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Real Ice Beer

I figure that if it's made in Iceland, it must be Ice Beer. Needless to say, a country with less than 300,000 people doesn't have a lot of different beers. Surprisingly, they have two breweries: one in the capital Reykjavik in Southwest Iceland and another in the north in Akureyri, the second biggest city with a population of 15,000 (that's right, I didn't miss a zero.) Situating a brewery in the capital is obvious, because 75% of the population lives within 100 km. The other brewery is really necessary because, until recently, it was impossible to get from one area to the other for a major part of the year.

Icelanders do drink a lot. Reykjavik is famous for it's Friday and Saturday night pub crawls called "runtur." Like many people in the western world, they suffered through prohibition. Surprisingly, they started abstinence in 1912. Then in 1933 wine and spirits were legalized. But for some reason I find difficult to understand, they limited beer to 2.2%. Not being deterred in their efforts to get "sauddrukkin" (drunk as a sheep) they started spiking their beer with vodka. This went on until 1985, when the government banned this practice. In a country where wide areas are lightly policed, the ban wasn't strictly enforced. Finally, on March 1, 1988, sanity was restored and beer now flows in several different strengths: 2.25%, 4.4%, 5% and 5.6%. March First is now celebrated as "Beer Day." You can bet I'm marking that down on my calendar. Available brands include "Egil's," named for one of the heroes of the Icelandic sagas, Egil Skallagrimson. This brewery also makes Pepsi. The Vilfilfell brewery makes Viking and Thule. Other Nordic brands, like Tuborg and Carlsberg, are also available.

By the way, Egil's Gull is not named after a bird, "gull" is Icelandic for "gold." And the image on the Thule can is the outline of Iceland. The beers are typical light lagers made with fresh Icelandic water, malt and hops. I'm sure the water is fresh -- that's the one thing they have plenty of, both frozen and thawed.

Yeah, getting cold beer is not a problem, keeping it from freezing is the problem.
Cheers!