The requirements for a Gaselle company are:
Hogna Brygg has fullfilled the requirements and joins an exclusive list of businesses that carry this distinction.
Super hoppy bois, straight up hop juice, tropical crushers, barrel aged masterwork in a can, national award winning imperials, double gold medal clinchers, fine dining pilsner, sour fruitbombs, and some tasty, tasty dark beers - these are some of the styles Ola has brought to the table in his direction as recipe creator and producer at Hogna Brygg. He is the hop whisperer and the pillowy smooth malt wrangler. Many of his recipes use local malt and the freshest tropical variants of our little green friend.
Absolute dedication to making the highest quality product possible - no compromises or shortcuts - this is the Hogna mantra under the leadership of Liv. Not only does she make sure the business is running smoothly and effectively in this direction, she also is the face of the company; forging and maintaining relationships with our sales network, suppliers, and community. Eager to jump on the production line when needed too - all around all star.
Mike grew up in the shadow of Yakima valley.
Already an avid homebrewer at age 16; this hobby sent him on to study brewing and distilling in Scotland.
After taking a Bachelor’s Degree in Brewing and Distilling from Heriot-Watt University in Scotland, his passion for good food led him to spend a year in Italy as an exchange student.
Thankfully, he went north after Italy, and are now, alongside Ola, making hoppy bois and scandi-candy in a can. In addition he will conjure up the most spectacular labels and moveable bars, a magician in so many ways.
Super social bus driver, fond of cooking, and running the commercial building where the brewery is located. Eager member of the brewery guild period, completed a beer sommelier education, and has been working in both production and maintenance. Always happy to spend a day behind the tap tower at events, discussing food and drink combinations.
The starting point for Hogna Brygg was when Sturla came home with a bag of malt extract and declared that he would become a beer brewer. The result convinced both family and friends, and a brewers guild was founded. As a technical draftsman from the oil industry, he is always on hand when it comes to development and improvements. He designed our brewery house after visiting a number of breweries studying technical solutions, resulting in test batches too good to let go. Loves technical innovations, stainless steel, and beer.
Finding solutions where others see problems, mechanic and dairy farmer Ingebrigt always has a suggestion, regardless of challenge. Building the brewhouse and fermentation tanks together with our welder, Mathias, and providing maintenance and implementation of new (which are often old and used) machines. Always happy to help out in production, and at events. Ingebrigt also has this love for stainless steel, seems to be common for the Hogna Team.
This national food and beverage competition is widely regarded as one of the most significant of its kind in Norway. There are typically 36 categories and they select one winner and three finalists for each category each year. The beer category sees producers of all sizes and shapes judged by a panel of Norwegian food critics and academics. https://www.detnorskemaltid.no
A group of friends from Midtre Gauldal begin discussing why the food culture and the beer culture seem to be at odds. One can find amazing locally produced food but the selection of beverages is from large scale international companies.
What began as an pursuit in quality beer became more serious when local homebrewer Ola Raphaug joined the discussion on local beer. 2015 saw many test batches and the feedback on the beers produced was too positive to ignore. A brewery needed to be built.
Construction of the brewery began, a process led by an ethos of quality, do-it-yourself and repurposing otherwise discarded equipment. Dairy tanks were modified into a brewhouse, fermenters and various support vessels. A now retired box tapping machine and conveyor belt collection table was found at neighbouring business Norsk Kylling and given a new home and purpose at Hogna Brygg. As 2016 approached the team started looking for a suitable place to put it all together.
A recently closed and emptied supermakeret proved to be a healthy space to put it all together. The building would have room to grow and had refrigeration systems vital to production of quality of beer. Located in Kotsøy the brewery would need a name and an identity. Tormod Leithe from Dynamis Designs was brought to the table. He designed a logo that had the four elements as branches around a central core. The four branches represent the four valleys around Forollhogna, the four main ingredients of beer, and the founders of the business. Respectively the core, our product, comes from the branches of dedicated people and quality ingredients.
As the branches of this design came together so did the brewery. Selecting to can the beer, a 100% light and oxygen barrier for ultimate quality protection of the product a large investment of 1,000,000 kroner was used to purchase a new canning line. While waiting for the canning line the brewery began producing beer. A delay forced the new brewery to bottle 3 of the first batches in glass. As November came and 2016 was closing to an end the canning line arrived and production began in earnest with the first 3 fermenters, made from converted dairy tanks.
2017 saw steady growth and the need for a larger tank to keep up with demand of the core range products.
In 2018 Hogna Brygg brewing with locally produced malt from Bonsak Malt.
Continued demand meant the need for more fermentation capacity, in 2019 Hogna aquired two new 2000 liter unitanks. Additionally the handy team built a hop rocket to enhance our dry hopping abilities.
Continued demand meant the need for more fermentation capacity again, an additional two tanks were recieved. We were also inducted into the DN Gaselle list for business performance and awarded a prize for our efforts to be sustainable.
Gull will be brewed with Norwegian malt and a redesign of the label will occur sometime in Q2.
