Portal:Beer/Selected brewery/9
Ringnes is the largest brewer in Norway. It was founded in 1876 by brothers Amund and Ellef Ringnes (Amund was the brewer, Ellef the administrator and salesman) and financial director Axel Heiberg. The company's brewery in the Grünerløkka district of Oslo produced its first beer in 1877.
The company sponsored the polar expeditions of Fridtjof Nansen and Otto Sverdrup. During his exploration of the high Canadian Arctic in 1900, Sverdrup named three large islands after his sponsors (Axel Heiberg Island, Amund Ringnes Island, and Ellef Ringnes Island). The Geiberg Islands (Гейберга Острова) in the Russian Arctic were named after Axel Heiberg and "Ostrov Ringnes", Остров Рингнес, the largest island of the Mona group in the Kara Sea, has been named after this Norwegian brewery. (Full article...)