Visits to our production site in Norway are usually met with a feeling of resignation rather than anticipation. Situated approximately 180 kilometres South of the nation's capital Oslo, the area is very picturesque and the scenery is beautiful at any time of year. But once you have been two or three times before it does get a bit ...well to be honest, boring !!! Apart from the scenery and some really nice, friendly people, the area has very little else going for it. OK, that may be a bit harsh, but when your passion is great beer, then Norway is NOT the place to be. My dislike for bland, mass produced Pils is well documented on this website. And 99% of beer produced in Norway fits that description. But when faced with a choice of Pils or erm ... more Pils, then even this cynic will end up drinking the wet yellow stuff. And if that isn't enough, you have to pay around £5.00 ($ 8.00) for a 0.4 litre glass ... that's less than a pint !!! Good job my company gives me an expense account !!!

I was booked into the usual hotel ... to be fair, a very nice hotel with all the usual facilities and a superb indoor and outdoor swimming pool. My last trip to Norway (before last week) was in December and it was a great experience to swim in the superbly heated outdoor pool, whilst the external temperature was close to -10°C ... your body was warm, but ice began to form on your hair as soon as you went outside. The nearest village to the hotel is about 15 minutes walk from the hotel, but it only has two or three pubs, and due to the very high cost of beer, they only really get busy on a weekend. Even the Norwegians can't afford to drink during the week !!! So I had resigned myself to another night drinking wet air in the hotel bar, when I got a call on my mobile :

"Hi Mark, its Sven. There is a "special beer evening" tonight in one of the pubs in the village. Beer is only £3.00 a glass instead of £5.00 !!! My wife and I are going along ... would you like to join us ??"

Mmm, let me see ... night in hotel by myself, or cheap(er) beer in a local pub in good company ... tough choice !!

"I will be there at about 8.00pm. See you later ... and thanks for the invite Sven !!"

So having grabbed my jacket from my room, I began the 15 minute stroll into the village. Fortunately the evening was fairly mild (for April in Norway) so the stroll was a pleasant one. Still not expecting too much more than a night drinking bad Pils, I wandered into the pub ... and despite it being Wednesday evening, it was packed with noisy Norwegians, all seemingly having a good time. I spotted Sven and his wife, who had already got me a Pils, and settled down for an evenings beer consumption !! When I wandered in, I noticed that there was a bus sitting outside the pub. I asked Sven who was on the bus ...

"Its a group of people from the nearby town of Skien. They are here for the "Metre of Beer" event."

"Sounds interesting ... what is that all about ??" I enquired.

"Well basically there are two teams of five people and ten bottles of beer. The bottles are laid out in a metre long wooden stand (hence the metre of beer). What happens is that the guy at the front has to drink the bottle of beer as quickly as possible. When he has finished he must put the empty bottle back in the stand and the next person in the line takes a bottle. The one who has just finished the bottle then goes to the back of the line. Once all 5 members of the team have had a beer, the one who went first starts again with his second beer. So basically everyone has two bottles of beer. Obviously the winning team is the team that drinks all 10 beers the fastest. In the event of a tie, all of the "foam" is drained out of the empty bottles in to a glass. The team that has less foam left over is declared the winner".

"OK, should be fun to watch !!" I said, not expecting what was to come.

I learned from Sven that the team in the bus from Skien were the "Champions of South East Norway" at the Metre of Beer, with a time of 1 minute 35 seconds for the 10 bottles. They had challenged the locals from the village to put up a team against them. I also learned that the bottled beer used was not the usual crap Pils. The landlord of the pub had got in 20 bottles of one of Norway's few dark beers ... Aass Bayer from the Aass Brewery, the oldest brewery in Norway ... specially for the contest. And before you start giggling to yourselves, Aass is not pronounced "Arse" or "Ass" ... the correct pronunciation is "Oss". So no anal jokes please !!!

So having ordered another Pils, I settled down to watch a bunch of Norwegians make complete "Aass's" of themselves (OK, I couldn't resist !!). Whilst I was sipping on my lovely yellow water, the landlord came over and set next to Sven. Following a two minute conversation in Norwegian, of which I understood absolutely nothing, the landlord disappeared and Sven turned to me with a sadistic grin on his face. You've probably already guessed the situation. Sven spelled it out to me :

"One of the guys from the local village team has chickened out. The landlord asked me if I wanted to join in, but I went one better ... I offered him a "special guest" from England ... guess who ???!!!"

So before I could say "Aass Bayer", I was standing at position number 5 on the local team ... so not only was I entered in the team, I was entered at probably the most crucial position in the team ... I would be drinking the last bottle !!! Well to cut a long story short, the team from Skien were not the local champions for nothing ... by the time I started my first bottle, the Skien team had already been round once and were on their 6th bottle. But even if I do say so myself, I was undoubtedly the fastest drinker in our team (you could tell that the locals cant afford to go serious drinking that often !!) and I made up some ground on the other team. But it was too little too late. Skien finished their 10th bottle, just as our 9th bottle was half way through. So strictly speaking, I did not need to drink my second bottle ... but I couldn't let the honour of the Brits down now could I ???? So I picked up the bottle and chugged it down, apparently much to the delight of my Viking friends. Unfortunately, the gas in my stomach from bottle number one decided to come up to meet the gas from bottle number two ... so just as I finished the second bottle, I emitted a twelve second, four octave belch which resounded around the walls of the bar. This only seemed to make the locals even more enthusiastic to their new English friend and the cheers only got louder !!

Just in case you were interested, the Skien team had knocked three seconds of their previous best, with a time of 1 minute and 32 seconds. I must also inform you that one of the Skien team is .... shock horror .... a woman !!! At least I think she is a woman ... she had long hair and big breasts. But then so does Meatloaf !!!

And just to round off what turned out to be a great evening, just before closing time the landlord silenced the pub before thanking his "special guest who came all the way from England just to be in his pub" ... just a slight distortion of the truth, but I didn't want to shatter his illusion. And for my troubles I was presented with another foaming half litre glass of Pils "on the house". So what else could I do ... just to show the locals how to do it, a couple of seconds and another large belch later, the Pils was gone. The landlord let me keep the glass ... which sits in front of me on my desk as I type ... the word "Aass" emblazoned across it. I will never describe Norway as boring again !!!

Mark Caygill (May 2001)