Edinburgh Craft Beer Festival

By Sam and Meg

Last weekend in the beautiful city of Edinburgh, Mikkeller had the pleasure of pouring beer at the Edinburgh Craft Beer Festival 2018. The two year old festival is arranged be We Are Beer, who run similar festivals in London and Bristol, and they did a great job making sure it was an unforgettable weekend.

Located in the charmingly industrial building called The Biscuit Factory, there was everything one could want: delicious street food, the elusive Scottish sunshine, bumpin’ DJs and, of course, some of the best beer from the UK, Europe and North America. We were faced with difficult choices everyday - “Do I want the lobster & chips today? Hmm but the Fried Chicken Burger has been making my mouth water all day! Ok, I’ll just go with the wood fired pizza with marinated squash, goat cheese and chili jam.” Rough life, right!

One of the funnest parts of the whole festival was getting to know the other brewers and breweries. Often times they would come up to us with a taste of their beer in exchange for a taster of ours. We got to know our neighboring stands very well too, they offered tips on what to do and see, and we took turns fetching coffee, snacks, and tasters for each other. This beautiful brewer comradery was summed up by the Saturday break between sessions, when everyone was in the brewers lounge taking a nap on the comfy bean bags - one of the organizers commented that it was the cutest sleepover he’s ever seen.

We enjoyed meeting many Mikkeller fans who were yearning for more Mikkeller in the UK and offering up tempting sums for the merchandise we were wearing. There were also many people who had never tasted a Mikkeller beer before and were impressed by the selection we had over the course of the three days. Particular favorites were the 12” Winale Remastered which had several repeat customers, including one newly converted Mikkeller fan who returned on three separate occasions to fill his glass and was ecstatic when we showed him our webshop online. But the biggest hit of all had to be the Ginger-Brett IPA -  which when you think about it makes a lot sense being in Scotland after all. When we sold out one customer cheerfully remarked in his everso lovely Scottish accent “Hey! Look! People do like gingers afterall!”