Since I’m the designated know-it-all at my current job (ain’t that sad), and I’ve been unable to track this down at the homepage of the Norwegian Custom’s Dept. I leave this very important question in your hands 
When my colleague goes to Norway over Christmas, how much alcohol (beer, wine) are he and his wife allowed to bring with him without paying taxes on it?
Join the EU, both of you. 
Yeah, yeah… slowly but surely 
(the crappiest thing is that Norway has to be the only country where it’s actually cheaper to buy the booze in Iceland and bring it with you, than buying it over there)
Right!
Lets see if I remember this correctly:
you can bring with you 1 L of liquor, and 1 L of wine, and 2 L of beer.
If you drop the liquor, you can bring 1 L of wine extra.
If you drop the wine, you can bring 1 L of beer extra.
Ad nauseam…
I’m not Norwegian but I used to live there. Then (2006) the rules were 1 litre of spirits, 2 (750ml) bottles of wine. Not sure about beer or other stuff.
If he’s flying into Gardermoen Airport in Oslo and doesn’t want to bother carrying the booze with him and isn’t looking for anything particularly exotic, then there’s a reasonably well stocked duty free shop next to the baggage carousel before you go through customs. Lots of people save the hand luggage space and stock up on booze and cigs there.
Thank you both! I now can keep on being the Light of Knowledge at the office
But the problem, Elvis, isn’t that he can’t buy it in Norway. The problem is that our beloved Krona is worth absolutely jack shit at the moment, so it’s most likely cheaper to buy the booze in Iceland and bring it to Norway.
So far you’ve gotten the old rules. Here are the current limits off the custom service’s webpage:
In simplified terms:
two litres of beer
and
either
one bottle of vodka/brandy/whatnot and two bottles (0,75 cl) of wine
or
four bottles of wine (0,75 cl)
or
three litres of beer
Nifty! So he can bring even more beer.
Thank you all!
On a side note, since the customs laws have already gone out, I’d note that spirits are more expensive (relatively speaking) than beer. I.e. 2 litres of beer will set you out roughly 80-120,- NOK (11-16 with the currently strong ), while 1 litre of, say, a proper 12y Glenfidditch will set you out about 4-500,- NOK, or $55-65.
I don’t know the relative pricing for Iceland off the top of my head, but since the ISK has, er, found strength in numbers, I do think you’re better off finding a good bottle of spirits than wine, or beer.
If you want a personal tip, buy a bottle of akkevitt (Aquavit) - the tax-free price of a Lysholm Linie Aquavit is something like 130,- NOK in the Tax Free to something like 420,- NOK in the stores.
ETA: Actually, here’s a good table: http://arkiv.nettavisen.no/Nyhet/245205/Gjør+et+taxfree-kupp.html
It’s a year old, but the proportional cost is still about the same, going by experiences. (The price for a 10YO Talisker look especially nice.)
New ETA: Actually, there’s a nice site with Tax Free information here: www.dutyfree.no. I dunno if you can read Norwegian, but you can set the search parametres to Alkohol and Oslo Gardermoen (Ankomst). You’ll get a price listing of everything they sell in the Tax Free upon arriving. You can also do an advanced search, where you can specify product types, like Whisky, Rosé wines, etc.
Yup, I speak Norwegian and so does my colleague who’s going to Norway, so I’ll be sure to give him the heads-up on the duty free site.
There has to be SOMETHING that’s cheaper there than here, even if we’re paying close to 20 ISK / NOK.
ETA: Forgot to say thank you!