{"id":96280,"date":"2019-01-10T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-10T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/you-wont-believe-where-ska-brewings-second-biggest-market-is\/"},"modified":"2019-01-10T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-01-10T12:00:00","slug":"you-wont-believe-where-ska-brewings-second-biggest-market-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/you-wont-believe-where-ska-brewings-second-biggest-market-is\/","title":{"rendered":"You won\u2019t believe where Ska Brewing\u2019s second biggest market is"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Swedish
Swedish craft brewery Nyn\u00e4shamns \u00c5ngbryggeri staff from left, Marcus W\u00e4rme, marketing; Andrew Colley, head brewer; and Lasse Ericsson, co-founder; raise glasses with Joe Hull, Ska Brewing head mod-brewer, and Dave Thibodeau, co-founder of Ska Brewing Co., on Tuesday at Ska. Partnerships are important both for credibility and relevance in a market on the other side of the world.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

It took the right timing, the right beer and a little bit of luck for Ska Brewing Co. to find its second biggest market.<\/p>\n

It seems odd that of all places in the world, Sweden would be such a huge consumer of beer from Southwest Colorado. The liquor laws in Sweden are strict compared to Colorado: all liquor stores in the country are government-run, and all beers sold are government-tested and -approved.<\/p>\n

Liquor stores close at 7 p.m. and don\u2019t open on Sundays. Beer is available only in single cans and taxed at a rate that correlates with alcohol content. There\u2019s no advertising allowed in the liquor stores and all beer is sold warm, \u201cso that it\u2019s ready for immediate consumption,\u201d said Marcus W\u00e4rme, a marketer with the Swedish craft brewery Nyn\u00e4shamns \u00c5ngbryggeri<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to get your beer on the shelf,\u201d W\u00e4rme said in an interview at Ska Brewing this week. He\u2019s in town with the brew masters from Nyn\u00e4shamns \u00c5ngbryggeri to work on a collaboration beer with Ska. \u201cYou have to have a good-quality beer and a little bit of luck,\u201d he said of getting a listing in Swedish liquor stores.<\/p>\n

And for Ska, getting its beer on the shelves was a marriage of good preparation and a bit of serendipity. It was 2009 and Dave Thibodeau, co-founder of Ska Brewing, was with his brewery team at a craft brewers conference in Boston. It was there that he met J\u00f6rgen Hasselqvist, a Swedish beer distributor. \u201cHe\u2019s kind of crazy,\u201d Thibodeau said, and that made them \u201ckindred spirits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Andrew
Andrew Colley, head brewer with Swedish craft brewery Nyn\u00e4shamns \u00c5ngbryggeri, and Joe Hull, head mod-brewer with Ska Brewing Co., work on a collaboration beer Tuesday at Ska. Ska Brewing shipped about 70,000 12-ounce cans of beer to Sweden every month in 2018.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The two had a lot in common \u2013 they shared similar regard for a balance between spare time and work; there are mountains in Sweden much like the Rockies; they both like the same sports, including skiing, surfing, riding bikes and fishing; and both have similar tastes in music.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the things we like to do here we just get to do at a different altitude,\u201d Thibodeau said of Sweden.<\/p>\n

When Thibodeau and Hasselqvist met, Sweden was craving an American-style Indian pale ale, W\u00e4rme said. Ska had the Modus Hoperandi, an American-style IPA<\/a> with 6.8 percent alcohol by volume and an 88 on the international bitterness units scale. The IBU scale ranks beers from 0 to 100 \u2013 a higher number means more hops and, therefore, more bitterness.<\/p>\n

Hasselqvist urged Ska to enter its Modus Hoperandi into a listing pool. Swedish officials perform tests on beers in the pool to determine whether they should be allowed on shelves, which includes, among other things, a blind taste test. Up to 150 beers can be entered into the listing pool, W\u00e4rme said.<\/p>\n

When the decision came down from the Swedish government, it wasn\u2019t looking good for Ska. It didn\u2019t get the bid. Another brewery got it, Thibodeau said.<\/p>\n

\"Thibodeau\"
Thibodeau<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

But the brewery that won the bid couldn\u2019t produce the quantity of beer required to put beer on the shelves of more than 200 stores in Sweden, Thibodeau said. So the Swedes approached Ska about its Modus Hoperandi. And like that, beer from Southwest Colorado was stocked on the shelves of about half of all liquor stores in Sweden, the first such American IPA to land there, Thibodeau said. And the laws are such that big brewers and small brewers get the same amount of shelf space \u2013 a huge boon for a small brewery on the other side of the world, W\u00e4rme said.<\/p>\n

The Modus Hoperandi is most of the reason why Ska is so popular in Sweden \u2013 the only other beer it offers there is the True Blonde, which doesn\u2019t do nearly as well as its hoppy, bitter compatriot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey came at the right moment when the Swedish audience had been longing for an American-style IPA,\u201d W\u00e4rme said.<\/p>\n

And Ska\u2019s style resonated with many Swedes, he said. The graphics on the cans were appealing to the Nordic beer consumer, W\u00e4rme said, and it is easy to tell that the brewers at Ska aren\u2019t in it for the money \u2013 something that builds trust and credibility in the Swedish market.<\/p>\n

Ska\u2019s credibility is also bolstered by its partnership with Nyn\u00e4shamns \u00c5ngbryggeri, Thibodeau said. Nyn\u00e4shamns \u00c5ngbryggeri is a craft brewery about 36 miles south of Stolkholm, the Swedish capital. The two were connected through Hasselqvist, who distributes both of their beers. Having a relationship with a brewer in Sweden gives the consumers there a sense that Ska is doing beer right, Thibodeau said.<\/p>\n

Thibodeau said he and his brewing buddies take at least one or two trips to Sweden every year to connect with their Swedish partners, romp around islands in the Baltic Sea and drink beer. They even try the Modus Hoperandi when they\u2019re there, just to make sure it still tastes right, Thibodeau said.<\/p>\n

Transporting beer across the Atlantic Ocean is no small feat. It takes about a month for a 16-foot-long shipping container caring some 48,000 12-ounce cans to go from Durango to Sweden. The brewery sent about 70,000 cans to Sweden each month in 2018, Thibodeau said, making Sweden the brewery\u2019s second-largest market, with Colorado being the largest market.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing how much beer we sell in a country that doesn\u2019t want you to sell beer,\u201d Thibodeau said.<\/p>\n

Hoppy, lighter beers tend to lose the bitter flavor over time, Thibodeau said, so Ska loads its Modus Hoperandi right off the canning line into a shipping container. The shipping container is stored below sea level to keep the beer colder \u2013 a ship\u2019s hull below sea level is cooler as a result of the temperature of the ocean.<\/p>\n

But Modus Hoperandi holds up well over time, Thibodeau said. And although hundreds of breweries have sprouted in Sweden that can produce a product similar to the Modus Hoperandi, Ska\u2019s beer has become the standard for an American-style IPA there.<\/p>\n

With so many other breweries producing a similar style beer in Sweden, it is difficult to stay relevant, Thibodeau said. Partnerships, like the one they have with Nyn\u00e4shamns \u00c5ngbryggeri, not to mention collaboration beers, help keep the Ska name fresh in Sweden. Ska and Nyn\u00e4shamns \u00c5ngbryggeri are in the process of brewing their third collaboration beer, which they plan to enter in the March Collaboration Fest in Denver<\/a>.<\/p>\n

bhauff@ durangoherald.com<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a hint: It\u2019s nowhere in the United States<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":96281,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5742,5735],"tags":[431,582,13,445],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-96280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","tag-business-general","tag-craft-beer","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-newsletter-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96280"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=96280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}