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Alko
Ok, a bit of Finnish beer history.
Ten years ago, 1990, Finland was at clutches of an terrible curse: wine-oriented state alcohol monopoly! This meant that there was only couple of foreing beers available and almost all finnish beers were industrially brewed waters.
Since the rules of Alko, which had both the import and retail sales monopoly (not for bars and restaurants though, thank heavens) stated that if you wanted to import anything else than what they did, you could, but you would have to buy whole set and also pay whatever Alko wanted you to pay.
For this reason no-one bothered to import anything else since it wasnt a business.
Except for reasons of promoting different kinds of beers!
In 1992 a small bar in Oulu, Johanneksen Kellari ordered whole set of this beer from Alko. It costed many times more than other beers in that place, but they sold them all!
This stunned Alko and they took this one to their own shelves as well. And then another "not ordinary" beer. And another. And after couple of years, we had a beer boom with incredible amount of beers available in Finland!!
This phenomenon can also be attributed to this beer, and Johanneksen Kellari (and the excellent restaurant where it is, Franzen).
So if you visit Oulu, dr_op in the Cellar and the corner of the church and have rauchbier, just for the difference it made!
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