Craft beer in Sweden: Omnipollo

Published: January 29, 2024

Tags: brewery visits | Omnipollo | Sweden

The last stop on our first craft beer tour in Sweden in summer 2023 was Omnipollo, a wonderful, proudly different, awarded and internationally well-known microbrewery from Sundbyberg, right next to Stockholm, the beautiful capital of Sweden.

Omnipollo cherishes the art of craft

Omnipollo is a familiar craft beer brand to a large number of beer enthusiasts in the Nordic Countries as well as internationally. Omnipollo was born in 2010, when brewer and art-lover Henok Fentie met with artist Karl Grandin. These two, introduced to each other by a mutual friend, first talked a lot purely about art, but soon also about beer as a form art. They shared a vision of changing the way we see and understand the concept of beer, and decided to introduce that to the world. The first beer+art combination, a Belgian-style beer called Leon was created in 2010, and Omnipollo was officially founded in 2011. The brewery is often described to be weird but wonderful, creative and rebellious. The peculiar, abstract name, Omnipollo, is an amusing combination of words “Omnipotent” and “Pollo” (Spanish word for chicken).

From the beginning, Omnipollo crew has created interesting, bold craft beers, in a huge variety of styles, even innovating totally new ways of serving beer. Artistic graphic designs have always been an essential part of each brew, and the beer cans of Omnipollo are distinguishable, imaginative and vivid, like the whole brand. Each Omnipollo craft beer is an equal, joint partnership between a brewer and a graphic artist. The creative process can be compared to arts like music – developing and brewing a new beer is like composing a new song, and creating the art for the brew is like creating the lyrics for the melody.

Unlike most microbreweries, Omnipollo targeted international market right from the beginning. The founders traveled a lot, visiting breweries, meeting brewers and networking. The focus was in collaborative brewing with fitting breweries, and Omnipollo operated for several years only as a nomadic brewery, brewing around the world.

Omnipollo Church Brewery is a must-visit in Stockholm

After almost a decade of international gypsy brewing, in 2019 it was time to build Omnipollo’s own production site in Sweden. This brewery tends to work in a unique way, and also this process was rather unusual – Omnipollo searched for a suitable, right place for several years, and finally established their brewery in an old church building in Sundbyberg. Omnipollos kyrka (Swedish word for church) is a very special venue, a brewery and taproom restaurant in a former church, with organ pipes still in place – the venue combines the spiritual atmosphere brought by the original purpose of use with the artsy, colorful edginess typical for Omnipollo.

Part of Omnipollos craft beers are still made as collaboration brews in breweries around the world, but most of the products are now brewed in the church brewery. The size of the church is just enough for brewing and fermenting the beer, as well as running the taproom, but the packaging of the beer takes, as well as raw material storing, takes place in another location a few kilometers away. In their own brewery Omnipollo can now invite collaboration breweries from around the world to visit and brew together in Sweden.

The total production volume of Omnipollo is around one million liters per year, out of which 750 000 liters are brewed in the church brewery. Big part of the production is sold in legs in restaurants and bars in Stockholm and around Sweden. A lot of beer is canned too, and some of it, especially Stouts, is bottled. Omnipollo also has a barrel program, with roughly 400 barrels, most of them bourbon barrels, that are used for ageing Imperial Stouts.

Omnipollo taproom restaurants

In addition to the church brewery, Omnipollo also has two other locations in Stockholm. Omnipollos hatt, opened in 2015, is a taproom restaurant in Södermalm, central Stockholm. There are ten taps, mostly Omnipollos own brews but also some visiting craft beers, and a delicious pizza menu. Omnipollos Flora, opened in 2019, is a beer garden restaurant, only open during the summer season. It’s located in Östermalm, also in central Stockholm, in Kungliga Humlegarden (Royal hop gardens), a park that back in the days actually used to be home to Royal Swedish hop gardens. In addition to Sweden, Omnipollo has beer restaurants in Hamburg in Germany, opened in 2019 and in Tokyo in Japan, opened in 2020.

Tasting Omnipollos beers

The international team running Omnipollo keeps creating new beers and art, and sometimes making bold statements with them. Omnipollo has a core selection of popular beers that are always available, and there are new releases usually every month. The variety of styles is impressive, from non alcoholic beers to light Pilsners, Sour beers to Pale Ales and IPAs and from Belgian Ales to Imperial Stouts. We have tasted a dozen different beers from Omnipollo, and based on those, would love to taste more – Omnipollo brews quality beers, and there is something suitable to all tastes. Below four of our favorites so far in different styles – jump from links of pics to beer cards with more info and tasting notes!