The local view
Craft beer in Copenhagen, properly explained
The wifi password at the original Mikkeller bar was “I hate Carlsberg”. The joke worked because the lager giant’s old brewery sits a short bike ride away on the Valby hill, and because every drinker in the room understood it. Craft beer in this city began as a grudge against its most famous export, and the grudge turned out to be world class.
Mikkel Borg Bjergsø was teaching maths and physics when he started experimenting in his kitchen. His coffee oatmeal stout, Beer Geek Breakfast, was voted the best stout on Ratebeer without Mikkeller owning a single tank; he rented capacity at a Belgian brewery and spent the savings on ingredients. The company now runs dozens of bars and restaurants worldwide, and the first of them, opened in 2010 on Viktoriagade, still pours in Vesterbro.
To Øl took the same rented-brewhouse route from 2010 before buying a 26,000 square metre former Beauvais factory outside the city. A festival that began as a bar’s first birthday party now pulls over 100 breweries to Vesterbro every May.
This page ranks the bars that earn your kroner, then covers which streets to walk and when to turn up.
Vesterbro and Kødbyen
Everything radiates from Vesterbro, the former red-light district west of Central Station. Mikkeller Bar Viktoriagade opened here in 2010 as the company’s first taproom, and it remains the scene’s pilgrimage site. Fermentoren runs 24 taps on Halmtorvet, while Kihoskh on Sønder Boulevard looks like an ordinary corner kiosk and stocks hundreds of craft bottles and cans.
Kødbyen, the still-working Meatpacking District on Vesterbro’s eastern edge, holds Warpigs, the brewpub Mikkeller opened with Indiana’s 3 Floyds in 2015. The American partner walked away in November 2021, but the Texas-style barbecue and the in-house brewhouse carried on under Mikkeller. Øksnehallen, the old market hall on Halmtorvet, hosts the Mikkeller Beer Celebration each May, which floods every bar in the postcode.
Walk from Copenhagen Central Station in under ten minutes, or ride the M3 metro to Enghave Plads for the district’s western end.
Nørrebro
Cross Dronning Louises Bro from the centre and you reach the city’s most opinionated drinking district. Ølbaren on Elmegade has poured craft beer since 2001, which makes it Copenhagen’s longest-serving specialist beer bar, and its 30 taps fit into a room the size of a generous living room. Regulars treat the list as required reading, and the staff argue back.
BRUS, the brewpub To Øl opened on Guldbergsgade in 2016, wraps a bar, a bottle shop and a restaurant around its own tanks. Nørrebro Bryghus has brewed on Ryesgade near the lakes since September 2003, founded by ex-Carlsberg brewmaster Anders Kissmeyer, though Royal Unibrew bought it in 2023, so purists no longer count it as independent.
The M3 stops at Nørrebros Runddel, a short walk from both Elmegade and Guldbergsgade.
Indre By, the centre
The medieval core defaults to tourist pours, with one large exception. Taphouse on Lavendelstræde, a side street near City Hall, runs 61 taps, the longest draught list in Copenhagen. Screens track what is pouring, and the range swings from Danish pilsner to imperial stout in a single row of handles.
It sits a few minutes from Rådhuspladsen station on the M3, which makes it the easiest serious beer stop between sights. Treat it as a range-finding session before you commit to a district.
Carlsberg Byen and Valby
J.C. Jacobsen founded Carlsberg on the Valby hill in 1847, and the old brewery grounds have become a new-build quarter threaded through restored brewhouses. Nobody comes here for a tap list, but the district explains the whole scene, since Danish craft brewing began as a counter-movement to what this hill produced. Carlsberg answered in kind with its Semper Ardens series, launched in 2000, and the Jacobsen house brewery.
The S-train reaches the quarter from Central Station in minutes, and the walk through the old industrial buildings is worth the detour on its own.
What makes a great craft beer bar in Copenhagen
Rotation, first. The best rooms treat a tap list as a daily publication rather than a fixture, and Taphouse’s 61 lines or Ølbaren’s 30 exist to be churned. Ask what arrived this week; the answer is the point of the visit.
Second, local depth. A serious Copenhagen bar pours the small Danish independents alongside the famous names, so expect Amager Bryghus, Dry & Bitter, Gamma, Slowburn and Flying Couch on the better boards. The city’s own tourism office observes that drinkers here care more about quality and variety than about a beer’s origin, which means imports have to earn their lines too.
Third, the pour. Good staff offer tasters before you ask, steer you to small measures when the stout list climbs into imperial territory, and can explain why a gypsy-brewed beer lists no brewery address. The template came from Viktoriagade in 2010: spare room, careful glassware, nothing on the walls shouting at you.
Last, a sense of the founding grudge. Danish craft brewing announced itself as a counter-movement to Carlsberg and the other industrial giants, and the great bars still define themselves partly by what they refuse to pour. A board of six interchangeable lagers fails that test; a board that jumps from a Gamma IPA to a To Øl pilsner to a Belgian lambic passes it.
Planning your night
Copenhagen drinks late in the week. Thursday to Saturday evenings fill the small rooms fast, and a bar the size of Ølbaren has no queue system beyond patience. Arrive early in the evening, or come Sunday to Wednesday when the taps are the same and the seats are free.
Seasons change the map. Summer pushes the scene outdoors, and winter favours the snug cellar and corner rooms of Vesterbro and Nørrebro. In May the Mikkeller Beer Celebration brings more than 100 breweries and their followers to Øksnehallen for two days of four-hour sessions, so book that week like a restaurant week and expect tap takeovers across the city.
Most beer bars run on walk-ins, and reserving a stool would strike the locals as odd. The brewpubs with full kitchens, Warpigs and BRUS among them, are the venues worth checking ahead for a table, especially for weekend dinner slots when the barbecue trays start moving.
Transit is the easy part. The driverless metro runs around the clock, and the M3 loop, open since September 2019, links Enghave Plads, Rådhuspladsen and Nørrebros Runddel, which neatly bracket the three main beer districts. Order at the counter, accept the taster, and nobody blinks if you nurse a half pour of something strong.
Copenhagen built a world-famous beer scene largely without owning kettles, which tells you where the value sits: in the bars, the buying and the pouring. Spend your first night in Vesterbro, because Viktoriagade to Warpigs is the best short crawl in Scandinavia. Spend your second in Nørrebro, where Ølbaren has been quietly correcting people’s taste since 2001.
If you only get one stop, take Taphouse for range or Ølbaren for conviction. Skip anywhere pouring the same six lagers you can get at the airport; this city’s entire movement exists because somebody refused to.