A church in Sundbyberg where you can worship beer.

Just in time for the phantom brewery’s tenth anniversary, they’ve finally settled down in a place of their own. Omnipollo’s new era has begun, in the church it now calls its home.

12 Omnipollo

The first time I met Henok Fentie was when he started working at one of my previous workplaces, at pretty much the same time as I was leaving. But Henok’s time there was short-lived, as it coincided with his new beer project Omnipollo unexpectedly taking the prize of “Beer Of The Year” at Sthlm Beer & Whisky Festival, at the time the world’s third-biggest beer festival. This was achieved only about a year after Omnipollo was created.

I meet Henok out in a church in Sundbyberg, which they have recently taken over from Sundbybergs Köksbryggeri. For two years, Henok and his partner at Omnipollo, Karl Grandin, had been searching for the perfect venue to call a permanent home. Their first brewery of their own. Now they’ve found it.

What was it that appealed to you about this place?

I was first here about half a year ago, and was struck by the combination of an art space and brewery. That’s exactly what we at Omnipollo do. The art that covers the walls here is actually made by Tobias, who works with us at Omnipollo now. But back then, some six months ago, it was actually Kalle who had an exhibition here, and afterwards we were both waxing lyrical about the space.

We quickly got in touch with Peter at Sundbybergs and asked if we could buy it.

Had they been contemplating a sale before?

No, I don’t think so. But I can identify with the feeling of an opportunity presenting itself. They have been fighting so hard for so many years to have a brewery here, but now they can pass it on safely into our hands. They are actually part of the process, helping develop the operation for as long as they want to.

Henok also points out the icing on the cake here, in the form of the tap room that already has a serving permit, something Omnipollo wants to renew. “Being born and bred in Stockholm, it feels good to be able to give something back to its culture and nightlife. Just a few years ago we had no intention of opening anything up in a particular physical space. But then we opened [bar and pizza place] Omnipollos Hatt and found how much fun it was,” he says.

Since, then they have opened a further two bars, one in Gothenburg and one in Hamburg. And now another bar awaits opening in Tokyo’s financial district. “Right now I’m splitting my time between Stockholm, Tokyo and Addis Abeba where I currently live with my family. It actually works surprisingly well”, Henok says.

Very early in your career you became interested in beer. Did it always feel obvious that this was what you were going to do?

Pretty early. I was involved in the pub chain Bishops Arms for several years, and we were wrestling a lot with the ideas of how to solve the growth issue. The stated target group was relatively old, so what would happen when they don’t go out drinking anymore? How do we fill that void from underneath? I was convinced pretty early that the key to all of this was craft beer.

After his time at Bishops Arms, Henok’s future wife got a job in Brussels. Henok moved, but maintained his interest in beer. “I had been brewing a lot before, when I was living on Reimersholme by Hornstull. The first batch we made was named “Horan” [The whore] and it was some sort of Hornstullsöl. A small batch of 15 litres that tasted awful. But in Belgium I became a househusband, and in connection with that also a more serious home brewer,” he explains.

Henok contacted the brewer Dirk Naudts at the Flemish brewery De Proefbrouwerij, who specialised in brewing beers for others, and managed to persuade him that they should collaborate. “He is a very academic brewer, laboratory-driven, completely uninterested in selling beers. I got there having no name whatsoever in the industry but I suppose I managed to use my background at Bishops Arms in some way to initiate a collaboration.”

The result was a first product, Leon, that Henok brought back home to Sweden. That’s when he first met Karl Grandin. “It was love at first sight, well from my part anyway,” Henok says.

After that it took three years of hard work, writing a book, having a child and travelling before it was time to quit the day job. “It was actually my wife that pointed out that it was time [to go full-time with Omnipollo], instead of just working nights and weekends with Omnipollo. But the timing was also perfect, if I had done it earlier we wouldn’t have been able to draw any wages. We had also won “Best Beer” at Stockholm Beer & Whisky Festival and managed to get some beers into Systembolaget. We had momentum”.

The momentum that Henok talks about just kept going, and hopes were that 2020 was to be the year when Omnipollo’s turnover crossed the 100 million kronor threshold.

From zero to 100 million in ten years. That’s actually quite impressive.

I got a loan from my mother for 30, 000 kronor, that was the only money we had in the beginning. But the key to so much growth has been the outsourcing of everything. The accounting, marketing and not least the brewing. Up until now of course.

When did you feel for the first time that you were a real company?

That was probably when we got the keys to our first office, that moment was something special. Also when we hired our first employee, Magnus Björnstjerna, whose first task was to find that office. To go to work, sit there with a laptop that the company had paid for, not me personally. That was a milestone.

If we are talking more milestones, what other moments would you say, retrospectively, have been extra important during this journey?

Omnipollos Hatt was one, our first physical manifestation.

It’s funny you mention the physical location, considering that up until now you haven’t had your own brewery.

Yeah, that’s correct. When we were talking about what to call this church Kalle mentioned exactly that, that Omnipollo’s isn’t a place, and I agree with him. The name is instead Omnipollo’s Hypnagoga.

You built a church to honour Omnipollo.

Exactly. It has also always been more important to spread our idea than to sell as much beer as possible. It feels more forward-looking and motivating.

Is there a ceiling for your development?

That is a very interesting question. I have been studying market economy and there is a sort of set belief within that field, that either you have to grow, or otherwise you shrink. Someone should mythbust that idea, I don’t believe it’s correct.

There was outcry in the beer world when Beavertown took in Heineken as part-owner. Do you see any danger in growing too big?

In a way I feel that we are pretty big already, I mean we have just bought a church. I think the most important thing is the culture within the company, that we don’t waver from our principles and values. The most important thing when letting an external financier in, is that they are involved in the correct areas, like financing for example, certainly not the developing of beer products. If Omnipollo became like a band hiring a new lead singer I would have difficulties continuing in that band.

Have you ever thought about throwing in the towel?

I have been completely obsessed with this from day one, so that hasn’t happened yet. Of course it has been tough from time to time, but to me, this is the dream job.

Apart from buying a church in Sundbyberg Omnipollo has gone into the final phases of the opening of a bar in Tokyo’s financial district.

Yeah, I could take the opportunity to advertise that. It’s here this spring which is why I’m sharing my time between three continents at the moment. The bar is located in an old eel-restaurant in an older part of Tokyo, just around the corner from the hotel K5, who have also become our partner on-location. The door knob is still in the shape of an eel.

A lot has been said about your design, not least in the last interview we did with you. How important would you say the design is in your success?

It’s extremely important of course. I come from a beer nerd background, and the constant problem we struggle with is always how to take craft beer from being a niche product into something bigger. The symbol for success I had in my mind initially was that the beer should be served at Riche on Stureplan, that was also a milestone of course, it only took a couple of months. But that transformation was completely design-driven.

Incredibly good milestone, to get into Riche!

Yes! But that was also something very concrete. I still remember the time I came into Riche and saw our beers in people’s hands. It was the first time I felt that ‘this is really happening’.

What other factors do you see in your success, what key things make you unique?

We have always been extremely careful about the quality of everything that we do. Everything we release has to be of the highest quality. That has gotten us onto the top beer lists of the beer nerd community, which is very important. The quality of the beer has to live up to the design, the day it doesn’t, you’re smoked.