Carlsberg Brewery

As you may know, Carlsberg is "Probably the Best Beer in the World." The original Carlsberg Brewery - Probably the Best Brewery in the World - is in Copenhagen, so how could we not go check it out?

The Carlsberg complex in Copenhagen is very big. Here's one mammoth gate...



...and here's another. This is the famous elephant gate, whose inspiration comes from a similarly hard-working elephant at Minerva Square in Rome. This elephant is one of four carved from granite. One of the elephants features a swastika, which was a symbol of good luck until the Nazis adopted it. Carlsberg used the swastika symbol in its advertising until that time and then wisely retired it - except where carved in granite, anyway. You can see that Laura and I wisely chose a non-swastika baring elephant for this picture.



We took the brewery tour, which of course they say is Probably the Best Brewery Tour in the World, though it was considerably less flashy than the Guinness or Heineken versions. One fact I found very interesting is that Carlsberg does a huge percentage of its business in the UK - probably more even than in Denmark. This meshes nicely with our observation in London that Carlsberg was everywhere.

At the end of the tour, we happily redeemed our tickets for free beers; you see Laura enjoying her beer below.