Pint and burger: Midsummer fever

In honor of midsummer, I have little IPA and Gin & Tonic test here. As always my opinions are yokel’s opinions, but in other hand if you don’t taste the ocean or rainbow in your beer, you could get down to earth knowledge… or something. Probably you don’t get anything out of this, but I just can’t pretend to be an expert or snob. Sorry. I’m just killing time by writing this nonsense. Sorry again.

But wait a minute: some drink test at midsummer? What is wrong with that sentence? Well, of course, a Finn goes to
a) Rock festival
b) Somewhere with a tent (that could be a rock festival)
c) Cottage
and will drink lots and lots of easy drinkable alcohol. Only poorest losers will stay in city and spending their time with some dandy tests. Or is this the new Hygge-like phenomenon that Miska Rantanen is writing in his new excellent ”Päntsdrunk” book?—  I like to think so. A seasoned professional skip the mud and crowd, don’t have a cottage and definitely won’t go to a relative’s cottage. Tent is so under 20’s. There is a huge risk to drown at midsummer, about 10 or so will drown every year. That’s almost one per mil from people who are going to near water, if I estimate that about 25% of our population is near water. So my advice is that you should stay at home, drink some beer or what have you and check if there is anything decent coming out of TV.

Getting ready for midsummer is an another task. I was at local supermarket as soon as liquer store opens and that seemed to be everyones plan. I was taking herring, old lady drives just— in front of those with her rollator and stays there. Doesn’t matter, I wouldn’t want jar of herring anyway. Someone was already blind drunk, at the morning with one day still to go midsummer eve. But with ” I don’t care anything as long as I’m getting all the foods except herring”-attitude everything went really well. And I took secretly that herring later, when old lady’s guard was down temporarily.

Beers:

Stadin Imperial Pilsner: Ok, this is not IPA, but it taste more like IPA than many IPAs. Very good. I’m a big fan of Finnish Stadin Panimo’s beers. This one is ”strong” (6%), so you can’t buy this from grocery. I like the thing that their products are not pricey like some ”almost imported” or ”microbrewery artisan” beers.

Irish Craft Pale Ale. Ok, this is not IPA either (or is it… Irish?). Boyne Brewhouse’s 4,8% Pale Ale have some wheat beer twist in it. Not bad.

Sierra Nevada Pale Ale: WTF, another not IPA, this ain’t looking good… but this is tasting good, so no problems at my end

Anchor Liberty Ale: Yes, not an IPA, but also very good. I swear that I thought that all these beers are IPAs..

Brewers Special American IPA: Finally an IPA, but too strong I think, alcohol sweetness or something is pushing through the bitter taste. It probably isn’t an alcohol, this is ”only” 6% vol, but some tacky sweet aftertaste is haunting after every sip. Not good. I usually like this brewery’s beers.

Finally, Shepherd Neame India Pale Ale, the real thing, best IPA in this test, but maybe not the best beer.

What was the winner? Erm.. I don’t know. Anchor was good, so was Sierra Nevada. I liked Stadin Pilsner also. Choose one of those yourself?

Gin & Tonic:

2 sets: The cheapest poisons, Rainbow light tonic and Finsbury gin. The best quality beverages, Napue gin (chosed best gin to gin and tonic) and Franlin & sons tonic.
I took tasties both of these ”fine” and ”budget” on the row and must say that there was so little difference that I doubt very much that I’d even notice if just one of these drinks would be served. The best one tasted little harder. Is that better? Maybe, I’m not even sure. Both are fine, but other costs like 2 times less so… My wife tasted both ones and liked more expensive more, althought she make a remark that the position of lemon affected the taste. Could be.

Here are the drinks

I lived dangerously and bought a bottle of vanilla sauce at midsummer day to be eaten with lemon cake. I also ate some candy while watching Amazing Race. So, that was my midsummer, now we are just waiting the first snow and dark days. Today is already shorter than yesterday, you know. And no, I don’t live so north that we have sun whole night, it went down at midsummer eve 23 (it’s 11 PM for some of you) and rised next morning at 3:40, dusk time was about 2 hours 20 minutes.