Vinmonopolet - The insanity that is buying alcohol and its prices in Norway

The briefest possible guide on buying alcohol in Norway from bars and shops.

Ok so regular readers may already be away I'm big into my drink. Beer, wine, spirits I love it all for different reasons. Safe to say the drinking culture in Norway was one of my biggest culture shocks, which probably says more about me than Norway but still.

I will have to leave my opinions on Norwegian drinking culture and attitude to drinking till another time and instead here stick mainly to the facts! I will give Norwegian prices and English conversion which is pretty accurate and also a vague approximation of Euros, sorry but I dont know dollar conversion off the top of my head. You may have heard alcohol is expensive in Norway, well whoever told you this wasnt lying, it is, very! It varies loads of course and student places exist where deals can be found but as a general rule in a not too expensive place I would say 60-70NOK (£7 / €9/10) is pretty standard for a beer or glass of wine. This is the average stuff we are talking here too! Any drink of good quality in a nice bar or restaurant is going to be 100NOK+(£10/€13) and bottles of wine in such places will be knocking around 400NOK.

It all sounds pretty bad right? Well yer it takes some getting used to, especially when these expensive beers are typically just 400ml. English standard is a pint (568ml) and a half litre (500ml) is pretty standard all over Europe. One can sit around complaining every time they buy a drink but frankly it gets boring, you just need to get used to it and cant always be comparing international prices as any seasoned traveller will tell you exchange rates only tell half the story, generally Norweignas make notable more than many other countries and this goes some way to providing some balance.

Whats really mental though is buying drink from the shops for a number of reasons, every one of these was completely alien to me when I first moved over. I'll give you the key five rules you must remember:
1. All alcoholic drinks are sold per unit. For example if you buy a six pack of beer you pay for six individual beers. It is illegal to offer discount for mass purchase.
2. Supermarkets only sell drinks under a certain percentage (about 5 but im not certain). Basically this means just beer and cider.
3. Supermarkets stop selling alcohol after 8pm on weekdays, 6pm on Saturdays and if you can find anyone actually open on Sunday, they will not sell you alchol either.
4. All alcohol over the 5% mark can ONLY be bought from the state owned and run organisation called the Vinmonopolet (The wine monopoly).
5. The Vinmonoloplet is open till 6pm weekdays and just 3pm Saturdays.

The alcohol in shops while not nearly as expensive as the bars and restaurants is still very pricey. Average quality beer is 40/50NOK(£5/€7) and for bottles of spirits such as a litre of vodka your talking 400/500(£50/€70). Wine by comparison is very reasonable, most pretty good bottles brush around the 100NOK (£10/€14) area and boxes of wine containing the equivalent of 4 bottles can be got for around 350NOK (£35/€42) which is beginning to sound reasonable even by English standards. Of course being wine loads of much more expensive stuff is available but the stuff around the prices I've mentioned is good wine for the price I can assure you.

So yer, thats buying drink in Norway. Sounds like a massive pain in the arse doesnt it? It may or may not surprise you to here you get used to it pretty quickly. I often still get burnt, realising its 7pm on a Saturday and I have no beer to take to a mates house or something like that for example but this is more rare than you may expect. The main trick of course is to always have a good stock pile for emergencies and those last many party arrangements. Also choosing what you drink it important, Im a big lover of many spirits but given the prices the only spirits I drink now are those I get from duty free (£24 for two litres of export strength Bombay Saphire for example, winning!) 

Finally I will just say for anyone moving to Norway, forget exchange rates and just look at it objectively from the Norwegian price. If you buy two drinks in a bar and see 200NOK or more come up on the card moniter whatever you do dont think "shit thats £20/€26" or whatever, its not! Its 200NOK and that is all that matters. For those visiting Norway of course you have to think of the exchange rates as you are living off that countries pay check and all that but all I ask is you keep all the freaking out to yourself as much as possible. If we say that 50NOK for a drink is a great deal, then just believe us and accept it. We are doing the best we can and there is nothing we can do about it.

Epilogue: All these factors have some very interesting impacts on drinking culture in my opinoin and I will without doubt be doing another post on that subject in the not too distant future.