Industrialization in Norway in the mid-19th century would not have been possible without what today can be referred to as enabling technologies. Enabling technologies are technologies that prove to be so significant that they have major political, social and economic consequences. They also provide the basis for the development of other technologies. Historical examples are the railway and steam engines, and from around the 1860s new science-based technologies such as microbiology, chemistry and electricity came. The new enabling technologies also influenced the brewing industry and the era is considered the modern breakthrough for Norwegian beer production. From the 1860s and up to 1900, a number of technological and scientific innovations were introduced that influenced the quality of beer to become more durable and standardized, for example pasteurization, developments in microbiology and mechanical refrigeration machines. The new science-based industry provided opportunities to mass-produce products that could be sold all over the world. 

New infrastructure and communication enabled faster distribution of goods to customers, both domestically and internationally. Steamships and railways are examples of enabling technologies that opened up export to markets that had not previously been within reach. Beer was a sought-after commodity in many countries and breweries in Norway were well placed for export business since the nation had a large merchant fleet with contacts all over the world. Breweries could send product samples of beer on regular ships to various ports to test the market. The captains of the ships were willing to do this since they knew that they could later be commissioned to transport the export goods. In the period 1860-1900, Norwegian beer was exported to all parts of the world. At that time, breweries in Norway had an advantage over breweries in warmer countries, since Norway had abundant access to natural ice. It was used both for cooling in beer production and to keep the beer cold over long transport stages.

In the 1860s, there were still some unresolved problems related to the mass production of beer. The science of pasteurization and cleaning yeast had not yet been established. An important factor in the industrial mass production and export of beer was that the beer had to meet certain standards and that it had to be recognisable; that is, the beer always tasted the same. Based on Louis Pasteur's yeast research, Emil Chr. Hansen at the Carlsberg laboratory found that the yeast they used could contain a kind of "wild yeast" which could make the beer sour, and which led to great variation in the taste between different brews of the same type of beer. In 1885, Hansen developed a new method for purifying the yeast, so that this factor became constant. This made it possible to mass produce a standardized beer.

The export business was established in parallel with what we refer to as the modern breakthrough for Norwegian beer production. Abroad, we see that the export of beer made up a significant part of, among other things, the German, English and Dutch brewery market. For the Norwegian breweries, export became part of the premise for an active investment in establishing and expanding the market. This doctoral work will therefore provide more knowledge about the enabling technologies that helped both to establish the export industry and to develop a new and standardized brewing production.