Ölbeat 157: Humalove/Wasosz Puola/Polska

Brewery: Humalove / Browar Wasosz
Country: Poland (Finland)
Style: Foreign Stout
Abv: 8,5 %
@RateBeer

What about the beer?

Colour is thick black with no visible head. Aroma has black coffee, liquorice, berries and alcohol. Taste begins with strongly roasted black coffee. Charred  bitter malts and strong dark-roasted coffee take over with a hint of sour berries. Near the finish dry bitterness and liquor warmth joins the flavours. Aftertaste has roasted dryness and lasting malty bitterness.

Delicious Strong Stout with solid base with spicy surprises. Heavy roasted coffee, lingonberries and liquor flavour fit the taste palette nicely. Successful collaboration between Finnish "gypsies" and a Polish brewery.

Ölbeat

This is pure irony. The day before this brew was like: "It's your last cup of sorrow. / What can you say? Finish it today." And today: "With a new face you might surprise yourself." Some dark depth in the song that actually encourages people to get over their demons.

Faith No More: Last Cup of Sorrow (YouTube)

From the 1997 album Album of the Year, the song was written by Billy Gould and Mike Patton.

Skitbit Dec 2016: Tanker Külmale Maale and Sori Brewing Dark Humor Club Hot Chocolate

Exceptionally, I didn't have or at least I didn't make notes of any mentionably bad Finnish beers from the end of November until now. So instead, expectably, I picked a couple of Estonian brews that might be nice from someone's point of view but from mine weren't. First is from the sadly-not-lost archives of October, and second is from the beginning of December.

***

Brewery: Tanker
Country: Estonia
Style: Imperial Stout
Abv: 8,5 %
@RateBeer

What about the beer?

Colour is black with a finger-thick beige head. Aroma has strong fresh mint with some malts and dark chocolate. Taste begins with a medicine-like strong mint or even menthol bite. Mint-covered slightly roasted malts take over. Sweet fresh mint even covers the bitterness near the finish. Aftertaste has mint all over with some medicine-like cleaned freshness.

So I got the Yellow Belly effect: just Kahlua replaced with mint liquor. No, no, no! People should keep herbs out of the kettle. This isn't beer, this is cough syrup. Didn't work at all.

Ölbeat

Spice, even in a beer, can be nice. When it's there in tolerable amount. When you get run over with an army of mint leaves, it's not. When it reminds you of a short but yucky youth experience with mint flavoured liquor, you get some other pretty annoying things picked from your youth memories. Like this so-called song.

Spice Girls: Spice Up Your Life (YouTube)

From the 1997 album Spiceworld, the song was written by Spice Girls, Matt Rowe and Richard Stannard.

***

Brewery: Sori Brewing
Country: Estonia
Style: Imperial Stout
Abv: 10,2 %
@RateBeer

What about the beer?

Colour is black with a tiny beige crown. Aroma has roasted malts, dark chocolate and espresso. Taste starts with roasted boozy bitterness. Bitter strong espresso with faint dark chocolate hints takes over. Towards the end growing bitterness with alcohol dryness drowns the other flavours. Aftertaste has bitter dark chocolate and dry roast.

Aroma promises something a lot better than the taste delivers. Boozy bitter domination until the end is too much. The chocolate flavours don't come out as expected. After all, this is named Hot Chocolate. Or is that some kind of dark humor, too?

Ölbeat

The name of the brewery comes from a quarter in Tampere city centre, where e.g. the city police station is situated, and not so much from the Finnish diminutive of anteeksi (sorry). So it's probably polite to respect the city where the Sori guys Pyry and Heikki learned the basics of brewing. And what could be better way to show respect than a song about the singer's and his friends adventures with other Tampere ice hockey club, by a Tampere-based oldie rock band. It's dark humor, at least. Sori, everyone.

Popeda: Mää ja Tapparan mies (YouTube)

From the 1992 album Svoboda, the song was written by Alex Harvey, Hugh McKenna and David Batchelor (Tomahawk Kid) - the Finnish lyrics were written by Juice Leskinen.

Ölmönger Special: 1st Anniversary

One year ago, on the 18th of December 2015, I posted the first Ölbeat about Mikkeller Black Hole. Since then there have been some other Ölbeats, a couple of interviews and festival reports, one brewery visit and some miscellaneous stuff. Won't go into details or picking too many highlights now, since one year is a relatively short period for making a long list of the achievements. There won't be any summary on the year, either, because I prefer you reading all the previous posts. Only that way you'll be able to get the big picture on my blog and understand how messed up the writer must be.

Picking the candle for the birthday cake...

But if you insist on getting some recommended readings so far, I'll give you a couple:

• Interview with Brouwerij de Molen with the following Ölbeat posts
  Since this was the first "something different" thing of the blog and the series was fun to make.
• Buxton Rain Shadow
  So far the only Ölbeat to be written during and finished right after sipping the bottle. Unbelievably delicious beer and a couple of great songs to match. Had this again couple of days ago and was still blown away.
• Visit at the Fat Lizard brewery
  Meeting the guys in action was actually much more interesting than writing the story but as the first brewery visit it was something special.
• Interview with The Flying Dutchman with the preceding Ölbeat posts
  The project started out with having fun in Twitter - and has been great fun all the way after that. Meeting Ronald in person and chatting about beer, people and life while having a couple of pints was really joyful and interesting. The story is far from over.

More important than what has been in the blog during its short existence is the question: "What will the future bring?" Well, it will be more or less the same it has already been. I think there is no point in asking

What would You, Dear Reader, like to read about on the blog?

since the vast majority would answer "The announcement on quitting". Most of the leftovers would be like "Kill this sh*t. Just f**king kill it. No questions asked." Someone would probably say "Try to be less mean towards the beer fanatics/raters/tickers/bloggers/events etc. And consider retiring the blog, of course." 

The only thing I'm sure about is that none of these wishes will be granted. The blog is far from it's last post. And I'm far from being able to accept the presuppositions about the right way to think about beer. There will be for sure one post or more about the common dictation and misuse of concepts like 'beer culture', 'beer community' and 'craftbeer movement' and some different, stupid and allegedly humoristic points of view on the phenomena around beer, to mention a few ideas. Hopefully, there will also be some brewery visits and interviews. And some still unexpected crap, too.

Ölbeat

Since this anniversary post is mostly crap, so must the music be. Of course, this song would be just perfect soundtrack for beer festivals, alone and played in a loop, while the beer geeks in their tables would be confused: "I think I already had this one. Or did I? Or is it something else... No, I must have had this. By the way, this one's a great song." Besides the festivals, the song also matches with the moment you get the first taste of Yellow Belly or Goliat - and love it.  

DJ BoBo: There Is a Party (YouTube)

From the 1994 album There Is a Party, the song was written by René Baumann and Axel Breitung.

Ölbeat 156: Left Hand Fade to Black Vol. 1: Foreign Stout

Brewery: Left Hand Brewing Company
Country: United States
Style: Foreign Stout
Abv: 8,5 %
@RateBeer

What about the beer?

Colour is black with a small diminishing beige head. Aroma has burned wood, gentle campfire smoke and dark-roasted coffee. Taste spikes with smoke and charcoal at first. Heavily smoked and roasted malts take over with some liquorice sweetness and espresso in the background. Towards the end charred malts and bitter liquorice step in front. Aftertaste has lasting charcoal bitterness, roasted dryness and salty liquorice.

Powerful and exceptional Foreign/Imperial Stout. Smoke gives this one the edge, and liquorice smoothens it with roundness. The basics - intense roast and late strong bitterness - are present in full flavour. Superb brew.

People's Choice

This brew and song were nicely suggested to be paired in the blog when I asked for wishes in Twitter some time ago. Back then I didn't think that I would have the chance to get the beer in my hands. Surprisingly in November the chance turned up and am I glad it did. Thanks for the recommendation, Suvi - this was just perfect.

Sonata Arctica: Fade to Black (YouTube)

From the 2003 EP Takatalvi, the song was written by people who are mentioned below.

Ölbeat

Since I know that Suvi doesn't mind pairing the brew with the original version, let's put it here, too. Despite Sonata Arctica's different but recognizable cover I prefer the original, which was listened numerous times in the 90's when the young Ölmönger found heavy metal. Very dark classic.

Metallica: Fade to Black (YouTube)

From the 1984 album Ride the Lightning, the song was written by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Cliff Burton and Kirk Hammett.

Ölbeat 155: Victory Golden Monkey

Brewery: Victory Brewing Company
Country: United States
Style: Abbey Tripel
Abv: 9,5 %
@RateBeer

What about the beer?

Colour is light orange with a small white head. Aroma has funky sour apple, white wine like spicy aroma and some yeast - very luring scent. Taste lifts off with hoppy yeasty fruits. Delicious sweet-sour lemon-banana flavoured, fruity spicy yeasty and smoothly tickling bitter liquid fills the mouth. Yeasty sweet bitterness rises on top towards the end. Aftertaste has nice fruity bitterness and alcohol warmth.

Perfect complex Tripel. It doesn't get better than this even if it's actually Belgian. Delicious fruity, yeasty and bitter flavours which are possible only when the malt base is right. The coriander fits this brew beautifully. Excellent stuff.

Ölbeat

A modern spicy, yeasty and fruity classic set me to search something light and classic pop. The name of the brew led me to The Monkees who got just the right song to match the magically beautiful Belgian-style beer.

The Monkees: Daydream Believer (YouTube)

From the 1968 album The Birds, The Bees & The Monkees, the song was written by John Stewart.