Region & History

Anyone walking through Visby's medieval ring wall stands in a Hanseatic town that has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1995. Gotland lies in the middle of the Baltic Sea, and the island has preserved a beer of its own even as breweries elsewhere were long since pushing out home brewers. It's called Gotlandsdricka, or simply dricke on the island.

According to tradition, it was the women of the farms who brewed it, going back to Viking times. The men fetched water and juniper branches, and that was the extent of their job. Brewing remained women's work right up until industrialization, and dricke was an everyday drink: people drank it daily, and even children got a weaker version of it.

Hops only reached Scandinavia in the 13th century. Before that, Gotlandsdricka was brewed without them, and even afterward, hops never replaced juniper. Only a small amount of hops went in; the flavor still came mainly from the branches.

There's no protected designation of origin for it. Gotlandsdricka isn't listed in the EU register of protected names, and unlike Pilsner or Kölsch, it has no fixed style standard either. It's a home recipe with countless variations that differ from farm to farm and family to family.

The tradition lives on through home brewers. Since 1991, a world championship in dricke brewing has been held every autumn in the south of the island. Right in the heart of Visby, within the town walls, Gotlands Bryggeri—a subsidiary of the Spendrups group—has been brewing since 1995. The brewery's first beer was Wisby Klosteröl, later followed by a Wisby Stout.