25 Years of Beers

When Tamar Banner began brewing professionally in 2001, she stepped into an industry built on craft, curiosity and shared knowledge.

Twenty-five years later, she has worked across the entire chain. From brewhouse and cellar to packaging, quality and management.

She’s now our Brewmaster at To Øl City in Svinninge, overseeing brewing, packaging, quality and recipe development. Always with a steady focus on brewing great beer, and making the people around her better at what they do.

Learning and Sharing

Tamar cares deeply about details, but just as much, she cares about what her experience can give others.

For her, sharing knowledge is what has kept her in craft brewing for her entire career.

“I don’t know of another industry that’s so collaborative and willing to work together to share knowledge and ideas.”

For years, Tamar has been part of technical communities through the Master Brewers Association of the Americas and later the Danish Brewmasters Association.

“We get together for a technical talk but then the rest of the time it’s about enjoying beers together, helping each other out with something someone’s challenged with.

Somewhere along the way, Tamar went from being one of the people doing all the listening to sharing her own experience and knowledge.

 “And it feels great to give back. I stand on the shoulders of giants. I've become friends with some amazingly talented people in craft beer, and I feel it’s my responsibility to pay that forward.”

One place this “pay it forward” mindset shows up clearly is in her passion for beer and food pairing.

Tamar is a Cicerone, a certified beer expert, often described as a sommelier for beer. She regularly speaks at beer dinners, festivals and events, where she helps people discover how beer can interact with food.

One of her key references is “The Brewmaster’s Table Discovering the Pleasures of Real Beer with Real Food”.

The book is both a guide to beer styles and a practical way to think about pairing, built around how beer is brewed, how different styles taste, and why certain combinations work at the table.

“In fact when I speak at beer dinners I often bring the book with me and pass it around for people to look through.”

Toasting the Past

This year marks Tamar’s 25th year in craft beer. She chose to celebrate the milestone with an anniversary beer appropriately named 25 Years of Beers.

When developing the recipe, she went back to her early years in the industry.

“I wanted to honor the first beer I ever brewed regularly. That was Harpoon IPA, a "British style" IPA that's maltier than your average IPA today and brewed with 100% Cascade hops.”

In the 1990s, the original brewer wanted toasted malt. Since it wasn’t commercially available at the time, he reportedly toasted it in his own oven.

“By the time I came around, we were able to buy toasted malt. But I've always been curious to see what it would be like to toast malt for a beer” 

So Tamar and the brewers selected Maris Otter as the base malt and toasted ten kilos of it in the oven at BRUS. According to our very own To Øl legend, it smelled fantastic.

The hops in the beer bridge past and present and are a blend of cascade hops, the old tried and true hop of the last 25 years of craft brewing, and a modern trial hop from Yakima Chief that came out a couple of years ago, but never got a name. It brings a lot of fun fruit flavors to the party to balance the citrus pine of Cascade.

Curiosity as a Craft

After 25 years, Tamar is still driven by learning. Living and working in Europe has added another layer.

“I love beer because you never stop learning. I still have so much more to dig into and understand. And because the industry is ever evolving and innovating, there's stuff to learn from people who've been doing this for a year as well as someone with fifty years of experience” 

“For the last few years, living in Europe has given me the chance to try so many iconic styles where they came from, and pay homage to our roots as brewers.”

And that spirit runs through 25 Years of Beers.

A nod to where craft beer came from.

Brewed with today’s tools.

Shaped by decades of experience. And, as always, made to be shared