First instalment of my Finish experience is here.
So there I was, a little worse for wear on a dull, drizzly Finnish Summer's day, resigned to the probability that this trip would not turn up much in the way of interesting beer. I was quite accepting of this fact - I'd just had a wonderful day at a friend's wedding and was in a small town in the lakes of Finland looking forward to spending more time by the lake with my new Finnish friends and my old Irish ones.
Having missed breakfast, my wife and I went wandering the town in search of food. A little off the beaten path, my interest was stirred by the spotting of a sign. Restaurant and...were my tired eyes and fuddled brain tricking me?....no, it said Microbrewery. I wasn't even looking and we'd stumbled across a microbrewery!
Now, while consuming beer was not on my agenda in my slightly fragile state, this had to be checked out. The sign also said 'Restaurant'. No argument was had. Off we went.
No doubt because of the weather this sizeable bar and restaurant with huge veranda had a somewhat deserted air about it. Nonetheless we bravely entered Huvila Microbrewery and Restaurant. A friendly, fluent English speaking (like most Finns we met) waiter showed us into a formal dining room with tables set for dinner. Water for me, a glass of wine for herself and menus were proffered.
Oops. This wasn't beer snack food. It wasn't café lunch food. All I wanted a bowl of nice chicken broth and some bread but here I was faced with a modern, stylish dinner menu. A quick discussion decided that we would make our excuses, pay for the wine and arrange to return that evening for dinner and beer (for me). The beer menu looked promising with a pale ale and some darker offerings too. After declining to take a booking, the waiter informed us that the kitchen was open until 21.30 and that the place remained open until midnight.
I won't go into our adventures finding soup in Savonlinna. This is, after all, not a food blog. Fast forward to about half eight that evening when four of us walk hungrily to Huvila looking forward to a aperitif beer and dinner. Oh dear. The kitchen was closed and did so at 19.30 every Sunday.
Having assured the staff that we had not misunderstood the waiter it was accepted that maybe he had made a mistake as he was new to the job. So, some snacks? No. No food what so ever! What kind of fool eats food with beer? Surely, everyone knows people only eat gourmet meals with beer but not after half seven on a Sunday!
The need for food, at this point, far surpassed the need for beer so, having ascertained that the bar was open until midnight we left. One desperation driven kebab later, we are again trodding the, now well beaten, path back to the strange Brewery/Restaurant. The seagulls with chicks by the lake are now really starting to wonder are we just there to torment them by passing their unguarded nest six times a day. Onward we plough for beer! Finnish Microbrewery beer!
Hu? No. Can't be. It is. Ha, ha. No? Yes. It's ten 'o clock and the place is closed! Really closed. I won't quote my rantings or what I threatened to do. This is a clean blog. They had shut up early. It was a miserable day a little before the Summer season really gets going and, I guess, due to no customers, they closed early. Surely not a good way to encourage custom.
The thing is, we had arranged to meet up with about eight others of our group there and at this stage we had all recovered enough to drink several good, outrageously expensive, microbrews. Instead we ended up elsewhere but that, I'll save for the final instalment of the Finnish entry.
It's great to see a small out of the way town with a microbrewery. And it's great to see beer being associated with good food but Huvila seem to have a very strange view of what a microbrewery should be. By all means, have an attached fine dining restaurant, but should not a beer specialist bar with a kitchen have some other food available throughout the evening for beer drinkers. Some cheese, salamis, breads, pickles, chicken, chips? But not a sausage, literally. Should a bar not stay open for its advertised hours? And should a microbrewery's beer not be priced somewhere close to other local bar's beer. Maybe a little more expensive but not almost double.
Huvila seems to want to make quality beer exclusive - the exact opposite to what The Beer Revolution wants. Or maybe they're confused as to what they want. It's as if they want to run a fine dining restaurant but got lumbered with a brewery. The really strange part of this story is that due to a complete lack of good restaurants in Savolinna, we actually went there for dinner the following night. It was good. Very good, albeit with tiny portions, but not bad value by Irish standards (or Finnish for that matter). Many of their beers were out of stock but I did try their pale ale and that was very good too.
They have a very good restaurant with an interesting wine list and they have a brewery that makes good beer ( I tasted my friends cider which also had a sense of quality) but they seem to have absolutely no idea of how to run a bar or of customer service.
Despite making good beer, Huvila don't seem to be interested in serving it to the locals or visitors to Savonlinna. Hulvia could be a great bar in a beautiful location serving well made house beer and snacks with an attached restaurant. But it's not.
The Beer Revolution does not take its hat off to Huvila Microbrewery and Restaurant, despite its fine food and beer.
The beer saving grace of Savonlinna will be the topic of my next entry and then it will be back to hassling the providers of beer in Ireland.
My last drink was; Weihenstephaner Vitus. 7.5%abv 50cl.
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