Explore the Rich History and Cultural Legacy of Tempel Spirits

Tempel Spirits has been making spirits since 2020, but was actually founded back in 2013, then as a brewery.

Lets do the full story.

Tempel was founded on the basis of making bold and experimental beers, mainly sour beers. We got the chance to live that dream thanks to the (then) freshly started Jackdaw Brewery in Uppsala, Sweden. Since they did their production mainly in the evenings and weekends to make it possible with day jobs, it was a good match. With shared equipment and limited capital on both sides of the cooperation, we took off and made our respective beers. We put most sales energy on the pub/restaurant market and on exports. Things worked our pretty smoothly, but after a few years Tempel needed a place to grow and found the place on a farm on the outskirts of Uppsala. The move there went hand in hand with an investment in brewing equipment and other vital infrastructure. The first pair of hired hands entered the story right here as well, head brewer Johan that has had a huge impact on the products onward.

The following handful of years was intensive and rewarding, Tempel grew fast in an environment where seemingly everyone was interested in this new fresh thing called Craft Beer. Tempel grew in reputation, production, number of employees and most other figures as well. And then came corona and hit us like a bag of lead bricks. Sales to restaurants pubs and exports was eradicated more or less over night, leaving us (and many, many colleagues), leaving us with little in the way of income. Besides from craft soda, lots and lots of releases at Systembolaget, folköl Tempel also started dabbling in distilling. At that time, it was mostly gin and other white spirits and that became a part of our standard products. Somewhere at this point, someone cracked the idea of distilling malts, and we did.

Long story short, the corona years was extremely tough and dark (near black at times) but we made it out on the other side. Bruised and battered but standing. When the world finally was declared healthy enough to open up, we had a few magical weeks before we had a war breaking out on the doorsteps of Europe. All human suffering and families torn apart aside, that affected price and availability on malt, aluminum, transport and other key commodities. The costs of running a brewery skyrocketed. At the same time, the humans of Sweden had been hunkering down at home for several years and had lost much of the tradition of meeting up for beers at pubs and restaurants which was our most important place for beer enthusiasts to find our beers.

All in all, the future seemed bleak. With no real light at the horizon, we took the decision to shut down the brewing operation. That was probably the hardest decision I have made in my life, being the founder. I have poured my life into this creation for a decade. The founder of another brewery in Sweden once said to me “I love my kids, but I love my brewery”. I wouldn’t go that far, but you get the point. Right around this time, the family had grown with a couple of kids and we started sketching on a move down south in Sweden, mainly to be closer to our families. And in the fall of 2024 that became reality and our new home city is Helsingborg. That meant a hard reboot on Tempel as well. At the time, we were well known in the mid part of Sweden, including Stockholm, but nearly unknown in other parts of the country.

Finding a new place for the distillery seemed easy at a glance but proved a bit more difficult than I thought, and Tempel was still homeless and packed down 6 months after the move. Finally a place appeared in an old factory that was founded in the late 1800s. The renovations and permits circus took both more time, more money, more sweat and was way more complicated that estimated. But in late fall of 2025 everything was in place and the first few test distillations was made. The laws of alcohol selling in Sweden are strict, to say the least, and basically all sales to consumers must go through the state owned monopoly. After decades of lobbying, the laws were changed during the summer of 2025 and on site-sales were allowed, heavily regulated of course. So in late november of 2025 Tempel opened the doors for the public to see, tour, talk, taste, purchase bottles, pat the barrels, buff the stainless steel and stumble on the flooring for the first time.

And the rest is history. And most likely, you (who read through all this) will be a part of the future of Tempel. Onwards!