Edinburgh Craft Beer Festival

Away we left, Sir Brandon of Viktoriagade and I, Sir Cesar of Haven, for Edinburgh to represent Mikkeller at the first ever Craft Beer Festival that Edinburgh has hosted.

We arrived the day before the festival started and off course hit all the craft beer spots that all our beer loving friends had recommended us. No shortage of tips there. We have awesome (read alcohol loving) friends. We started at Andrew Usher’s which had some really fresh Cloudwater beers that we hadn’t tried. After that we walked to The Salt Horse, a nice tiny bar with an adjoining bottle shop. Sour week was on and we enjoyed some good stuff from Wild Beer Co in the tiny beer garden behind the bar. For the road on our way to the next spot, The Hanging Bat, we picked up some, as we dubbed them, “baby Boon’s”, meaning 25 cl bottles of Boon Kriek and Geuze. Why don’t we have these in DENMARK?? Boss man Mikkel, get on this please!

The festival was held at an old three-story building that used to be a Biscuit Factory in the neighbourhood of Leith. Many of the scenes from Trainspotting was filmed in that area and it had that really rugged post-industrial look, but the area is also going through gentrification and becoming more hip.

Our stand was located on the ground floor where they also had set up a DJ booth in the center of the room. During each session a house DJ was playing some funky tunes and in the evening they had booked some bigger names to spin some records. We were sharing the room with Beerbliotek, Beavertown, Siren, Sierra Nevada, Brewdog, Yeastie Boys, NZ Beer Collective, Pilot and Fierce Beer.

We brought some varieties from the Spontan-series, the yuzu, peach, pear and lingonberry which all were extremely popular and we “sold” out of all of them. The festival was set up similar to MBCC that no tokens were involved and everybody could walk around and try whichever beer they liked. We also brought some heavier stuff that we also sold out of completly. Among them Beer Geek Dessert, Ahhh BA White Wine, Vild BA Bordeaux and Raspberry Trippelbock BA Bourbon. Scottish people are not used to those high ABV beers, but were not afraid the try them and they ended up being really surprised over how drinkable and balanced they were.

The festival also invited some of the best food trucks in town to serve food and we were really surprised with the quality of food being served. We had everything from different style fried chicken burgers, to wood oven pizzas and cuban sandwiches. All tasty AF.

Scotland saw probably some of the best summer days they’ve had in decades during these days and it couldn’t have been at a better time, when people were enjoying awesome craft beer.

The scottish people were all very hospitable and curious about Mikkeller and what we do, and it was a blast meeting some really cool people that have been enjoying our beers for years and getting their hands on whatever they could find.

We wish they continue making this festival and we would happily come again.