Last week I reported on the obtainability of wine in Sweden (The availability of wines in government-owned retail monopolies). I noted that, for a population of 10 million people, it is actually quite a good selection, even though it is accessible only through a single government-owned retail monopoly (called Systembolaget).
This week, I discuss the fact that beer is a completely different thing:
This week, I discuss the fact that beer is a completely different thing:
In Sweden, beer is freely available in supermarkets!
This topic is worth reviewing, even though this is nominally a wine blog.
The basic point here is that Sweden distinguishes between low-alcohol and high-alcohol drinks, and high-alcohol drinks can be sold only through Systembolaget. Low-alcohol beer (up to and including 3.5%), on the other hand, can be sold through supermarkets (livsmedelbutiker).
This situation has existed on and off for nearly a century, because Sweden has traditionally been a beer country, as well as a spirits-drinking country. It is the latter (spirits) that was being addressed by the creation of Systembolaget, as I discussed in last week's post.
Sweden basically recognizes four types of beer, based on alcohol content by volume (Beer in Sweden):
Light beer (lättöl) <2.25%
Folk beer (folköl) 2.25—3.5%
Medium beer (mellanöl) 3.5—4.5%
Strong beer (starköl) >4.5%
Up to and including Folk beer can be sold in food shops, but Medium and Strong beer can be sold only through Systembolaget.
So, it is Mellanöl that has been the topic at issue for the government. The original plan was to get the people off the spirits and onto Medium beer, instead. So, they allowed it to be sold in food shops (The rise and fall of medium beer):
So, the current situation is that anything up to and including 3.5% alcohol can be sold in the supermarkets. To illustrate this situation, I manually went through the online catalog of my local supermarket (ICA) to create a list, and supplemented it by scanning the shelves. The resulting summary is shown in the above table. There are at least 90 different beers, with the majority at either 0.0% (alkoholfri) or 3.5% (folköl) alcohol by volume.
This is not too shabby; and remember this represents only one supermarket chain — there are two other large ones (Coop; City Gross) that will have somewhat different selections. However, most of the beers are not all that exciting — they are beers for the masses, not the connoisseurs. For this, we must turn to Systembolaget.
So, I have also gone through their online catalog (Systembolaget), as I did last week for wine. The resulting summary is shown in the table above. This is much better! There are 4,243 alcohol-containing beers and 58 alcohol-free beers; and Swedes clearly prefer their ales and lagers, as you can see. The alcohol content can get pretty high, for beers (max 17.2%), making most of the styles Strong beers (as defined above).
Most of the beers are produced in Sweden, as shown in the table below for the eight most-productive countries. Belgium, Great Britain, the United States and Germany also provide quite a few, for a market of <10 million people.
Interestingly, there are, indeed, some specialist beers among the crowd. As but one example, there are beers with specified years of production, dating back to 2015 (2 beers), 2016 (3), 2017 (1), 2018 (5), 2019 (2) and 2020 (5). Sweden is responsible for 9 of these beers, Belgium 5, Denmark 3, and the USA 1 (as shown in the picture below).
How long this situation will continue is not clear. There are, for example, repeated proposals to the government to allow wine to also be sold in supermarkets (eg. 2015, 2023). After all, Sweden is part of the European Union, and so we can freely bring stuff in from there, not the least being alcoholic beverages. What is the point of the local government being restrictive?
There is also the recently expressed opinion that even alcohol-free beer is not a sign of societal progress (Alcohol-free beer hype is unhelpful). Tom Wark rightly has a go at this idea (First they came for alcohol...now they come for non-alcohol). Mind you, it has also been reported that Beer-only drinkers’ diets are worse than wine drinkers. Take note!
In the meantime, like all Swedes, I am currently stocking up on my specially brewed Christmas beers, both alcohol-free and otherwise, along with glögg and julmust. This is, indeed, a joyous time!
The basic point here is that Sweden distinguishes between low-alcohol and high-alcohol drinks, and high-alcohol drinks can be sold only through Systembolaget. Low-alcohol beer (up to and including 3.5%), on the other hand, can be sold through supermarkets (livsmedelbutiker).
This situation has existed on and off for nearly a century, because Sweden has traditionally been a beer country, as well as a spirits-drinking country. It is the latter (spirits) that was being addressed by the creation of Systembolaget, as I discussed in last week's post.
Sweden basically recognizes four types of beer, based on alcohol content by volume (Beer in Sweden):
Light beer (lättöl) <2.25%
Folk beer (folköl) 2.25—3.5%
Medium beer (mellanöl) 3.5—4.5%
Strong beer (starköl) >4.5%
Up to and including Folk beer can be sold in food shops, but Medium and Strong beer can be sold only through Systembolaget.
So, it is Mellanöl that has been the topic at issue for the government. The original plan was to get the people off the spirits and onto Medium beer, instead. So, they allowed it to be sold in food shops (The rise and fall of medium beer):
The introduction of middle beer in the 1960s is connected with the return of strong beer in 1955. Strong beer had been banned since 1923. During the entire counter-book period when alcohol was rationed in Sweden, it was basically only possible to get hold of strong beer at a pharmacy if you had a doctor's prescription. Otherwise, it was pilsner with roughly the same alcohol strength as today's Folk beer.
Medium beer had a stormy and short career in the Swedish grocery stores 1965–1977. The idea was that it would make the Swedes more sober; but instead it came to be associated with problems and drunkenness. The Medium beer got its own tax class, class IIB, which was beer with an alcohol content between 3.5 and 4.5 percent by volume. After the Medium beer ban, all beer over 3.5% by volume was classified as Strong beer.
So, the current situation is that anything up to and including 3.5% alcohol can be sold in the supermarkets. To illustrate this situation, I manually went through the online catalog of my local supermarket (ICA) to create a list, and supplemented it by scanning the shelves. The resulting summary is shown in the above table. There are at least 90 different beers, with the majority at either 0.0% (alkoholfri) or 3.5% (folköl) alcohol by volume.
This is not too shabby; and remember this represents only one supermarket chain — there are two other large ones (Coop; City Gross) that will have somewhat different selections. However, most of the beers are not all that exciting — they are beers for the masses, not the connoisseurs. For this, we must turn to Systembolaget.
So, I have also gone through their online catalog (Systembolaget), as I did last week for wine. The resulting summary is shown in the table above. This is much better! There are 4,243 alcohol-containing beers and 58 alcohol-free beers; and Swedes clearly prefer their ales and lagers, as you can see. The alcohol content can get pretty high, for beers (max 17.2%), making most of the styles Strong beers (as defined above).
Most of the beers are produced in Sweden, as shown in the table below for the eight most-productive countries. Belgium, Great Britain, the United States and Germany also provide quite a few, for a market of <10 million people.
Interestingly, there are, indeed, some specialist beers among the crowd. As but one example, there are beers with specified years of production, dating back to 2015 (2 beers), 2016 (3), 2017 (1), 2018 (5), 2019 (2) and 2020 (5). Sweden is responsible for 9 of these beers, Belgium 5, Denmark 3, and the USA 1 (as shown in the picture below).
How long this situation will continue is not clear. There are, for example, repeated proposals to the government to allow wine to also be sold in supermarkets (eg. 2015, 2023). After all, Sweden is part of the European Union, and so we can freely bring stuff in from there, not the least being alcoholic beverages. What is the point of the local government being restrictive?
There is also the recently expressed opinion that even alcohol-free beer is not a sign of societal progress (Alcohol-free beer hype is unhelpful). Tom Wark rightly has a go at this idea (First they came for alcohol...now they come for non-alcohol). Mind you, it has also been reported that Beer-only drinkers’ diets are worse than wine drinkers. Take note!
In the meantime, like all Swedes, I am currently stocking up on my specially brewed Christmas beers, both alcohol-free and otherwise, along with glögg and julmust. This is, indeed, a joyous time!
