A smokin’ cold country

The Nordic countries are, as the name indicates, situated to the north of just about everything except the North Pole. Made slightly warmer than the latitude would justify by the presence of the Gulf Stream, these countries are populated by people who enjoy lots of daylight in summer, endure lots of darkness in winter, and imbibe lots of beer all year. The Nordics consist of five independent countries: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Iceland, which together measure about 1.32 million square kilometres (about three-quarters the size of Alaska) and are home to about 26 million people (about 35 times the population of Alaska). By far the least populated, most mysterious and furthest away of these is Iceland, a volcanic pile of rock situated so far out in the Atlantic that you can practically smell North America.

Growing up in Norway, we learnt a fair bit about Iceland in school, mainly because the country was settled by Norwegian Vikings who seemed to think that it was a great idea to abandon the relatively mild (!) climate in Norway and start a new life in conditions that even then would have pushed the boundaries of harshness. Naturally they brought their language with them, but because of the remoteness of the island the language evolved much slower than back in Norway, with the end result that to this day, Icelandic is essentially the Old Norse that was spoken by the Vikings more than 1000 years ago – vaguely familiar to modern Norwegians when written, but utterly unintelligible when spoken. Having learnt all this in elementary school back in the 1980s, I have always been fascinated by this place, but never had the chance to visit – that is, until a couple of weeks ago.

In the end, work sent me to Iceland, and the capital Reykjavik to be specific. Reykjavik is actually a fairly big city, housing around two thirds of the entire population of the country. It’s a pleasant place to stroll around unless you’re facing the icy wind, and it’s also full of nice pubs, bars and restaurants that serve up food and drinks of high quality with prices to match. Of course, my main interest once work had finished for the day was to explore the beer scene. On that note, Iceland has possibly the saddest history of all European countries when it comes to beer. After a failed experiment with prohibition of all alcoholic drinks in the early 1900s, wine and spirits were allowed back in the shops in the 1930s, but for some utterly unfathomable reason beer remained banned for another half century. No doubt they knew that the soon-to-be-famous beer blogger would turn 18 in 1990 and thereby start his quest to drink all the beer in the world, so Iceland decided to legalize beer a few months before, on March 1^st 1989 to be precise. Iceland has not looked back since, though they may have looked forward to my finally getting around to visiting.

As in almost all countries, a couple of big breweries have risen to become the suppliers of the industrial lager that most people drink – regular readers know what I’m talking about. Of course, since the total population of Iceland is only about a third of a million, there’s a limit to how big these breweries can actually get, and I did not expect a big selection of interesting beer. Imagine my unbridled delight then, when I discovered that there are surprisingly many microscopic breweries on this island, some of which brew very good beer indeed. The main craft brewer seems to be one called Einstök from Iceland’s second city Akureyri, and it was also this brewery that, in careful consideration of my visit, had sent a selection of their finest brews to the first restaurant I happened to stumble upon.

The beer was much better than this picture

I went about the tasting job methodically by ordering one of each. First up was “Icelandic White Ale” which proved to be surprisingly tart and fresh, much better than most continental European equivalents. It was an excellent aperitif beer which doubled nicely as a starter. Next up was Arctic Pale Ale, a pleasantly hoppy interpretation of this style which also had a firm malty body. It was an excellent second beer which also doubled beautifully as the main course. Finally, the highlight of the evening: Icelandic Toasted Porter. Unfortunately, I had not brought a tuba with me because this beer was so good it was worth at least one oompah session, maybe two. As the name hinted, the toasted barley was as much in evidence on the palate as on the label, and since it also avoided the normal porter-trap of being too sweet – in fact, it was delightfully dry – it was perhaps the best porter I have ever sampled. The only problem with it is that my wife also likes it, which means that the small selection I brought home for my fridge is in constant peril. It was an excellent dessert beer which also doubled exquisitely as the cheese plate, espresso, grappa and cigar.

The Toasted Porter.

Impressed and very satisfied, I left the restaurant to explore the city. There were definitely more bars than volcanoes, and loads of people out drinking even on a Monday. It looked like a fun place, but the real Iceland is elsewhere – and you don’t have to travel far to find it. Hop in a car or a tour bus and you’ll find somewhere that emits some kind of steam and/or reeks of sulphur within minutes. The whole place looks about to blow up, but in the meantime you can dive into various hot springs for a revitalising dip. Just make sure that you check the water temperature before you do, since some of them are more suitable for boiling eggs. You can also gawp at wonderful scenery, especially if the fog lifts to reveal it, and if it doesn’t you can always check out Google Street View to see what it would have looked like if you’d visited in whichever year the sun last paid a visit.

The scenery is quite impressive despite some low clouds

In conclusion, Iceland should be on the shortlist both for beery and non-beery reasons. It’s a fascinatingly remote and wild country, and the population speaks excellent Icelandic when they’re tired of showing off their flawless English. I only sampled a tiny portion of both the beer and the country, but I was very impressed. An added bonus is that you can fart as much as you like, because the hot water is not heated, but tapped straight from some sulphuric hell-hole that causes everything to stink anyway. So, go ahead and read up on a few of Snorri Sturluson’s old sagas to get in the proper mood, then book a flight, bring a weatherproof jacket and head off. As the Vikings used to say before cracking open a beer or a skull or whatever happened to be in the path of their axes: Skál!

Homebrew, sweet homebrew

As I have mentioned multiple times in this blog, there has been a large increase in the number of brewers in the world over the last 20 years or so. The increase has been fuelled by the so-called Craft Beer Revolution, which started in the USA when a handful of people got sick of the poor and bland selection of beers offered by a small number of massive breweries that had aggressively bought up most of the competition. The new breweries were often quite small, and thus called themselves microbreweries (oddly, the obvious intermediate stage “millibrewery” was simply skipped). It didn’t take long, however, for these microbreweries to grow quite big – former micros such as Sierra Nevada now output more than 100 million litres per year. This created the need for a new description of breweries that are genuinely small – so please welcome me in raising a nano-Olympic-pool-sized glass to the arrival of the nanobrewery, though apparently these are also getting bigger now so I guess it won’t take long before the first picobrewery is opened.

An old friend of mine, resident in the fine city of Drammen situated in the shockingly expensive (at least when beer is concerned) country of Norway recently decided that his house contained way too few breweries, namely zero. To remedy this very unfortunate situation, he invested in appropriate equipment as well as various types of malt, hops and yeast – and started his own nanobrewery. This, incidentally, is one of the few legal ways to avoid paying some of the world’s highest alcohol taxes – the taxman in Norway has yet to start invading private homes in order to collect about €0.50 per litre and also per alcohol percentage by volume that you have to pay in the shops, bars and restaurants (for example, also including 25% VAT on top, you pay about €2 only in taxes for a half litre of 5% beer). Anyway, my friend also happens to be the type of person who takes his hobbies seriously, so when he invited a select group around for a tasting session of his first 15 or so brews, I knew that this was the opportunity of a lifetime to taste some of the best beers ever brewed in that particular house. I immediately booked a flight, made sure to get a connection through Brussels, and sat down to twiddle my thumbs.

A few days later the plane left on time with a thirsty beer blogger on board. I stocked up on a Big Bottle of Belgian Beer in Brussels, which I thought could serve as a baseline for what the pros typically achieve, and flew onwards towards Oslo in a cute little jet (which should be called a jetlet, I think). The next day, I rang my friend’s jolly-sounding doorbell at the exact time specified in the invitation. Seldom have I been more excited about a beer drinking session. Another great thing about my friend is that he doesn’t waste time on small talk, so no words needed to be exchanged on meaningless topics such as the weather, which incidentally was very rainy and not at all like the winter weather used to be when I was young, back when we had to shovel through about a metre of snow just to get to the front door before even leaving the house, if we were LUCKY!

There were two beers on tap. The first one I tried was called “Flying Penguin IPA”, which was, unsurprisingly, an India Pale Ale – usually a beer that most brewers manage to not screw up completely. Full of beery anticipation, I put the glass to my mouth, tilted, and poured an exploratory amount into my mouth. I immediately knew that this could indeed be one of the finest beer tasting nights of the decade. The beer was actually a bit darker than pale, and thus had a firm, malty body – but best of all was the balance between the hops and malt. It was, simply put, very good.

A very good IPA from a very small brewery

As the evening progressed, we tried out the entire available selection, all bottled, named and labelled with great care: the aforementioned IPA, an American Pale Ale (“Thirsty Crow APA”), a Pils (“Pilsen Pils”), a Bitter (“Humpty Dumpty”), a traditional Christmas Beer (“Evil Santa”), a Stout (“Toxic Waste”), a Kölsch (“Drammen Kölsch”), a Belgian-style Abbey Ale (“Sacred Prayer”) and two Oktoberfest-style Märzen (“For Fulle Mugger” and “Vinterøl”). Every single beer was true to its type, and with the exception of the APA (which I suspect just needed a few weeks of maturation), they were all beautifully balanced and either very good or excellent – these beers would have been top notch even for a commercial brewery. Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, so I was probably quite sad to leave this splendid place, though my memory was getting a bit hazy by then since we also tried out both the Belgian beer and a bottle of Pilsner Urquell, purely for scientific comparison reasons you understand.

A truly outstanding example of a traditional Christmas beer

So, what have I learned? First and foremost: beer remains the finest drink on the planet, and the supply of this splendid drink keeps being expanded in ways that favour drinkers who value taste, quality and variety. Second, opportunities to taste a home-brewed range as splendid as this one are as rare as a hen with a single tooth, and it’s an honour and a privilege to have been allowed to participate in such an occasion. Third, home brewing isn’t for everyone – the amount of time and money you have to invest is rather large, and although the pleasure of drinking beer in Norway is undoubtedly enhanced by the knowledge that not a single krone goes to the taxman, it is not something you would do to actually save or make money. Fourth, if you do decide that home brewing is worth pursuing as a hobby, then it is possible to make excellent beer.

There is, interestingly, a trend for small groups of people (typically known as “friends”) to gather together their financial and temporal resources to invest. As quality keeps increasing, this could create an interesting situation where more and more people who would otherwise buy their beer in shops instead get all the beer they need for home consumption from their share in their own little brewery. Currently, this would only work if enough people were willing to take their turn at the wheel as it were, but it will be interesting to see how this evolves, especially in a country like Norway where the tax situation creates a real financial incentive. I shall stop speculating at this point, but should I ever move back to Norway, well, suffice to say that I may find a few kroner to invest. And on this note, I shall raise a glass of German Glühwein to all the home brewers of this world, since I’m heading out to the local Christmas Market. PROSCHT!