In the somewhat more polished Østerbro neighborhood of Copenhagen and down a quiet residential side street, you will find Bicycle Brewing. A cellar bar/brewery within a very confined space. But what it lacks in area it makes up for in atmosphere and coziness.
The brewery is run by Alex (an american transplant) and his wife. Alex is the main guy. He’s the brewer, tour guide and he tends the bar. He takes immense pride in his beer, as he should, because they’re wonderful.
Brewery Tour
Unlike larger brewery tours the tour at Bicycle Brewing is intimate, personal and you really get a feel for the brewery. This brewery has no mass-production, no conveyor belts, no automatic bottle filling apparatus. It’s all done manually and very hands-on and that’s what makes this place unique and a place worth visiting.
But in the end all this charm and personal touch wouldn’t work if the beer sucked. Luckily it didn’t.
The tour we went on was a full house. Like I mentioned it’s a very confined space and you get to see two rooms. The bar area where we tasted the beer and the brewery out back. The two rooms are very small and of equal size and it’s really impressive what Alex has done with such a small space.
We got to taste a couple of beers, learned about the basics of brewing, saw the brewery and all the equipment he uses and then went back to the bar seating area for more beer. It was a great 1 hour-ish tour and we got to taste four very generous servings of his great and very drinkable beer. We started of with a German style wheat beer but a hoppy version with American hops like Mosaic. It was my favorite of the four. Nice floral smell from the hops, a fresh taste and not that bitter at all, despite the hoppy tatse. We also had a dark lager, a brown ale with a Belgian touch and an oatmeal stout to round things off. I don’t remember the names of the beer but they all had a clever bicycle themed name to them. They were all very good, not heavy and easy drinking beers. Which I think is the theme of the place.
Alex was the perfect host and tour guide and gave us a fun insight into microbrewing with an emphasis on micro. You wont find a bottle of Bicycle Brewing at your local supermarket and your best chance to try them is of course the source. Which I also highly recommend you do. And do the tour. It’s only 150 DKK. And for that you get four glasses of beer and a great look into the world of craft and microbrewing.
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