The day Tuborg release their festive beer brew is a day of mass partying through the night in cities and towns across Denmark…

J-Dag isn’t, like D-Day, an event of historical importance… though it does celebrate an arrival and campaign. It’s the day Tuborg release their annual Julebryg festive beer. Tuborg started the Julebryg tradition in 1981, after a successful Christmas advert the year before, but the festival has its origins in the 1970s, when Beaujolais nouveau wine was driven north from France.

Using beer delivery trucks as an alternative (and, in Copenhagen, horse and carts), in 1990 Tuborg began their first alternative celebration, fixing, in 2010, the start time at 20:59 on the first Friday of November. Blue Christmas hats are distributed, parties take over the streets of rural towns, and the sound of the J-Dag song (sung to the tune of Jingle Bells) rings round. The beer isn’t to everyone’s taste, but with a national celebration of such proportions, it’s not hard to see why the festival was moved to a Friday, rather than Wednesday, night…

This article is a Fika Online exclusive.