Finnish: Prykmestar Nokkos-Pils. A very pils brewed with nettles. Very refreshing taste, though it needs to be properly chilled and consumed fast before staleness sets in. Available in oddly limited fashion (chanced on a duo of bottles in Arkadia’s flagship store).
Foreign: Judgment Day. The most complex beer of the month (the highlight of the Brewdog bottle tasting event), and one that I definitely aim to get more than sixth of a pint the next time.
FI: Ei todellakaan Tuomiopäivän voittanutta heinäkuussa.
The Finnish craft beer scene gets its biggest exposure on the multi-stop Suuret Oluet Pienet Panimot exhibition tour.
Spent a good chunk of the Thursday afternoon in the festival when it reached Helsinki.
Our three-strong entourage sampled a total of seventeen beers. Seventeen as a group, not per person. Even with 2dl pours, such a set of high voltage beers on a moderately warm day would have been interesting.
My best-in-show award goes to Radbrew’s Wasteland Oasis – a fresh and fruity hefeweizen that just worked wonders.
Suuret Oluet Pienet Panimot 2015
The whole list is obviously easily available on Untappd, but I’m appending it here as well for maximal accessibility:
Bryggeri’s Supernova, 2nd edition: not as good as the original (the hopping felt somehow off-kilter), but a good IPA nonetheless.
Maku’s Diana: of which I made no notes whatsoever, but do recall that it was another decent IPA without any remarkable features.
Närke Kulturbryggeri’s Anders Göranssons Bästa Rököl: probably the finest rauchbier not from Bamberg. Very dark, very smoky – impressively tasty, but I was happy that I took a short pull, this could have murdered tastebuds in larger quantities.
Nynäshamns Ångbryggeri’s Brännskär Brown Ale: another beer with no real notes, mostly bland in comparison to the preceding.
Bryggeri’s Spezial: another rauchbier, though one with a far more moderate taste than the swedish colleague’s. Missed out on this when it was on Bryggeri’s tap last year so it was nice to catch up.
Närke Kulturbryggeri’s Tallskott: sadly this had far less of a piney taste than the barkeep let on. FIrst “braggot” that I’ve tasted so far.
Maku’s Maalais-Tamminen: a bit bland, stronger oaking would have helped.
Hopping Brewsters’ Warthog IPA: unpleasantly one-dimensional, the hopping steamrolled any other flavours. They were temporarily out of “Double Warthog”, whose 200IBU would have been a leap into an even more extreme direction.
Hopping Brewsters’ Resistance: a soothing mild ale in the middle of hoppy beers was a welcome break.
Ruosniemi’s Diplomi-insinööri: takes the original Insinööri and improves on it with a stronger flavour (as double IPAs tend to do).
Ruosniemi’s Lomittaja: a good take on saison, pleasant but without any extra edge.
Ruosniemi’s Konttorirutto: a barley wine is out of season in the high summer, but I’m definitely looking forward to a second encounter when the autumn descends upon us.
Hiisi’s Kaksi Kotia: Granaattiomena: my first pomegranate beer, tasted genuine (not essency) and was non-bubbly as a bonus as well. Expected a tad more as a card-carrying member of the pomegranate fan club, but this could have been so easily so much worse.
Hiisi’s Jyväskylän Kesä: moderately bitter APA that didn’t leave a lasting impression (beyond one of liking the taste).
Radbrew’s Alone in the Dark: sweet stout also a bit out of season in the summer.
As the list proves, we didn’t reach the bars of a lot of the breweries (like Plevna or Lapin Voima), there was plenty to sample in the beginning of the circuit.
The experience was a pleasant one once again, though during a bout of heavy rain the crowding under the canopies was kind of excessive.
FI: Eipä pettänyt SOPP tänäkään vuonna, kokeiltavaa olisi ollut useammaksikin päiväksi, nyt tuli bongattua vain muutaman panimon antimia.
Snagged tickets to the first ever bottle tasting event organized by the local Brewdog entity.
There were twenty-ish people attending the event, and we fit quite nicely into a curtain-separated section of the bar.
There were altogether seven rounds of tasting, and pretty much all of the beers were from the darker side of the spectrum.
Double Scotch Ale
The kickstarter was Brewdog’s own Mixtape 8, a mixture of two rather separate genres stored in old whiskey barrels. The taste was predominantly fruity, and at close to 15% ABV a hefty start to the proceedings.
The second entry was the only one I had sampled before, Brewdog’s Black Jacques, which I had become acquainted with in last year’s tasting in Kitty O’Shea’s. The taste was the same, leaning heavily towards red wine. The official classification, “black saison”, felt a bit tacked on, since the grainy saison-ness wasn’t really noticeable.
The third bottle was Brewdog’s Abstrakt:14. This was my second Abstrakt, and I had high hopes for the experience (AB:16 had been an awesomely tasty beer). The strong weizenbock mixed flavors of hops and traditional wheaty elements (banana, too, for those scoring the game at home). Not as good as AB:16, but the best beer of the evening so far.
Old Viscosity from Port Brewing went even deeper in taste and colour. The imperial stout was a sturdy and mostly liquid exemplar of its genre. The roasty taste deepened as the glass warmed, presenting a sweet undertone. The first non-Brewdog beer grabbed a hold of the best-in-show prize, though it was rather heavily at odds at the still well-lit summer evening outside.
Mikkeller’s George! continued in the imperial stout-groove with an even sweeter, more spicy flavour. This was as close to a liquid chocolate-covered gingerbreadhouse I’ve tasted thus far. Another hefty beer that caused the audience to consume even more water (which was conveniently shuttled in at a very decent clip).
Thornbridge Hall’s Whiskey Barrel Aged Double Scotch Ale was a bit more light in color, but not much of a lighter taste. Though pleasantly enough this strong scotch ale had a single digits ABV for a change.
Judgment Day
The last beer of the tasting turned out to be the greatest. The Lost Abbey’s Judgment Day was the most complex and tasty of the evening’s portfolio. The classification of a belgian quad underplays the vast selection of elements in the taste, this is not an average beer by any means. While my initial impression was an awed one, the taste kept on evolving as the liquid warmed up. Definitely the best beer I’ve tasted in a long while, and one that I will definitely seek out again, probably when the bleakness of November descends on Helsinki.
All in all the event was well-organized, and I’ll certainly keep an eye out on followups. After all, for the reasonable price of 30€ we got to sample seven great beers. A minor negative on the dark overall tone that was at odds with the bright summer day, but a wider set of flavours might have turned tastebuds even more berserk than this portfolio did.
FI: Vallan maukkaita oluita, joskin yleistunnelma oli epäilyttävän epäkesäisen tumma. Ei Tuomiopäivän voittanutta.
One of the new arrivals of the Helsinki craft beer revolution is Il Birrificio, which, despite its italian name is a traditionalish gastropub, with a brewing facility on the side.
View from Il Birrificio
It had taken a while before the house beers were available, but there was two on tap. Their own Fyrkka wasn’t a bad APA by any means, but Ruosniemi’s Willi was a very appropriately fruity witbier on a nice summer day.
The beer list wasn’t extensively long, but there were quite a few intriguing entries on it.
Sadly, schdeduling pressures prevented further experimentation and after single glasses of beer and a meal we had to move on.
Food was decent, the beer selection deserves a second visit – too bad the service was lacklustre: I definitely expect more than “pick your own utensils and a water pitcher” at these prices.
FI: Yksi stadin uusista olutbaareista tarjoili oivaa olutta, maistuvaa ruokaa ja sangen puutteellista palvelua.
Arlanda Airport was again a disappointment export-wise. The tax free shop had no beer available for purchase. And on account of some drawn-out swedish monopoly exemption no travelleres departing to destinations within the EU are allowed to purchase any alcohol.
There seemed to be a decentish pub on the premises but that was quickly passed on the way to pick up massive quantities of soap from an unexpectedly present Bed, Bath & Beyond.
Calvin famously says: “verbing weirds language”. Hence using sommelier as a verb is no linguistic felony, but yet another link in proving that english is the most malleable of languages.
Blackboard menu in Speceriet
Anyway, Speceriet, a bistro-style outcrop of neighboring Gastrologik (whose 140+ € menu was downright scary) offered both great food and a very inspired list of domestic microbreweries’ products. The restaurant is smallish, and the long tables are shared. The food was uncomplicated and served plainly, but most dishes packed an extra twist (like pike perch wrapped in a homemade flatbread and spiked with anchovy).
As the menu shows, Speceriet is a place that offers a single wine per color and plenty of different beers. Had my first encounter with Sthlm Brewing, and was impressed by the wares – Hop Hound was on the edge of being inappropriately bitter for the food, but never crossed the threshold.
A very pleasant evening indeed, worth a second visit, as well.
FI: Mainio ravintola, jossa on yksi jokaisesta erivärisestä viinistä ja useampia paikallisia oluita.
The Swedish beer scene is commonly thought as a folköl-nightmare, a Pripps Blå-fuelled realm of mediocrity.
But like so many things in life, things are very much deceiving.
It’s true that the beer in stores is kept low in ABV, but the selection is wide nonetheless. The eight million inhabitants with quite large purchasing power do attract foreign breweries to experiment with lower voltage products.
But where the Swedish selection really shines is their take on the domestic alcohol monopoly. Systembolaget introduces more beers in good months than the finnish equivalent achieves in a year. And the choice is indeed massive – small breweries and small batches are well represented.
We spent a good half an hour in the swedish flagship store, the Systembolaget on Regeringsgatan. Where the “spoilt for choice” was not an exaggeration. It really took some time to fill up a shopping basket with a good cross-section of the wares. The image above is just a glimpse into the beer section, I was too awed and forgot to utilize the panorama-feature of the iPhone camera.
I had purchased five Jetbags from Amazon for safe transport in a suitcase, and a bagful of bubblewrap to take care of a couple of additional bottles. Ended up with eleven bottles and nine cans (whose survival in the hands of luggage handlers did not worry much).
Turns out the bags and wraps worked wonders, and the Norwegian handlers were gentle enough with the suitcases so that all of them arrived home safely.
FI: Ruotsissa kaikki on isompaa. Myös olutvalikoima. Kuplamuovin voimalla uskaltaa ruumaan meneviin laukkuihin punkea litrakaupalla pulloja.
Traditionally (meaning for the second year in a row) spent the first summer vacation day in the western reaches of the neighbourhood, in Fiskars and its neighbours.
Beer-wise the biggest attraction of the area is Rekolan Panimo. However, the as the craft breweries are not allowed to sell their wares that exceed 4.7% ABV, the most interesting beers in their portfolio are not available in the brewshop. And to add insult to injury, the lone bar in Fiskars, Laundry, is closed on Mondays.
Katajan Kuiske, their juniper-flavored rye beer is not uniformly available in the domestic monopoly stores. However, the store in Tammisaari was conveniently along the way to Fiskars. Picked up a triplet of Kuiske, and headed onwards to Fiskars.
Luomu IPA in Kuparipannu, Fiskars
We ate lunch in Kuparipannu, and were very pleasantly surprised by the unexpected availability of an unknown Rekola product. Luomu IPA worked well with the fish-heavy appetizers, but less so with the bland main courses. Compared to the other restaurant in Fiskars, Värdshuset, Kuparipannu gets seriously outshone. Luomu IPA didn’t leave a very deep impression, decent, but by no means the brewery’s flagship nor a good exemplar of the genre.
Checked whether the newly discovered Luomu IPA was available anywhere close, and scored a hit in the Karjaa Alko with a search. Sadly the product was sold out for the time being.
FI: Yhtä Rekolan olutta jahdattiin. Ja löytyikin. Toista päästiin maistamaan vahingossa. Kuparipannun ruoka nyt ei varsinaisesti vakuuttanut.
One more beer blog, that’s what the world needs, right?
This is a start of something new, something beautiful.
Or at least something therapeutic.
I won’t talk about every new beer that passes my lips, that’d be more trouble than it’s worth.
Welcome, and cheers.
FI: Olutblogeja on suomessakin jo monta. Tässä yksi lisää. Erottavana tekijänä ainakin pääasiallinen kirjoituskieli. Tervetuloa kyytiin. Älkää rikkoko paikkoja.
brewnardo 