Finland by the pint (er… half-liter)

Welcome back, everyone.  Sorry about the delay - I am traveling sans-laptop this time around and finding opportunities to blog has been difficult.  I am in Florence, an hour away from heading into the Italian countryside for some wine tasting (I am a traitor, but sometimes when the family sets the agenda, wine wins out).  I got here after an exciting two days and three nights in Helsinki, which were surprising on several fronts.

On Thursday, I dashed out of my last day of work at my consulting job, sorry to be missing the goodbye party for the couple dozen of us departing the company (we come and go on a cyclical calendar in consulting).  I was worried about the flight, since I’d had a massive ear and have now been deaf in my left ear for about a week (yes, I’ve been to the doctor).  An Advil PM seemed to fix the ache and I slept the whole way to London.  I was a little bit grateful for the deafness when I hopped on my connecting flight to Helsinki and found myself seated next to the three year old version of Jekyll and Hyde.  He was adorable when I sat down, with his teddy bear held in front of his belly, buckled into the seat belt too.  As soon as we took off though, he went on a rampage, shrieking, stand on his seat and waving his arms around smacking everyone he could reach (his mother and me), and throwing anything he could get his hands on (namely a yogurt-covered spoon, in my direction).  I was understandably relieved when we touched down and I could escape from his range of destruction.

It was evening when I reached the city center, and miraculously enough, on the bus in from the airport we passed the one of the four places on my list of Helsinki beer destinations.  Once I found Nick, we backtracked the bus route a few blocks and headed on in to Oluthoune Kaisla.  It was a relatively small place, a block off the main square, with 10 to 12 tables and mostly just beer and bar snacks.  Luckily for me, bar snacks in Helsinki include paninis, so I could get my dinner and my microbrew fix together.  They had about 20 beers on tap, three or four of which were Finnish, and the rest of which were primarily macrobrews (Guinness, Carlsberg, etc.).  While the taps list was unexciting, they had an impressive bottle list, 60+ choices long, with brews from Germany, Belgium, the UK, and the US, plus a few from Finland.  It was fun to see what from the US had made its way to this corner of the world, those being mostly the likely suspects (Sam Adams, Sierra Nevada, etc.) and the still somewhat-likely-but-slightly-less-so suspects (Brooklyn Brewing, Anchor Brewing, etc.).  Nick and I both started with the Finnish beers, hoping to get a feel for what they are like.  He ordered the Kukko Pils and I had the Olvi Sandels III.  If you’ve been to Finland before, you’re probably laughing or jeering at this point, because as we soon realized, there’s nothing craft about these beers, both of which were light macrolagers.  This was our first introduction to the Finnish brewing, and it was a kick in the gut.  Apparently, regulations here keep most beers under 4.7%, so that they can be sold in grocery stores, not just in the state owned ‘Alko’ shops.  Most of the Finnish brewed beer comes from a major brewer (Kukko, Lapin Kulta, etc.) and doesn’t push this boundary in ABV, nor the de facto boundary around light flavor profiles.  To top that off, beer in pubs often cost 6 EURO or more, the equivalent of US $9.00+.  Ouch.  To be a bit fairer though, beer wasn’t the only thing that was expensive in Helsinki, everything was, and I’d say it could meet or beat Tokyo in an expensive-for-Americans competition.

When it came time for the next round, Nick was willing to jump back into the fray, and ordered the Finnish Plevnan Smorre IPA on draft, while I opted for an Old Engine Oil from Harviestoun.  This time, the Finnish beer delivered with a solid IPA that had delicate floral hops, a woody flavor, and a deep reddish amber color.  Do we have comparable beers in the US?  Certainly - don’t fly to Finland for this one.  But, should you find yourself in Helsinki craving something other than a light lager, this is definitely a worthy trade-up.  I was pulled in by the Old Engine Old because I’ve seen their reserve line of Ola Dubh beers in the US, and have a pricey bottle of the Special 16 that I’m saving for a special occasion, but have never seen their standard old ale, the Old Engine Oil, before.  It was dark mahogany brown with red tones when held to the light and a chocolate-licorice aroma.  I can understand now why it might appeal in particular to a Finnish palate, since they seem to have a national obsession with black licorice.  It had gentle carbonation, and a taste that was closer to coffee than the chocolate that presented itself in the aroma.  It’s got a bitter bite, more from the roast than from the hops, that keeps it from even approaching being cloying, like many an old ale.

We alternated our beers with a Golden Cap Perry on draft.   Cider appears to be another Finnish favorite, alongside licorice and Marimekko designs that Americans will recognize from the rip-offs we’ve all purchased at IKEA.  Cider was available at every restaurant and bar we went to, and usually in at least as much diversity of choice as the beer or wine list.  We picked this one at random, mostly because I almost always prefer perry to apple cider, but I think we could have done better with another choice.  It was the palest yellow-green color, with an aroma that was its best attribute: full of ripe green unmistakable pear.  Its flavor was uneven though, starting lightly fruity, with a bit of honey, and then disintegrating into an aspartame-like fake sugar flavor.  Since looking it up online, I’m not surprised, considering that I’ve found that it is a light cider produced by Sinebrychoff, a Carlsberg brewery.

The next day, we toured around Suomenlinnan (the fortress island just off the coast) among other tourist destinations.  And when I say ‘other tourist destinations’, I mean three churches, the esplanade, and the farmers market.  Other than the museum of contemporary art (which we visited the next day), the parliament (which we walked by several times), and a few museums with descriptions like ‘contains many examples of 18^th century Finnish dinnerware’ (which we skipped), that’s it for attractions in Helsinki.  It’s not a great tourist city, especially given that it was about 50° F and rainy on our second day.  On Suomenlinnan, we walked the ramparts, toured some underground fortress tunnels, and snapped some pictures of the coastal islands before settling in for some microbrews in the sun (while it lasted).  The Suomenlinnan Panimo Sveaborgs Bryggeri is a brewpub on the island, just 30 ft from where the ferry drops off passengers.  They served about four house brews, all British styles, and a traditional Finnish buffet that we passed up in favor of pizza on the opposite side of the island.  Nick ordered the Spitfire Bitter, while I drank the Porter.  Nick’s was dark gold with a thin head, moderate hop bitterness, and little hop aroma.  There was little complexity coming from the malt or yeast, which made it a one-note beer, albeit a very drinkable one.  The porter had a lighter body than I expected, and a medium brown color with slight hints of red.  It lacked some of the depth of bitterness of an English or American porter, a blend of the hop and roast bittering agents, instead presenting an unhoppy roasted bitterness with a slight salty tang.  Both beers were unexceptional, but plenty serviceable for sitting in the sun, perusing a Finnish magazine and trying to guess what the articles were about.  After listening to us for several minutes, a woman further down the bench of our communal table said, “You want to know what this article is about?  [Pointing to the one we had been examining.] It is about how this woman is 60 years old but still wears a bikini.”  That’s when we realized Plus magazine was not exactly aimed at our demographic, Finnish-speaking or otherwise.

The following day, when it began raining and we had exhausted tourist activities of primary interest, we wandered about a bit aimlessly.  We talked about shopping, but mostly ended up window shopping since many of the items in the department stores and boutiques were out of our price range when taking the exchange rate into account.  We saw a variety of bars that billed themselves as ‘beer pubs’ and even boasted about their beer selection on placards out front.  But after popping into several of these, I concluded most of them meant that they had a broad range of international macrolagers for sale.

Though I tried hard to find a pub, restaurant, or store with sahti for sale, I never did find one.  I suspect it is something I may find more easily online from some kind of niche alcohol website, since it was elusive in Helsinki, and most Fins seemed to prefer cider to anything else.

On our final night, we scurried back to Nick’s apartment, dodging the raindrops coming in greater frequency than throughout the rest of the day.  We decided to stop in at his local pub, around the corner from his building, before calling it a night.  I am so glad we did because this was the best of any beer destination we had been to yet.  It is called Vasta Rannankiskii and has “olutravintola” (beer restaurant) printed on the windows more prominently than its actual name.  We were just looking for a pint, any pint, and a little shelter from the storm, but what we found was a very cozy neighborhood bar with nine very respectable beers on tap and about 70 selections from around the world in bottles.  The draft choices included Belhaven Twisted Thistle IPA, Weihenstephaner hefeweizen, and Fuller’s Honey Dew Organic.  The bottle choices ran the gamut from Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus, to Marston’s old Empire, to Nogne Imperial Brown.  The bar had a small counter and two parts, presumably one for smoking (I’ve never seen a country more enthusiastic about smoking, and that includes past trips to Japan, Germany, and the Czech Republic), though it wasn’t smoky at all.  The lights were dim and several of the tables offered windows onto the streets, which will still pretty light, despite the rain and cloud cover.  When I told the woman how much I liked her beer list, she just smiled, even though she spoke very good English, so I’m not sure what kind of reaction that was (Nonchalance? Humility? Reserve?).  I was disappointed that she didn’t want to talk more about the beers, but as I found over the weekend and as Nick confirmed, the Fins are not the most outwardly friendly people, as a general rule.  No one is rude or condescending, but not one goes out of their way to say any more than necessary, or to intervene before their help is required.  This was a big change from Japan, where enthusiastic and smiling strangers without any personal agendas offer help before you even realize you need it.  We nursed our beers (which I forgot to note) for a long time before heading home to settle in for the night (which fell around 10:30pm each evening I was there, and ended around 4:30am - this part of Finnish life I could definitely get used to).

In the end, Finland does not seem like much of a beer destination.  Indeed, it wasn’t chosen to be one, but simply because it seemed like a good place to visit while I have a friend living abroad there, since when else will I have the opportunity to go to Helsinki?  While good beer was few and far between in Japan, there was definitely an undercurrent of a movement there, with local brewers picking up the cause and the spirit.  In Helsinki, good beer bars are easier to find, in part because the town is so small and so eminently walkable, but the local brews are just about never the ones worth seeking out.  It might be years before they catch up - but I hope not.