Karhu III

This is a Finnish bulk lager, but propably the best at its league. By league, I mean companion of Finnish top lager brands: Olvi, Karjala, Lapin Kulta, Koff and nowadays maybe also Kukko. Most people know these beer brands in Finland and every beer drinker sure as hell knows them. Finnish beer culture is mainly a light/golden lager -drinking culture and that's the kind of beer you get, if you go to ordinary Finnish pub, bar or restaurant. There are of course special bars and pubs for beer enthusiasts, but mainly Finnish people drink Finnish lager (and cider and vodka or some other type of hard liquor) and that's what they serve. It was nice to see the rise of Finnish beer culture when I was younger, as it went down and under in the early 1900s when prohibition law was going on from 1919 to 1932. After that Finnish alcohol monopoly Alko was the only shop (and which also regulated other alcohol sales in restaurants and so on) to buy alcohol from, until 1969, when beer class III (beer alcohol level max 4,7% vol) was allowed to be sold in groceries. Finnish beer culture started to emerge in the 1990s after long era of Alko regulations, when magazines writing about beer and also beer restaurants started to emerge. It is still though the situation even today, that protectionist Alko supports Finnish "mild alcohol" beers over international ones, which contain more than 4,7% vol alcohol. Only Alko is allowed to sell those stronger beers, and that causes them to be very poorly available. They are also very expensive, because Finnish taxation system uses alcohol level as a basis of taxation.

When I was younger, there was not many beers from foreign countries in smaller groceries. Because of the alcohol level -regulation, situation is not much better nowadays, but in bigger stores, there are now usually a respectable set of beers to choose from. I, however, shop in my nearby little grocery, where the main beer brands are Karhu and Olvi. There are also sometimes some seasonal or otherwise smaller brands, but it is only lager after lager on the shelves. When I was younger, I used to prefer one particular brand of Finnish bulk lager after others and that was Karhu. It was brewed by Sinebrychoff-owned brewery in small Finnish west coastal town of Pori and had a more unique and malted smell and taste as its piss-like counterparts from Hartwall. Olvi had some metallic taste in it, so it was not preferred then (though it is the only "big" brewery in Finland nowadays, that is still owned by Finns and not by some multi-national big corporation like Heineken). There was only Karhu to choose from and maybe some days its "littlebrother" Koff from the capital (actually from little town called Kerava, nowadays). Sinebrychoff also had great smaller brands like Nikolai and only Alko-sold Porter, which is actually one of the exceptional beer brands brewed in Finland.

However, there is a sad tone in Karhu-saga also. Its brewery in Pori had been brewing lager from 1853 and Karhu brand from 1928. In 1972 it was sold to Sinebrychoff (which operated then in capital Helsinki, later in bigger factory-like breweries in Kerava). Sinebrychoff was sold to Carlsberg in 1999 and in 2007 making of Karhu was transferred also to Sinebrychoff (or Koff) -factories in Kerava. Traditional Porin Olut-tehdas was shut down in 2009. There was (and maybe is even nowadays) a beer-drinking strike going on towards Sinebrychoff and maybe I should join it too. Tonight I drank one Karhu III pint and it was ok. Head went away very quickly. Beer smells malted, which is nice, but nothing special about it. It has tongue-tickling carbonation and to my liking goes down like a soda. This is a sauna beer, I reckon, and we Finns like to go to sauna to get us all sweaty and thirsty and then grab an ice cold beer, preferably Karhu. It still is better than any Hartwall-based beer and to my pleasure, it did rise to Finnish top selling beer in the 1990's and is served in every other bar, so there is this friendly taste from my youth available everywhere you go in Finland. Sad stories, though, about its brewery and loss of tradition. I must admit, that in recent couple of years, I haven't actually drank this, if there was any other beer (except those Hartwall beers...) available. So, long live small breweries and longer live independent breweries, because there are the makers of beer Culture, and not in these bulk beers, that are made in large factories in the middle of nowhere (without any local tradition) rather than in breweries, that maintain tradition of fine beerbrewing.

** Drinkable