Brewing For Impact celebrates Brewmaster Garrett Oliver’s thirty year anniversary at Brooklyn Brewery. Garrett collaborated with seven breweries around the world to showcase fonio, a remarkable West African grain that can light the way towards a sustainable and equitable brewing future. Each collaboration will also support the Michael James Jackson Foundation’s scholarship program for BIPOC brewery and distillery professionals. Learn more about Brewing For Impact here and look for more releases throughout 2024.
Sweden has long been a second home for Brewmaster Garrett Oliver and the Brooklyn Brewery team. And within the bustling brewing scene of Stockholm, Garrett found the perfect Brewing For Impact partners: Omnipollo, led by brewer Henok Fentie and graphic artist Karl Grandin.
“Looking at Omnipollo is almost like looking at some kind of strange distorted mirror,” Garrett says. “They have the same kind of kinetic creative energy that we have, and it really is all about taking that creativity and putting it together with impactful messaging.”
Now brewing out of an old church in Sundbyberg, Sweden, Henok describes the roots of Omnipollo as a “whimsical homebrew project.” Henok and Karl loved the great beers all around them, but they thought that the presentation was missing some key inspiration. They set out to push beer into a pop cultural context, while still being “ultra serious about the beer,” as Henok says.
One of Henok’s earliest brewing inspirations was none other than Garrett’s renowned Black Chocolate Stout. “Growing up as a baby beer geek here in Sweden, Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout was the first American craft beer that I had.” Henok recounted to Garrett on a recent visit. “How do you feel about your beers being used as inspiration all over the world?”
“For me, this is a great honor.” Garrett explained. “When you said you wanted to do something with Black Chocolate Stout, I was like, it’s gotta be fonio. Fonio just makes awesome flavors, and with that bursting up through the chocolate, I think this beer is going to be awesome.”
All the way upstairs from the brewhouse in the top floor of the old church, Karl met with Garrett in his design studio – or “creative sanctuary,” as Garrett dubs it.
“This is where I create all the art for Omnipollo,” said Karl. “I can walk down the stairs and meet the people drinking the beer or serving the beer, and I try to capture some of the energy, something abstract, rather than trying to convey what’s inside the beer. It was always about the combination of the visual art and the fluid art.”
Karl took similar inspiration from a different element of Brooklyn Brewery: our logo and early designs from graphic design legend Milton Glaser. For this collaboration, he said, “what I wanted to do for Blacker Chocolate Stout is to use his iconic design, but flip it a bit and find another dimension.”
He continued, saying, “The beer and the art, this is our voice and we have something to say. This is the future.”
Limited releases of Blacker Chocolate Stout will be available from Omnipollo in early July 2024. Follow Garrett and Omnipollo for more on their collaboration, and follow us for more to come from Brewing For Impact.
Looking for more stories and beers from Brewing For Impact? Check out Garrett’s work with Maison Kalao and Thornbridge Brewery, and stay tuned for more.