Tasting Notes: Lapin Kulta
Brewery: Lapin Kulta
Location: Tornio, Finland
ABV: 4.5%
Version: Bottled
Source: Selfridge's, Manchester
I tried this one last Saturday night, as I wanted something to accompany the rather delicious fisherman's pie I'd just made for dinner. And thanks to a tip-off from Ed I was fairly certain that there wouldn't be much chance of Lapin Kulta overpowering the flavours of the food. Ed was right. Lapin Kulta - a "premium lager", according to the label - has the distinction of being the only beer brewed in Lapland. Alas, that turned out to be its only distinguishing feature.
Lapin Kulta poured a fairly standard pale straw colour, with little or no aroma to speak of - even though I was drinking it at cupboard temperature, not chilled - and tasted... bland. Not much hop-bitterness, not much of malt-sweetness; the best I can say about it is that it wasn't too gassy. But I'm afraid it was pretty much identical to any of the other bog-standard bottled lagers I've been served in spicy-food restaurants in the past. I'm guessing it's a served a fair bit colder up in Lapland - so they wouldn't necessarily notice the lack of flavour - or maybe they drink it to accompany some spicy dishes of their own and really only value it for its wetness? I'll ask my Finnish chess-buddy whether he's heard of it, hope I haven't just dissed his favourite brew...
(You know, I only picked this one up because I was buying a few beers from the food hall in Manchester Selfridge's and the bloke on the counter asked if I'd tried it, said it was quite popular. I reckon he had excess stock to shift.)
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I've been warned by my brother not to drink it. He tried it in Finland and your review pretty much summed up what he told me.
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I asked my Finnish friend and he told me it's not the best lager in Finland but is quite reasonably priced and good enough to have a couple of bottles of after a sauna.
By the way, just been to beerlens.com - some fantastic pics on there, mate!
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I sampled it in chilled form and I doubt there's much difference. The barest hints of biscuity malt and hop bitterness and that's it. This "premium" status must be very easy to achieve.
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I wonder if there's a way to just search the word "Premium" on beer labels and replace it automatically with "Shite"?
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@Darren Cheers! We aim to post anything related to beer on there.
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Right then, on the subject of Finnish beer, my Finnish friend says:
"For a lagerbeer choose Karhu, it's very small brewery, and it may be very difficult for you to find it. Karhu's taste is very strong for a lagerbeer, the colour is darker. The brewery is Sinebrychoff and currently they brew three beers with different ABV's. The most popular one is Karhu III (4.6%). There is also a Karhu A with an ABV of 5.3%. The label on the bottle depicts a bear, which is also the meaning of the name in Finnish. Checkout this Wikipedia link, it'll tell you everything in English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karhu"
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