Bad luck. Had two bad beers from Finnish breweries during one evening session couple of weeks ago. Since I've become rather picky with beer that's nowadays so rare occasion that they both deserve to be introduced in this one Skitbit post.
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Brewery: Stadin Panimo
Country: Finland
Style: American Pale Ale
Abv: 5,6 %
@RateBeer
What about the beer?
Colour is clear golden orange with a 2-finger thick natural white head. Aroma has lemon, fruit candy and malts. Taste starts with strongly, piny and fruity bite. Salty bitter grapefruit takes over with spicy piny and sweet orange tones. Towards the end herbal pine and bittersweet citrus get mixed. Aftertaste has fruity bitter pine and strongly herbal, a bit harsh dryness.
Piny and harsh American Pale Ale. First mouthfuls are fruity and decent, but then we get more and more of pine and herbs. The freshness has died. Slight disappointment, though Stadin Panimo has had some variation in the quality of their brews.
Skitbit
The name of the beer, whale ale, makes one expect something huge. Well, it's tough enough to brew a huge American Pale Ale but when even the mediocre is too much, we'll have to pick some pompous but meaningless music to accompany the beer. Yes, there certainly is a lot of declaration in Ultra Bra's songs but mostly it's crap. Picked this one because in the lyrics old Helsinki, the capital of Finland and the home city of Stadin Panimo, is compared to Soviet Union - and I kinda like the comparison.
Ultra Bra: Helsinki (YouTube)
From the 1996 album Vapaaherran elämää, the song was written by Kerkko Koskinen and Anni Sinnemäki.
***
Brewery: Open Water Brewery
Country: Finland
Style: India Black Ale
Abv: 6,1 %
@RateBeer
What about the beer?
Colour is black with a huge fluffy tan head. Aroma has orange, pineapple and sweet liquorice. Taste begins with herbal bitter, muddy roast. Muddy roast and herbal piny bitterness take over with some grapefruity hints in the background. No spectacular changes towards the end. Aftertaste is very earthy, bitter and dry.
India Black Ale completely ruined. New brewery for me, some expectations, but in the end, breweries from Åland have yet a long way to impress my taste. After a couple of mouthfuls, the rest of the bottle found its way to the sewage system.
Skitbit
In the mainland, the people of Åland are sometimes compared to the beloved citizens of Finland's western neighbour, the "dumb" Swedes. Probably because Swedish is the official language of Åland and the culture of the archipelago is somewhat closer to Swedish culture than Finnish. Well, I find both the Ålanders and the Swedes a lot happier nation than the Finns, so probably there's some point in the comparison. Swedish music industry has been and is internationally more successful than Finnish - that probably goes with breweries, too. However, I've always disliked the music from the first superstar band from Scandinavia, so I picked a song that can be interpreted here as a cry for help from the Åland breweries.
ABBA: S.O.S. (YouTube)
From the 1975 album ABBA, the song was written by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Stig Anderson.
