Tag Archives: Beer Lovers

Carlsberg creates the world’s smallest beer

  • Says will inspire people to drink in a more responsible and moderate way
  • Students now challenged to create an even smaller beer

Carlsberg has created the world’s smallest beer, in collaboration with the research institute RISE, the company Glaskomponent, and a miniature artist Åsa StrandC. The aim is that the beer’s moderate size and non-alcoholic content will inspire people to drink in a more responsible and moderate way. In relation to the launch Carlsberg are also challenging students to create an even smaller beer.

Carlsberg have created a non-alcoholic beer measuring only twelve millimeters in height and containing 0.005 centiliter of non-alcoholic beer. The bottle is as small as a grain of rice and contains just a single drop of non-alcoholic beer. It comes complete with a Carlsberg label and a sealed cap.

“To promote responsible drinking, we present our most moderate idea ever. The world’s smallest beer holds only one-twentieth of a milliliter and is so small that it’s easy to miss. But the message is much bigger: we want to remind people of the importance of drinking responsibly”, said Casper Danielsson, Head of Communications at Carlsberg Sweden.

“Some might think the bottle doesn’t exist, or that the images are AI-generated. But it’s actually the product of craftsmanship, innovation and a close collaboration between us and several experts, Casper Danielsson continues.

How Carlsberg created the world’s smallest non-alcoholic beer

The project brought together several leading partners and experts. RISE (a Swedish state-owned research and innovation institute) made it possible to fill the bottle using precision capillaries designed for fiber optics. Glaskomponent, a company specializing in glassblowing for laboratory equipment, developed the bottle. Miniature artist Åsa Strand crafted and applied the cap, label, and coloring. Meanwhile, the non-alcoholic beer itself was specially brewed at Carlsberg’s experimental brewery in Falkenberg, Sweden, to deliver an intense taste experience despite the tiny volume of just 0.0050 centilitres.

“Crafting and applying the colour, cap and label for a bottle just twelve millimeters tall has been incredibly challenging and great fun. There was no established way of doing this, but with precision, patience and creativity we managed to make it work, says Åsa Strand, miniature artist.

Competition for Students

In relation to the launch, Carlsberg and Tekniska Högskolan Studentkår (the Student Union at KTH Royal Institute of Technology) are presenting a competition inviting university students across Sweden to outdo Carlsberg. The rules are simple: the smallest beer wins. The aim is to encourage boundary-pushing thinking – much like Carlsberg has done historically through innovations such as pure yeast cultivation and the discovery of the pH scale.

“Like Carlsberg, we students usually focus on the big questions. But we know that we can also grow even more from the smaller and trickier challenges, or as KTH would call them, intractable problems. I’m excited to see how KTH students take on this one, says Lydia Boij, President of Tekniska Högskolans Studentkårer.

The prize includes 10,000 SEK and a visit to the Carlsberg Research Laboratory in Copenhagen.

Karnataka Beer Prices Hiked

Karnataka’s beer price linked to alcohol content

The Karnataka Government on January 8 has issued a final notification with regard to hike in beer prices. The draft notification on increase in duty on beer was made first on August 23 last year. According to the Excise Department, henceforth, beer prices will be linked to the content of alcohol in it.

This is the third revision in beer prices by the Congress government in the state since July 2023. The first hike was in the July 2023 budget in which the Chief Minister had announced a 10% hike in Additional Excise Duty (AED) on beer and 20% hike in AED on all the then 18 slabs of Indian Made Liquor (IML). In January 2024, AED on beer was increased by 10% – from 185% of the declared price to 195% of the declared price.

Beer pricing has been categorised into two slabs, depending on the alcohol content. The Excise Duty (ED) on mild beers with alcoholic content less than or equal to 5% v/v has been pegged at ₹12 per bulk litre (pbl) and ₹20 pbl for stronger beers containing 5-8% alcohol. Earlier, the ED on beer was ₹10 pbl, irrespective of alcohol content.

Karnataka has made it mandatory for breweries to prepare beer – fermented liquor “from malt or grain with or without sugar and hops, and include ale, black beer, porter, stout and spruce beer” and ensuring that the sugar content is “not more than 25% by weight.” Breweries have been asked to declare the ingredients of beer.

In Karnataka, nearly 75% of total beer sales is accounted for by strong beers and some of the breweries ferment using high sugar instead of malt.

The Congress government explained that the hike was necessary to plug the revenue gap in the excise department, despite increase in liquor sales. The President of the Federation of Wine Merchants’ Associations, Karunakar Hegde said the hike is going to impact the market adversely. He added that supplies of beer had been affected and production had slowed down.