3.5 beer sucks

Sweden is a lovely country, with many fine features to recommend it, as I am discovering daily. Moving to a foreign country is hard. I could expound on both of these topics for awhile...but not today. Today I'd like to discuss a real and pressing problem with life in Sweden: the beer sucks.

This shouldn't have been a shock: most of the places I've been in Europe kinda suck when it comes to beer. The most famous beer from Sweden is Carlsberg, which, yes, also sucks. It's a light lager, just a tiny notch better than American crap beers from Anheuser-Busch & Coors. There is a general dearth of quality ale in this country; a real problem for a country with a long, dark winter.

But it's worse than that.

The Swedish control alcohol very closely -- all alcoholic beverages stronger than 3.5% alcohol are sold only at state-run stores called the Systembolaget. This means that at your local grocer, the only beer available is crap 3.5 beer.

Let me explain my objection: I couldn't care less what the alcohol level of beer is, as long as it's delicious. You can still get drunk on low-alcohol beer; it's what lots of people do, pounding can after can of Coors Lite or some other commodity product. It is, however, very hard to brew a flavorful, mouth-filling ale. Regardless of one's attitude towards alcohol, the sugar content of beer (the brewing term is gravity, I believe, from "specific gravity") which of course determines its alcohol content, is perhaps the main component of the beverage. It contains most of the caloric content, largely determines its mouthfeel, and is the main pillar around which a beer is built. Without sufficient alcohol, most beer styles cannot be achieved: no stouts (Guiness is a relatively low ~4.2% abv) no bitters (Fuller's is higher, at ~5.9%) and certainly no California-style IPA beers, where the massive hopping is only possible because of high alcohol content. Don't even think about Belgian-style dubbels and trippels.

Alcohol is a serious issue: alcoholism is tremendously problematic as a public-health issue, and I think we are all familiar with the possibilities on a personal level. And maybe the Swedish policy does, in fact, help. But it's very odd to come from California, where aside from the high drinking age, alcohol policies are lenient and continental: beer, wine and even spirits can be sold in grocery stores. Sweden, on the other hand, seems to have policies that are even tighter than Massachusetts -- aside from the easy availability of 3.5 beer. Which, by nature, sucks.

Beertender is total crap

Look at this bullshit -- "Beertender."

This is a $300, Heineken-branded product the sole purpose of which is to make your fake keg from Heineken look cooler. (OK, it actually refrigerates it too.)

Copy from the web page: "It's not often you use "beer" and "stunning" in the same sentence..."

Perhaps this is because you are drinking Heineken, which, in addition to basically being American-style pissbeer in the first place, arrives skunked (or lightstruck, a well-understood beverage defect) because of the damn green bottles which should be prohibited by beer quality laws. Brown bottles do a much better job of blocking the UV light that denatures the flavor compounds and causes the lightstruck flavor.

This is a terrible product, possibly even worse than the fake espresso machines which are seem to be somewhat popular these days. At least the fake espresso machines do something that you can't do with a refrigerator. Why do people buy shiny plastic crap that is meant to look like it's expensive and cool, but is actually overpriced garbage that doesn't deliver the performance implied by its crapulent appearance?

I can almost understand the coffee thing -- some people don't want to spend 10-15 minutes getting their morning fix. Sure, E.S.E. pods are better than these Nespresso things, and you can get a Francis Francis machine that sure looks cooler than the Nestle product...but this fake beer tap is beyond the pale.

Look at this: an actual beer keg setup which costs far less than the craptacular Heineken device. Even if you add in a CO2 tank, you'll still be nearly $200 under. That means even if you purchase a used fridge for kegerator use, you can still get yourself a kegerator setup with which you can use actual kegs (and thus, actual beer) for far less than this shiny monstrosity.

I demand not only that Heineken retracts this product, but also that they offer a formal apology to anyone who has seen the advertisements for their intelligence-insulting product. Then, they should change the color of their bottle glass, and buy me a pony.