EBG Rating: 7.5/10

Choice/Quality of Drinks:
❤️❤️
The drinks are unspectacular and have much room for improvement, with the local Wiibroue (long since taken over by Carlsberg) is the only even minor note of interest. Typical back bar with Danish brown liquor options.

Style/Décor:
❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
Determinedly pubby space. A large collection of Steinkrugs, mainly the decorative kind fills the shelves of the front window and the back window looking out to the patio. There’s a billiards table around which are simple tables with a pleasantly twee setup of candles and chequered tablecloths.

Note a smoke room to the left of the entrance, still in use. A jukebox and games machines by a small bar the other side of a partitioning wall, with larger seating in the bar room itself – a little pokey but quite characterful still.

Atmosphere/Character:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
Characterful interior and pretty garden. Your experience may vary depending on the timing of your visit from dinner times to late evenings, but it feels like an actual pub not a diner.

Amenities/Events:
❤️❤️❤️❤️
A roster of activities that keep people coming through the door at different times of day.
The food of course, courtyard seating, then live music in the evenings, and billiards tournaments and late night opening on weekends.

Value For Money:
❤️❤️❤️
Typical for a pub of this sort in a city of this sort, not outrageous and certainly not cheap either.

Description:
The frequency of the Øresundslinjen Ferry across the Sound provides a connection between Helsingør and Helsingbord, Denmark and Sweden that despite the lack of land crossing actually feels more umbilical than the Øresund bridge between Copenhagen and Malmö. The two countries interchange and interact in a way that feels every day, while still retaining their essential differences. One of these is undoubtedly pubs.

While Helsingborg is around three times the size, it can barely muster 4 pubs and bars of any variety worth going to. Pub culture has long been an issue in Sweden due to the temperance movement annihilating pubs in the late 19th and early 20th century. It has never truly recovered, partly due to a legal requirement that all venues serving alcohol also serve warm food. By contrast, on the Danish side they preserved their old fashioned pubs partly through a quirk where wineries were allowed to sell tastings to the public. The French, Spanish and Italians, horrified by losing the Scandinavian market to moral puritans flooded the Danish market, creating pubs still known today as the Bodega, a Spanish word.

In these bodegas, boozing and smoking persists unabated, offering a glimpse of working class culture and a side of Denmark not marketed to the rest of Europe.

Yes, pub culture is alive in Denmark, even in a medium sized town like Helsingør. This town is Elsinore from Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a pretty place with the famous castle built on a promontory. The duty free booze on the ferry, a pretty old town and a handsome selection of attractions ensures tourism and a sense of vibrancy to the place.

We arrived on a pleasant Spring day in gleaming sunshine, the ferry gliding serenely across the sound. After the obligatory castle visit it was time for a pub and lunch.

The Copenhagener is more an all-rounder than an out and out boozer. Pub grub (plenty of fried fish), and pretty garden terrace pulls in diners, but don’t think for a second it has turned gastro.

As you enter, you’ll be met with a determinedly pubby space. A large collection of Steinkrugs, mainly the decorative kind fills the shelves of the front window and the back window looking out to the patio. There’s a billiards table around which are simple tables with a pleasantly twee setup of candles and chequered tablecloths.

Note a smoke room to the left of the entrance, still in use. A jukebox and games machines by a small bar the other side of a partitioning wall, with larger seating in the bar room itself – a little pokey but quite characterful still.

The pub dates from 1861 which they claim is among the oldest in the town.

However, it is kept relevant by a roster of activities that keep people coming through the door at different times of day.

The food of course, then live music in the evenings, and billiards tournaments and late night opening on weekends keep a social scene to the place that keeps it feeling distinctly pubby above restaurant-diner. It also means that your experience may vary depending on the timing of your visit.

The drinks are unspectacular and have much room for improvement, with the local Wiibroue (long since taken over by Carlsberg) is the only even minor note of interest.

(Added May 2026)