Ölbeat 074: Malmgård Belge

Brewery: Malmgård
Country: Finland
Style: Belgian Strong Ale
Abv: 8,5 %
@RateBeer

What about the beer?

Colour is dark copper orange with a small diminishing white head. Aroma has sour, yeasty, spicy and sugary elements. Taste begins sour, sweet and hoppy. Spicy sour banana and funky yeast flavours dominate firmly after the start. Towards the end sweet bitterness, dry citrus flavours and a bite of alcohol get through. Aftertaste is dry with a bittersweet twist.

Delicious and versatile experience. Multiflavoured and complex beer: every sip seems to bring a new level or an another layer to the taste. There's sweet, sour, fruit, bitter and dry separately and mixed in different ways. Lovely Belgian-aleish piece of Finnish brewing skill.

Ölbeat

Finnish breweries making anything else than sahti or tasteless lager can be out of their traditional territory, but anyone not Belgian brewing this kind of beer is surely out of his comfort zone. Like Wild Cherry was when recording this song and like the white boy in the song is. Result can still be excellent:

Wild Cherry: Play That Funky Music (YouTube)

From the 1976 album Wild Cherry, the song was written by Rob Parissi.

Ölbeat 073: Oppigårds Amarillo

Brewery: Oppigårds Bryggeri
Country: Sweden
Style: American Pale Ale
Abv: 5,9 %
@RateBeer

What about the beer?

Colour is golden orange with a medium-sized vanishing white head. Aroma gives fresh grass, mild orange and some hoppy-bitter flavours. Taste starts with gentle bite of semi-sweet hops and malts. Strongly Amarillo-orange-flavoured, softly malty and slightly bitter trio takes over. Towards the end sour and tart lemon-grapefruit gets on top with some sidekick hop and pine. Aftertaste has grapefruit bitterness and piny dryness.

Following its name, the beer in an ode to Amarillo hops - the orange is wild and deep. The experience starts very fresh and delicate but gets angry and bitter in the end. Magnificent American Pale Ale.

Ölbeat

A great Swedish beer matches nicely with a song by a great Swedish band. While you're all expecting something from ABBA, let's make it clear to the fans, that it's very unprobable to find Dancing Queen or Mamma Mia on this blog. Instead you'll have to settle for this rocking classic from the 80's:

Europe: Rock the Night (YouTube)

From the 1986 album The Final Countdown (originally from the soundtrack of 1985 film On the Loose), the song was written by Joey Tempest.

Ölbeat 072: Ruosniemen Pikkupomo

Brewery: Ruosniemen Panimo
Country: Finland
Style: Amber Ale
Abv: 6 %
@RateBeer

What about the beer?

Colour is amber brown with an overwhelming bubbly creamy white head. Aroma has hay, malts and sweet fruits resembling pear and grapes. Taste begins with slightly biting bitter and malty flavours. Combination of light citrus bitterness and bready malts leads the way. Near the finish we get a tight lemon and pine punch. Aftertaste has strong bitter grapefruit and malty dryness.

Tasty and refreshing brew from this Pori-based brewery: no need to travel for a good bottle of amber ale. Simple and easily drinkable combination of malty, bitter and citrus flavours does the trick for me - special effects aren't usually necessary.

Ölbeat

The Finnish word 'pikkupomo' usually means a person, who acts like a little boss at work without the status of a superior. What comes to the song choice I just couldn't pass the boss ('pomo') part in the name, so I chose a balanced and calm track from the Boss:

Bruce Springsteen: I'm On Fire (YouTube)

From the 1984 album Born in the U.S.A., the song was written by Bruce Springsteen.

Ölbeat 071: Hiisi Iku-Turso

Brewery: Panimo Hiisi
Country: Finland
Style: Imperial Stout
Abv: 9,0 %
@RateBeer

What about the beer?

Colour is black with a small vanishing natural white head. Aroma has thick slices of coffee, hops and some fresh grass. Taste starts with fresh and biting hoppy roasted coffee. Roasted malts take over with some coffee, chocolate and some kind of berry flavour. Towards the end hops and bitterness strike back nicely. Aftertaste is bitter, roasted and dry.

Excellent Imp which has a stiff malty body that keeps the taste palette together. Rich flavours of roasted malts and bitter hops dominate with coffee and chocolate kicking on the side. Strong and excellent brew.

Ölbeat

Don't know what the flan the guys at the brewery were thinking about when recommending Jean Sibelius' Symphony No. 7 with this one. Of course it works - Sibelius always does - but the raw nature of the brew calls for something else than joy of life and vitality. In this case, the reason for the music choice is linked to the companion and the discussion of the tasting moment. Without forgetting the difference between the feared monster of ancient legend in Kalevala and the sad but true monstrosities of modern day politics. 

Ludicrous: Delta Male Supremacy

From the 2016 album The Stoic Ideal, the song was written by Janne Leskinen and Joni Borodavkin.

Ölbeat 070: Ballast Point Victory At Sea

Brewery: Ballast Point Brewing Company
Country: United States
Style: Imperial Porter
Abv: 10 % 
@RateBeer

What about the beer?

Colour is dark brown to black with a small diminishing tan head. Aroma has quality black coffee, milk chocolate, brown sugar and some alcohol. Taste begins with a roasty hoppy coffeeish bite. Rich coffee, espresso and dark bitter chocolate take over with the flavours growing and expanding till the end. Some berries, raisins and vanilla are tasted, too. Aftertaste has bitter cocoa and some alcohol.

There are surprisingly many delicious layers of flavours in the taste: coffee with and without sugar turning to espresso and back. Aroma gives sweet milk chocolate but the taste is more like bitter dark cocoa powder. Just amazing Imperial Porter.

Ölbeat

Delicious and complex dark brew needs a complex and legendary song with the same shade. The greatness is shared, the theme isn't: although the beer is almost black it's affection was quite opposite to the song. I may later regret for reserving this track but then again it's not forbidden to link a great song to more than one beer, it?

The Rolling Stones: Paint It Black (YouTube)

From the 1966 album Aftermath (US version), the song was written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

Ölmönger Special: Pub Winstonin Pienpanimo-olutjuhla, Pori, 12-13 August 2016

So they organized a beer festival in da hood. Pub Winstonin Pienpanimo-olutjuhla, translated in English like Microbrewery Beer Festival @ Pub Winston a.k.a the Festival, was organized the 4th time on 12-13 August 2016 in Pori. Because the Festival came to my courtyard instead of things going the other way around as usual, I was obliged to visit. Spending both days there wasn't necessary, but doing only what you have to is boring, isn't it?

Seamchip card looks like this and will work next year

The setting was like this:

• Around 15 Finnish microbreweries were present with couple of beer importers and a small whisky booth. Guess there was something to eat available but once again, I wasn't there for the food. The complete beer lists were available in Facebook and Olutopas forum couple of days before the event.
• You could pay only with a Seamchip card, which cost 2 € and could be loaded with hop cones worth 1 € each. Prices were 3-4 € per 2 dl dose or 6-7 € per a bottle (0,33-0,35 l). The card was made easy to use with special reader stands and there were no problems at all with paying. 
• There was no actual entrance fee to the area and you could go out and get back in as many times as you wanted.
• You didn't have to carry your glass around the area but were given a new small pint with each dose or bottle you bought.
• The weather was sunny but windy on Friday and at first rainy and then warm and sunny on Saturday, so there wasn't particularly crowded before 9 p.m. on neither day.

Shortly put, the setting was damn excellent for tasting some good beer.

First ones of Friday...

My top picks from Friday were:

• Fat Lizard Sweet Mary 390 - Biting double IPA with strong bitterness and tasty fresh grapefruit. 
• Hiisi / Ruosniemi / Maistila BIPL Thumpr - Collab India pale lager with Brettanomyces yeast had sour lemon at first and then tasty bitter grapefruit.
• Maistila Moood - Damn good milk stout with tasty dark chocolate, cocoa and coffee as the dominant flavours.
• Pôhjala Must Kuld Kenyan Coffee - Already excellent porter enhanced with delicious strong coffee, roasted malts having their word in the game, too.
• Pyynikin Barley Wine - Named by the brewer as Young Girlie, this one had sweet malts, nice bitter berriness and a promise to taste even better later in fall.
• Ruosniemen Vuorineuvos Tullibardine Single Malt - Barrel-aged version had the roasted coffee and chocolate flavours of the original imperial stout and then a thin layer of Highland taste on top.

On Saturday, the sun showed up a bit late

On Saturday, these were the most tasty ones:

• Beer Hunter's Mufloni Barley Wine - Heavily bitter first bite followed by tasty fruit, toffee and strong malt flavours. 
• Fat Lizard Arctic Fuel - Fruity and light bitter IPA with orange aroma and juicy grapefruit flavour.
• Hiisi / Ruosniemi Konttorirutto #3 - Sour Nelson and Mosaic hopped saison with moderate sourness and rich fruity-yeasty flavours.
• Pôhjala Virmalised GF - Tasty IPA enhanced with fresh grapefruit, luring mango aroma and fruity bitterness.
• Pyynikin Imperial Stout - Very tasty and massive brew with strong roast, coffee and bitter flavours perfectly in their place.
• Ruosniemen Lomittaja -  Simply delicious saison with citrus sourness and sharp-tasting yeast.

The tasting board picked Pôhjala Must Kuld Kenyan Coffee as #1, Pyynikin Black IPA as #2 and Maistila Moood as #3 beers of the festival after blindtasting. Taking nothing away from these three, I would've liked to see one non-black and unroasted beer among the best three. The audience voted Pyynikin Black IPA as #1 and Hiisi/Ruosniemi/Maistila BIPL Thumpr as #2 beers of the festival. Both Kenyan Coffee and BIPL Thumpr were sold out after Friday, so I was lucky to have tasted them pretty early. 

Head brewer Tuomas Pere telling that Pyynikin Käsityöläispanimo goes America.

There can be exceptions...

While sipping on Saturday, I also was honoured to meet and discuss with couple of beer tickers. Shortly defined, ticker means "a person that compulsively tastes new beers or checks them off his (endless) list". Some tickers rate every beer they've had and even re-rate already ticked beers. Compulsive or not, I think of ticker-raters with more than 5 000 ticks at Ratebeer as creatures, who should be worshipped and offered virgins as sacrifice. Why so? Simply put: there wouldn't be any place for lazy people like me to go and check, whether a beer should be great, good, mediocre, drinkable or crap without them.

Despite their god-resembling status these two ticker legends seemed to be laid-back people with some great stories to tell about their quests while hunting pints. They ought to be much better objects of worshipping than gods, since they probably prefer a nice pint of barrel-aged barley wine over a human sacrifice. So, if you're having god and beer ticker as your career alternatives, choose wisely and become a ticker. No one would be crucified, drowned or torched alive because of your hobbies, at least.

...but seriously - not! Get in the sea among the other know-it-all beer people!

Ölbeat

For some reason or another, my friend for Saturday had "Party in Pori" in his bucket list. It was his decision to end the night in a place with a dance floor. So, finally we ended up in a club with the middle age at middle age and a DJ playing 90's Eurodance classics. It was this song that turned the guy into a poor man's Travolta.

Haddaway: What Is Love (Youtube)

From the 1993 album The Album, the song was written by Junior Torello and Dee Dee Halligan.

Ölbeat 069: Bryggeri Helsinki Sofia

Brewery: Bryggeri Helsinki 
Country: Finland
Style: Imperial Stout
Abv: 9 %
@RateBeer

What about the beer?
Colour is pitch black with a nice beige head. Aroma has roasted malts, black coffee and a liquorice-like salty-sweet scent. Taste starts rough: thick burned-roasted malts with strong espresso. Roasted malts dominate the taste, soon bitter dark chocolate and hoppy bitterness get aboard. Towards the end bitterness comes clearly through with some alcohol. Aftertaste is strongly bitter-dry and slightly roasty alcoholic.

Sofia is an overwhelming package with heavy flavour after another. Really charred malts and espresso in start, fine roasted malts in the middle and powerful hoppy alcoholic bitterness in the end. It's strongly recommended to savour this slowly and have a magnificent experience.

Ölbeat

To find the musical-lyrical match for a rough, powerful and personally enjoyably brew, I had to pick a piece from a personal favourite. This Finnish metal band impressed me first time almost 20 years ago and other bands in the scene have felt like partial ingenuine copies:

Timo Rautiainen & Trio Niskalaukaus: Nyt on mies! (YouTube)*

From the 2001 EP Kuilun partaalla, the song was written by Timo Rautiainen.
*Yes. In the video, the tiny guy playing with pulley and relatively small weights during the first chorus is Jari "Bull" Mentula.  

Ölbeat 068: Top Fuel Lab Genious Porter

Brewery: Top Fuel Beer Company
Country: Finland
Style: Porter
Abv: 7,4 %
@RateBeer

What about the beer?

Colour is black with an overwhelming foam-bubbly beige head. Aroma has roasted malts, mild coffee and chocolate scent with a grassy note. Taste has a dry bitter and roasty first bite. Roasted to charred malts with bitter-sour flavours dominate. Towards the finish some salty sour espresso and dark chocolate join the palette, and there's a hoppy bite at the back of the mouth. Aftertaste has dry bitterness and roasted caramel malts.

Fine porter with surprising elements of India Black Aleish bitter and saisonish sour. The flavours actually support the leading taste of roasted malts. It's great to have a tasty porter with less coffee and chocolate flavours than usual. If porters are allowed to be slap-in-the-face fresh, this is it.

Ölbeat

Raw, honest and straight-forward 1980's Finnish rock classic, OK? By the way, that was a rhetorical question - it's more than OK:

Peer Günt: Backseat (YouTube)

From the 1986 album Backseat, the song was written by band members Timo Nikki, Teijo Erkinharju and Teijo Kettula.