Reykjavík Grapevine - jul 2022, Side 23

23The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 07— 2022
“Now I can have as much free beer as
I want,” says Jóhann Guðmundsson
beaming with pride. It seems like he has
already achieved all he wanted in life,
and frankly, it’s infectious—we want this,
too. We stopped by his life-long project,
The Brothers Brewery in the Westman
Islands, to grab a pint, and ended up talk-
ing to Jóhann for hours.
Let’s start brewing
First things first: Who are the brothers?
Jóhann clarifies: “We’re best friends.
This is actually the third company we
started. Back in 2012, we were getting
drunk in a summer house and we
looked at a bottle of beer and thought:
‘Beer only has four ingredients. Out of
those four ingredients, there’s water
and yeast, so really it’s two ingredients.
We cannot fuck this up, it’s so easy.
Let’s just start brewing beer.’”
The joke soon became a real possi-
bility, so both Jóhann and his busi-
ness partner Kjartan Vídó invited
their respective brothers to join, and
‘Brothers Brewery’ came to life. Each
member contributed their skills.
Jóhann, a computer programmer and
self-proclaimed “nerd of the group,”
began to research. He started with the
book ‘How to Brew’. “From that, I just
kept on reading and reading,” he says.
Their first real batch was made with
around 2.5 kg of grain. “We were on top
of the world,” Jóhann remembers. “We
gave some to our friends and they said,
‘Wow, this is disgusting,’ but we kept on
brewing.”
Chasing ‘The Dream’
At first the brewers only intended to
sell beer to a neighbouring restaurant,
and have it pay for the extra grain that
would allow them to drink their own
beer for free. But their beer kept selling
out. “I was waking up every morning
and heading to the brewery from six
until lunchtime. Then I went to my day
job, finishing at maybe eight or nine,”
Jóhann recalls.
That is when the brothers decided
to look for a place to rent. In March
2017, they opened a tap room and a
small brewery thinking it was too much
space, but in six months’ time, they had
outgrown it. Now they are using 600
kg of grain per week, in a building they
bought and refitted themselves.
What’s brewed in Heimaey,
stays in Heimaey
Surprisingly, The Brothers Brewery
doesn’t sell their beer beyond Heimaey.
“The only place that has our beer in
kegs is GOTT [the restaurant next
door],” says Jóhann. We sometimes put
it in some of the craft bars in Reykjavik,
but most of it is just sold here.”
“We have beer from Akureyri, and
when people come in and get that we
sometimes make fun of it,” shares
Jóhann. “Do you know how big the
carbon footprint of your beer is? You
can actually just drink this and have
pretty much none,” he jokes, point-
ing to metal containers with freshly
brewed local beer.
“This has never been about making
money,” continues Jóhann. “ This has
been about having fun, having free
beer, and what we can do to actually
make the island better.”
Every year, The Brothers Brewery
makes a special beer for Fishermen’s
Day, a big Icelandic holiday, honouring
a local fisherman. “The beer is named
after the fisherman and put into three
bottles. One bottle is for us, one for
the fisherman or his family, and then
we take one bottle and auction it off,”
explains Jóhann. Over the last few
years, the brewery has raised 7.5 million
ISK for local charities.
From wonky veg to beer
Sustainability has always been impor-
tant to the brewers. “We were using
lactose in a lot of beer earlier,” Jóhann
recalls. “Three years ago, we thought
‘Why use animal products when we
don't have to?’” The brewery opted to
stop using any animal products, except
for one style—their famous Skyr Sour.
The team is also striving for a holis-
tic approach to reduce their environ-
mental impact, such as donating spent
grains (one of beer’s byproducts) to
local farmers. Their zero-waste atti-
tude led to another experiment: turn-
ing wonky vegetables into beer. “We
were given ugly carrots that couldn’t be
sold,” shares Jóhann. “We cut them into
pieces, dumped them into the mash
and made beer,” says Jóhann.
Find what you love
When asked what the secret of The
Brothers Brewery is, Jóhann doesn’t
hesitate: “The passion that we have for
what we’re doing,” he replies.
Since the brewery opened in
Heimaey in 2016, the attitude towards
alcohol consumption on the island has
changed for the better—Jóhann and the
team take pride in their contribution
to challenging social biases around the
topic, which was until recently consid-
ered taboo.
“We just had fun drinking beer, and
now we can have as much free beer as
we want,” reiterates Jóhann, adding: “A
lot of time I just walk here, have a beer
after work and walk home. I think it's
paradise.”
Words:
Alice Poggio
& Iryna Zubenko

Photos:
Joana Fontinha
Culture
“This has
never been
about making
money.”
Pints in the sun
Jóhann sharing all he knows about beer
Brotherly Beer
Jóhann Guðmundsson on inadvertently turning passion into a job
you love while bettering his home, the island of Heimaey