The blog personality Ölmönger heard a rumour that the beeroholic Ölmönger has a bunch of things going on. The blogger put his amateur journalist hat on and attacked the wanna-be hipster side personality with some questions. Get ready for the best interview ever.
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So, the word on the street says that you're starting to brew?
Hell yeah. Doing my share of beer culture and giving something back to the beer community. Getting older and wiser. Growing to be a better person. Going commercial as soon as possible. It's going to be huge.
Wait a minute. Commercial? How? You haven't done a single homebrew yet.
Well, sometimes you have to triple jump before you learn to crawl. Even monkeys can be tought to brew, so since I don't own a monkey and don't care for child labour, I'm teaching myself. The washing machine turns nicely into a mash tun, the words aren't so different, see: wash - mash. And I've got enough kettles for boiling, ya know. And somehow the tumble dryer will turn into a fermenter. At least there's some organic stuff already there. From my socks and the lady's panties. Some natural bacteria and yeast for great Belgians like Leffe. Awesome, right?
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| Time and temperature is everything. |
Right. Very... interesting. Do you think that there's room for a fifth commercial brewery in Pori?
Pori? You're thinking that I'd compete in the same league with Beer Hunter's and Ruosniemi. Hell no. I'm catching some bigger fish, not even peeing in that direction. The aim is much higher than to settle to the destiny a low quality microbrewer. The brews will be great - experimental, ideally having the flavour and complexity of delicious lagers, say, Bud Light, Koff Lite or Carlsberg. There's surely an open market for these kind of brews among the beer fanatics and experts. The yearly festival will boost the success of the brewery.
Festival? I thought you were against the festivals.
No, I'm not. Where does the media get these false accusations? But still, this would be completely different kind of festival. Better. Not many breweries, just one - mine. Not any special rare available-only-here barrel-aged sour watermelon octopus-arm milk stouts, just pale lagers or only one great. The program, that would be the killer.
All right. What would the program be like then?
Good question. You're getting there. Right. It would be all about discussion on beer. Well, not actually on beer itself but at least two topics attached to it. Ok?
First would be beer culture. I know, I know. There's already been a lot of discussion around it. But the focus wouldn't be so clear, coherent and well-defined it has recently been. We would step out from the meaningfulness of the ongoing discussion. Just chit-chat pointlessly around the topic like the word wouldn't mean a shit. Defining the term completely wrong. Creating a concept out of blah. Talking about Finnish beer culture in separation from beer's status in Finnish culture. Comparing our beer culture to other countries' beer cultures and judging it good or bad. Looking at the beer culture only with the eyes of a beer enthusiast or beer journalist. Basically, grabbing onto the nonsense that isn't present in the ordinary discussion about the topic. Just for fun - beer culture first. Beer culture. First.
Second would be another usual topic. Alcohol politics in Finland. Instead of taking the aspect of the common discussion where people fluently combine the pros and cons of liberal and conservative views onto the subject, analyze them and make sensible arguments, the rationality of that kind of debate would be abandoned. People would be forced to two completely separate camps. The pro-liberal/contra-conservative side would take the selfish point of view: whine how bad the monopoly is or how the beer costs too much, claim that it should be everyone's own business how they consume beer and show worry about how it makes living difficult when beer isn't delivered straight to your fridge and when beer is not made to look like the most important thing in an individual's life. The pro-conservative/contra-liberal side would only moan about the unproved problems and health issues that the wider availability or lower taxation would cause, forget completely about people's ability to think for themselves and shut up about the alcohol tourism from Finland to the Baltic countries. That kind of "he's right who shouts loudest" opinion battle between idiots and nitwits would be refreshing compared to the intelligent discussion we're having right now. It would be pointless and idiotic like election debates are and Finnish rap battle would be but man, it would be entertaining and tickets would be quickly sold out. Never mind the bollocks, here's the beer debate.
Whatcha think? Can you make it? It'll probably be on 29-31 February next year. It will be huge.
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| Today's cheers! |
Gee, haven't made plans that far yet. Any news on the blog?
Not much to tell, actually. The breweries are clearly competing, who'll get their sample brews to the blog next, as usual. You wouldn't believe how nasty and competitive Belgian monks can be towards each other. Had to put Tree House on hold for a while, probably will tell them soon that as a heterosexual I'm not that keen on brews named Julius. It's pretty annoying when there are more than six shipments from different breweries at the same time at the front door. Of course, it's still hard to handle all the money breweries and distributors are paying for the stories. Makes one think about leaving the day job, you know? But I can't do that, can I? Otherwise it's pretty clear that the blog's story will stop after Ölbeat 250. Ok?
Anything you would like to say to the blog readers?
No.
Please? [shows a 24-pack of Karhu III]
Damn. All right. Happy April Fool's day to everyone. Don't eat too much herring and drink too much Omnipollo's Yellow Belly today.
Thanks for the interview.
Don't give a shit. Get the f**k outta here. Now.
Ölbeat
Really? Well, that's only what you think.
The Who: Won't Get Fooled Again (YouTube)
From the 1971 album Who's Next, the song was written by Pete Townshend.
