Speaker: Geir Thomas Risåsen

Geir Thomas Risåsen is a conservator at the Norwegian Museum of Cultural Heritage. He has worked with cultural heritage preservation for several decades and published numerous books.

He is coming to the festival to give a talk about why corn beer has been so important in Norway.

Sacred drink and everyday drink – Norwegian corn beer.

Norwegians have been drinking beer for more than three thousand years, ever since we started growing grain here in the country. We drank it both for celebration and everyday. Originally beer was seen as a sacred drink. Therefore, drinking beer in pre-Christian times was an important element in the practice of religious rituals. Our oldest Christmas tradition is therefore to drink beer. Beer at Christmas was so important that in medieval Norway it was legislated that both the householder and his wife were required to brew enough beer to last the Christmas celebration and to bless it in the name of Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Therefore everyone was required to have their own hop garden for the purpose of beer brewing. The medieval guilds, both in towns and countryside, took over the role that the pre-Christian celebrations had held. Beer remained our most important drink until modern times, good beer for celebrations and feasts, thin beer for everyday use whether it was for adults or children.