OTAN Olutta!

A small brewery in Finland has launched a NATO-themed beer to mark the Nordic country’s bid to join the Western military alliance.

Olaf Brewing's OTAN lager features a blue label with a cartoon version of a beer-drinking medieval knight in metal armor emblazoned with NATO’s compass symbol.

The beer's name is a play on the Finnish expression “Otan olutta,” which means “I’ll have a beer,” and the French abbreviation for NATO, which is “OTAN.”

CEO Petteri Vanttinen ... described the new lager as having “a taste of security, with a hint of freedom.”

Read the whole story at NBCDFW.

A nice day for the Beer Dais

 60°, fairly sunny...a nice day for outdoor beers 

Sadness and Fun in Saint Paul

I've had some Tin Whiskers canned beers, and they've been pretty tasty. On Friday, I finally paid them a visit to have some in person.

The menu was kinda limited, but they had a fair Vienna Lager, a magnificent Sweet Stout, an excellent Imperial Stout, and a real good barrel-aged version of the same.

Now the sad news: Tin Whiskers is closing next Saturday, May 7, after eight years in business. So if you haven't had a chance to try their beers yet, or you want to enjoy them one more time, you'd best do it soon. We picked up three crowlers of the Imperial Stout to savor later.

Google Maps sent us in a bit of a circle on the short drive to MetroNOME Brewery, but we got there anyway. This is a new place that uses money from their beer sales to fund musical instruments, lessons, and education for underprivileged youth in the Twin Cities Metro Area.

Nice place, fun people, good beers with great music-themed names. My favorite of the bunch was the Acoustic EPA, a 5.1% abv "extra pale ale" with a huge orange-citrusy hop flavor and a real nice bitterness backed by a graham cracker maltiness. But all of the beers were pretty tasty.

Next stop: Saint Paul Brewing, not far away. (There are a lot of breweries in and near downtown Saint Paul.) This is a spectacular place in the old Hamm's Brewery complex.

Their beer garden is in the now-outdoor ruins of the old ice house.

They had a couple excellent beers here too. Smoke on the Lager is nicely smoky and a little sweet. Hidden Passage is an English-style IPA, biscuity and fruity.

11 Wells Distillery is right next door, so we stopped in there for a Rye.

And finally and as usual, Aegir Brewing is on the way home, and as it happens, they have a new beer on tap. #11031 Unsolicited Deck Pic is a pretty tasty Hazy IPA, as Hazy IPAs go.

And Moose and I went back to Aegir on Saturday for a couple glasses of Shield Maidens Blonde just for good measure.