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.