Saku Kuld

There are many things I am going to miss, or missing already, about Finland. Finnish beer is not one of them.

At its very best, Finnish beer — any Finnish beer that I tasted, that is — is nondescript. At its usual, it’s best replaced by something else. I don’t know what the secret is.

Now that I am safely back to Canaries, I can offer my totally unsolicited tips for responsible beer drinking in Finland. Here:

• If you have enough Polish (Czech, German, Dutch etc.) beer in your fridge, stick to it.
• If you don’t have enough Polish beer, start with Finnish beer and polish it off with Polish, not the other way round: the pain of disappointment will be unbeerable. Save your Asahi and Leffe for the very end. Unless you’ve got something worse, never finish with Finnish.
• If all you have is Finnish beer, take it olut of the fridge and put it into the freezer for an hour, then take it with you to the well-heated sauna. The contrast of temperatures could make it just about drinkable, or, if you happen to “supercool” it, spoonable.
• If the only bear you have is Karhu, it’s time to leave your lair and do some basic shopping. That probably means there is no proper food left in the fridge either.

Saying that, I’ve managed to discover an excellent beer in Finland. It comes from Estonia’s Saku Brewery. It is slightly cloudy and has a great fresh taste thanks to, I just learned, Nordic oat malt. In the Alko shop, a bottle of Saku Kuld costs €2.89 (€5.58 per litre is cheap in Finland). Enjoy!

More photos of beer @ Shutterstock.