The World’s Northernmost Craft Brewery

Albert Han of Context News visited the world’s northernmost brewery which operates out of the polar Norwegian town of Longyearbyen on the island Svalbard, which is aptly named the Svalbard Craft Brewery. The brewery offers a variety of different beers, ranging from lagers and IPAs to stouts and pale ales, all of which are brewed with glacier water.

Located in Svalbard, which is about halfway between the North Pole and continental Norway, this brewery produces about half a million litres of beer each year using water from nearby glaciers.

The brewery is owned by Robert Johansen, a former miner who, with his change of career, is looking to reduce his carbon footprint.

The beer making process produces a lot of waste instead of tossing it… they’re burning brew waste to heat up water for their beer production to use less coal powered electricity which is what most of Svalbard runs on. So when people are drinking a lot of beer it feels warmer at the brewery. One of our plans is to produce so much heat that we could also send it out to the city.

Here’s a video explaining why Svalbard is trying to lower their dependence on coal.

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.

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