s Brooklyn Brewery and Danish brewing giant Carlsberg.

Nya Carnegie opened its doors in 2012 and is housed in an old 1930s lightbulb factory in the Hammarby Sjöstad district of the city. Hammarby Sjöstad (translated as Hammarby Lake City) is an area of Stockholm that has gained fame as an exemplar of eco-friendly urban redevelopment. The overall goal in Hammarby Sjöstad, according to a report by Andrea Gaffney (University of California, Berkeley) and her colleagues “is to create an urban district which would be twice as good in terms of reduced environmental impact, and which would use half of the amount of energy used in a typical development.” When the redevelopment is complete Hammarby Sjöstad will contain around eleven thousand apartments which will house up to 35,000 people. It will have over two million square feet of commercial space that will provide approximately ten thousand jobs. The area has predominantly attracted younger couples (both with and without children). It was fascinating walking through the Hammarby Sjöstad district. It looked new and shiny and had a sleek and modern look and feel. Nya Carnegie seems like a great fit for the neighborhood, appears to drawing people to Hammarby Sjöstad, and is clearly a nice addition to its urban fabric.

The brewery has a fantastic location on the waterfront and next to a small pier where you can catch a ferry to other parts of the city. It is not a difficult chore to while away, as I did, a couple of hours there enjoying the fruits of the brewer’s labor while watching various ferries arrive at and depart from the jetty. Nya Carnegie has three flagship beers – an amber ale, pale ale and a kellerbier – in addition to seasonal and experimental brews. To accompany its beer the brewery has a restaurant that offers Swedish-inspired cuisine. Menu offerings include cod with Kalix löjrom (the king of Swedish caviars), red onion and crème fraîche sauce. If that does not appeal to your palate than there is always pork belly with wild boar smoked sausage, carrots, and emmer, plus a number of other mouthwatering options. Inside there is enough seating to accommodate over eighty people. There is seating for an additional 150 people on the outdoor patio, although in January the patio looked rather empty and forlorn. The inside space has a very modern look and feel to it – very Swedish in many respects (although don’t challenge me to either explain or defend that statement).

The brewery’s name, Nya Carnegie, is a nod to Carnegie Porter, a classic Swedish beer. Carnegie Porter traces its origins to 1836 when Scottish businessman David Carnegie Jr. (1813-1890) purchased the Lorent sugar refinery and brewery in the Klippan neighborhood of Gothenburg. Carnegie had arrived from Scotland in 1830 to work at his uncle’s company D. Carnegie & Co. The company was in the export business, specializing in the export of wood and iron. Carnegie took good care of his brewery workers, providing them with free health care, half pay when ill, and three bottles of porter per day. The brewery produced porters exclusively. Carnegie was also generous beyond the walls of the brewery, contributing a considerable sum of money to the construction to the University of Gothenburg. Upon acquiring the brewery Carnegie registered the Carnegie Porter trademark. Still in use today it is the longest operating Swedish trademark. In 1928 the brewery was acquired by Pripp & Lyckholm which was later acquired by Carlsberg, its current owners. The brewery itself remained operational until 1976. Today Carnegie Porter is brewed in the town of Falkenberg while the original Gothenburg brewery has been renovated and is a Novotel Hotel.

So what is old in new again – the Carnegie name lives on, both in the form of Carnegie Porter and Nya Carnegie Bryggerie. I suspect that David Carnegie who contributed so much to the social and economic fabric of Gothenburg would be happy to see that a brewery bearing his name was contributing to the regeneration of an urban neighborhood, albeit in another Swedish city. In fact if he were here today he’d probably sit down with the folks at Nya Carnegie, raise a glass with them, and say Skål.