EP-257 Morten Bruun and Tore Gynther of To Øl

This episode’s interview was conducted at BRUS, a brewpub and restaurant in Copenhagen’s trendy Nørrebro district. It’s owned by the itinerant brewing company To Øl, which is perhaps best known for its unusual recipes, pun-based beer names, and often-inscrutable labels.

That approach has kept the brewery growing for 10 years. The flexibility of nomadic brewing allows them to respond quickly to trends, and has helped To Øl become one of the darlings of the “cuckoo” brewing movement. Which makes the moment they are in right now all the more interesting.

Today’s chat with owners Morten Bruun and Tore Gynther veers off in all kinds of directions, but the main thrust of it is that To Øl’s business model has just taken a complete U-turn.

After nearly a decade of contracting out all except their brewpub releases, the owners are bringing all their production in house at a new location, To Øl City. I’ll let them fill in the details, but suffice it to say it’s an ambitious project that aims to pull together artisans from all kinds of industries on one enormous site. We talk about that decision, and how the older nomadic brewers are now settling down. It seems the reason is exactly what you’d expect—to have a closer connection with the beer they put out into the world. But it also goes a lot deeper than that.

This is Morten Bruun and Tore Gynther of To Øl. Listen in.