Ölbeat 312: Cool Head Copacabana

Brewery: Cool Head Brew
Country: Finland
Style: Specialty Grain
Abv: 7 %
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What about the beer?

Colour is hazy dark orange with a large natural white head. Aroma has lemon, grapefruit, resin and pine. Taste starts with piny bitter grapefruit. Sharp pine and bitter grapefruit take over with slightly sweet malty flavour in the background. Towards the end pine beats the citrus, sweet orange sticks out a little. Aftertaste has sharp resiny dryness and citrus bitterness.

Heavily piny and resiny Rye IPA. Some citrus and malts in the flavour, too. Not superfresh, not too exciting, but strong and tasty. In some nice way slaps the drinker in the face with bitterness.

Ölbeat

Since one of the brewers is Cleber from Brazil and since the brew offered a fruity face-slapping session, it's self-evident that I chose Brazilian music that slaps - and hits and kicks and bites - in the face. No fruit, tho: it's the Cavalera brothers and the rest of Sepultura!

Sepultura: Arise (YouTube)

From the 1991 album Arise, the song was written by Sepultura.

Ölbeat 172: Mallaskosken Black Imperial Rye

Brewery: Mallaskosken Panimo
Country: Finland
Style: Specialty Grain
Abv: 11,4 %
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What about the beer?

Colour is black with a small cream white head. Aroma has berries, dark fruits and sweet malts. Taste begins with thick and sweet caramel malts. Sweet caramel malts and rich dark fruits with slight bitterness and bite of alcohol take over. Towards the end deep fruity and warming alcohol flavours get on top. Aftertaste has malty fruits, sweet bitterness and alcohol warmth.

Strong and rich-flavoured dark Rye Wine. Thick malty liquid is filled with taste of fruits and caramel, which makes a complex and rich beer. Superb brew from Seinäjoki.

Ölbeat

Beautifully rich dark beer needs to be accompanied with a melodic dark-toned music. Well, band fronted by guitar wizard Timo Tolkki and high pitch vocalist Timo Kotipelto seem to have just right song for the occasion.

Stratovarius: Black Diamond (YouTube)

From the 1997 album Visions, the song was written by Timo Tolkki and Timo Kotipelto.

Ölbeat 115: Brewdog Albino Squid Assassin

Brewery: BrewDog
Country: Scotland
Style: Specialty Grain
Abv: 7,4 %
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What about the beer?

Colour is murky amber brown with a small vanishing white head. Aroma has pineapple, citrus and rye-bready malts. Taste starts with hoppy and fruity sweet bitterness. Bitter grapefruit with tender malty and sweet pineapple flavours takes over. Sweet fruit comes more in front later, and near the finish smooth piny dryness gets through. Aftertaste has citrus, malts, pine and alcoholic bitterness.

Quite complex Rye IPA with moderate-to-heavy bitterness, sweet fruits and steady rye malts. Ending adds some piny dryness and alcohol warmth. This is tasty as hell, and it surely would have been a murder (or a lesser crime) to leave this on the shelf.

Ölbeat

What comes to mind from a multi-tentacled octopus hitman? What comes to mind from a heavy brew with bloody damn tasty flavours? Right. And I select the original version of the song.

Adamski & Seal: Killer (YouTube)

From the 1990 album Doctor Adamski's Musical Pharmacy, the song was written by Adamski and Seal.

Ölbeat 021: Lammin Sahti Ruisrääkkä

Brewery: Lammin Sahti
Country: Finland
Style: Specialty Grain
Abv: 7 %
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The corn crake got into the bottle

Lammin Sahti, founded in 1985, is a microbrewery in Lammi village, which is a part of Hämeenlinna city in Southern Finland. The brewery is one of the most known sahti breweries in Finland, but they brew also beer and cider. Sahti is a traditional Finnish non-filtered beer, which is brewed using more malts than when brewing regular beer and spiced usually with juniper berries, hops or both. The result is a sweet banana-like flavoured drink, that can't be stored for long.

This beer was part of Alko's Finnish microbrewery craftbeer selection in spring 2016.

What about the beer?
Colour is hazy dark brown with tiny tan-beige head. Aroma gives scents of sweet malts, rye bread and Finnish malt beer. Taste has medium-sweet grainy malts and a hoppy first pinch on tongue. Flavour grows into very distinctive rye taste: there's a strong breadiness present. Palate gives some gentle hops and notes of cherries and some sweet berries. Aftertaste has maltiness and warming alcohol.

Now we have a beer, that pays respect to the rye malt. Strong malty flavours with nice and smooth sidetrips to bitter hops and sweet berries. Unique and enjoyable brew, I must say.

Ölbeat

The strong presence of rye and the bready taste basically forced me to choose this forgotten treasure. One sure earworm, but you have been warned - and watch the video:

Laid Back: Bakerman (YouTube)

Released in 1989 and from the 1990 album, Hole in the Sky, the song was written by the Danish Laid Back duo Guldberg - Stahl and songwriter Arthur Stander. It's a slow synthpop tune which features guest vocals by Hanne Boel. Lyrics are unharmful nonsense, consisting mostly of phrases: "Bakerman is baking bread / Sagabona kunjani wena (Swahili: Hello, how are you?) / The night train is coming / Got to keep on running". Video for the song was directed by Lars von Trier in one take and features the song personnel freefalling in the sky singing and playing instruments. I really can't tell why Ruisrääkkä made me think of this song but it just happened. Sorry, guys.