About

...the blog

Ölmönger is a non-sense word and literally means nothing. However öl means beer in Swedish which is the other official language of Finland. In Norwegian and Danish the same word is written øl. The other part mönger is a Scandinavian word play of monger, which has a traditional definition of 'a person who is involved with something in a contemptible way' (like in warmonger) and an urban definition of 'one who frequents prostitutes; short for whoremonger'. One way or another, there we have it:

the definition of ölmönger:
'one who is frequently involved with quality beer and wants other people to be, too'.
Clever bastard, eh? Not.

The idea of Ölmönger blog is ölbeat. It could be the name of any completely unskilled band, which dares to cover any songs by Volbeat, the great Denmark-based rockabilly metal band. Obviously playing under the influence. Or the nickname of the actual band playing after 20 beers per band member. But it ain't.  

Ölbeat is my attempt to match the mood of a tasty beer with the mood given by a good song. Probably trying under the influence.

"Why don't you just rate the damn beer?" 

1. In Finland alone here are many beer experts who do it better. 
2. I don't like to rate beer. You can do it at RateBeer, which even I use when searching for a perfect beer.
3. I only mostly match at least good beer with good songs. What's bad or mediocre by my own standards doesn't usually end up here. It wouldn't be nice to name a crappy tune to match something that tastes like shit, would it? Well, it surely wouldn't. But from October 2016 one monday per month is dedicated to Skitbit: shit beer and a matching awful song. Just for some contrast. (Added on 4 October, 2016)   

...the writer

Ölmönger is written by an occasional craftbeer enthusiast from Pori, Finland. It's important to mention that I'm not an actual "Porian" since you can't grow to be one - you have to be born as one. You'll know after you've married one and lived here for a while. One word of advice, though: don't.

However Pori has one good thing - actually two: microbreweries Beer Hunter's (Facebook, Ratebeer) and Ruosniemen Panimo (homepage in English, Ratebeer). Though neither of these breweries had much effect on me turning from Finnish bulk lager drinker to craftbeer hedonist they have given their contribution to the rise of Finnish microbreweries in 2010's.

At the same time I have first learned to choose a beer from the grocery store (max abv 4,7 %): the more bitter the ale, the better. Next I found stronger beer and a little more variety from Alko. Until the end of summer 2015 I was swimming in quite still and boring waters. First in August I got to know the real Finnish breweries in Pub Winston Microbrewery Beer Fest in Pori. Then in October OlutExpo in Helsinki blew up my mind with quality brews around the world. After that my scenery of beer started to expand. And that's where I decided to start this.

...the inspirators

There are couple of Finnish beer blogs which I consider to have inspired me to start my own:

JaskanKaljat, a blog by a craftbeer expert Jaakko "Jaska" Matikainen from Joensuu in Eastern Finland. Being an actively updated blog with thorough posts and ratings it's the main influence behind the birth of this blog. Jaska seems to take stuff to be tasted and rated without prejudice: you'll probably find many of the best beers ever as well as many of the worst beers ever on the blog. He also keeps the community well informed about what's happening in the scene.

Musamiehen oluet, a blog by a friend of good beer and music from Kuopio. To be frank, the idea of my blog was copied from him. Very nice brews, quality pics, informative posts, excellent ratings and fine tunes - definitely a blog worth following.

So I if you want to read much better beer reviews than mine: learn Finnish and click the links above.

To be continued...