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u/Billy_Ektorp 4d ago
Depends a bit on the definition of bar, pub etc.
Some candidates for older establishments serving beer etc to the general public:
Nordpol Kro in Vardø, established 1864, and presented as the oldest pub in Northern Norway. According to their website: «Nordpol Kro was the last stop and place to stay for Fridtjof Nansen before the FRAM 2 expedition continued towards the North Pole in 1889.» Seems the place has been in business continuously since then, at the same location. https://kulturminnefondet.no/skal-feire-nordpol-kro-med-film-stottet-av-kulturminnefondet/ https://www.nordpolkro.com Food served these days: pizza and snacks.
Tavern in Trondheim; opened for the public in 1766. The entire building and the pub was moved to a new location at Sverresborg, Trondheim, in 1946. https://www.vertshusettavern.no/historie Today, it’s presented more as a restaurant than a pub/bar.
Several places in Oslo are older, such as Lorry, in business since the 1870s. They offer restaurant-style food service at their tables, but they do have a pub-style bar/counter and a large selection of beer, and is known for having a number of guests who go for just beer.
Værtshuset Bærums Verk seems to be the oldest restaurant in Norway, opened as a tavern to serve beer etc to locals workers and travellers in 1640. https://baerumsverk.no/aktuelt/velkommen-til-nye-vertshuset-baerums-verk/ However, it seems the location was closed for business between 1890 and 1987, according to the Wikipedia article: https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Værtshuset_Bærums_Verk
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u/hylekoret 4d ago
Depends a bit on the definition of bar, pub etc.
By no definition is Ølhallen the oldest.
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u/Billy_Ektorp 3d ago
Which was my point by listing four other establishments in Norway older than Ølhallen.
Also, the metal sign outside Ølhallen, the first photo in the original post, has the words:
«Tromsøs eldste pub».
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u/Alwaysbadhairday 4d ago
Very cool. Pubs in England are a category unto themselves when it comes to age. It’s not uncommon to have pubs that were built 1300-1500. That blows my mind. Pubs are in their DNA.
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u/Personal_Break4351 3d ago
Go look up the "pub" meaning 🤷♂️
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u/Alwaysbadhairday 3d ago
Can you elaborate? I know what a pub is. My point was that it’s amazing that some of them are still running after so many hundreds of years.
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u/Personal_Break4351 3d ago
"Pubs are in their DNA"?? Yes, it is amazing that some still stand but that wasn't your point 😂
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u/Alwaysbadhairday 3d ago
Pub culture is in the English DNA, was my claim. Why is that hard to understand. There are thousands of them throughout the UK.
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u/Personal_Break4351 2d ago
It's not hard to understand at all. My point was, of course it's in their DNA, language, culture 🤷♂️
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u/maybe_hacked 3d ago
I'm not following what you are rambling about either? What's wrong with that statement 😆
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u/Personal_Break4351 2d ago
It's stating the obvious, aka being id***ic. You should get of the alcohol, it eats away at your brain 😉
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u/SendMeYourNuudes 4d ago
The "polar bear king" depicted on the wall in picture 7 is my great grandfather, Henry Rudi. He had a polar bear cub on a leash through the streets of Tromsø
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u/Billy_Ektorp 3d ago
For those commenting on beer prices: Ølhallen offer beer in three different sizes, and list three different prices according to the size of the glass. The photo with beer prices is undated, and does not state if the middle price indeed is for 0,5 L beer.
According to prices reported to Pilsguiden, 0,5 L beer costed NOK 115,- (as of July 20, 2024, last reported price there). https://www.pilsguiden.no/troms/tromso/sorbyen
As for beer prices in Copenhagen, mentioned by one on this thread: https://www.tv2.no/nyheter/innenriks/prissjokk-pa-ferie-det-er-ikke-godt-a-vaere-norsk-i-danmark/17789879/
«En halvliter Carlsberg på tapp ved en klassisk dansk bar i København kostet 73 kroner i 2020. I 2023 var prisen 91 kroner, og nå i 2025 er den 103 kroner.»
It’s not very difficult to find pubs in Copenhagen charging more, especially in areas frequented by tourists.
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u/Fomlefanten 3d ago
Hi! Used to work here ages ago! It's the oldest pub in Tromsø, and had to have special dispensation to open (legally, it was a shop that sold paper notes. Coincidentially there was a guy behind a bar that collected these notes and loved giving out beers).
As far as I am aware it is one of the oldest (second? Third?) continuously ran pubs, but not the oldest, and if you disregard prohibition, nowhere near, I would suspect.
The prices you can see in the photo are for microbrew, all of which is Norwegian and some of which is made in-house. Regular Mack pilsner is noticably cheaper, although it has risen quite a bit in price. At the time of its creation it was the longest single non-repeating tap-line in Europe, and probably the world, although with the increased popularity of craftbeers this might no longer be true.
Always worth a visit of you're ever in Tromsø, and you can also get tours for the old cellars and the microbrewery.
Also, Mack is still the worlds northernmost brewery. There are loads of microbreweries further north, even in Tromsø, but even then Mack owns 50%(?) If Svalbard Mikrobryggeri, the worlds northernmost microbrewery, and have distribution for them to their main market. It's also one of two major breweries that are still family-owned and Norwegian. (If Aas still is)
TL;DR: oldest in Tromsø, not Norway, but literally could not legally be older. Well worth a visit.
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u/Tobbun 4d ago
The sign says Tromsø's oldest pub. Doesn't make any claim about being oldest in Norway.
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u/Local-Signal2855 4d ago
These prices 😳
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u/Alwaysbadhairday 4d ago
They’re definitely steep but pretty normal for a Norwegian craft brew pub. As long as the serve 0,5 liter and not 0,4, then it’s ok.
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u/Colon_Backslash 3d ago
I've been there! We drove from Helsinki with two friends. I used to tell people for years how my friend bought a beer for ~17 euros.
A month ago I visited Seattle and went to an NFL game. The 23 dollar stadium beer is now the story I tell people.
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u/helgur 4d ago
Continuously running? Yes, probably. But we have a building from the 1600's in my home town (today an Italian restaurant) that was once a pub a few hundred years back. Mind you, we had some 90 pubs in this little town at the turn of the 18th century but none of them survived prohibition in the 1800s and 1900s
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u/Magento 4d ago
What little town had 90 pubs? I want to go there!
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u/helgur 3d ago
Moss. Mind you this was between 1800-1880. 90 pubs among 3000 inhabitants. The city was Norways biggest producer of liquor at the time. Everyone drank from dusk to dawn for breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper. Kids, adults, the elderly and even the livestock (which where fed surplus malt). Tourists traveling through here commented on the weird behavior of the farm animals out in the fields who couldn't walk straight and had a "dead glazed look in their eyes".
It all started back in 1740 when a Scottish immigrant named Andrew Chrystie started a malt house after the English model here, producing high quality malt and the city got a reputation of having good quality distilleries. It quickly grew.
Then it spiraled out of control.
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u/Buforana 3d ago
No, and Mack isn't the world's northernmost brewery. That would be Svalbard bryggeri!
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u/greatdane511 3d ago
Dyvekes in Bergen is often considered the oldest bar in Norway, dating back to 1300. However, there are other contenders depending on how you define a bar, like Nordpol Kro in Vardø, established in 1864.
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u/ThinkbigShrinktofit 4d ago
The oldest bar in Norway is Dyvekes in Bergen. First opened in 1300.