Two beers at Oslo airport

I had left the city centre of Oslo to catch a plane at Oslo's Gardermoen airport. This time I was early at the airport, so I sat down at the Christiania bar to have some beer.

As always the draught beer selection at the airport leaves something to be desired. At Christiania you can have Ringnes, Carlsberg or Stella Artois pale lagers. Are you ready for some ales, there is Kilkenny and Guinness from tap.

I would not have any of these beers, so I checked out the beer bottle selection. There I found some beers I had not tried earlier. The Ringnes brewery distributes some of the Brooklyn beers in Norway, and I wanted to check out Brooklyn East India Pale Ale.

In the Ringnes branded glass the Brooklyn East India Pale Ale had some carbonation and a medium sized head. In the nose I felt grapefruit. I found grapefruit, sour oranges and some spices in the mouth before a semi bitter finish with some passionfruit. This was a lovely beer!

There was also time for a Jacobsen dark lager. Jacobsen is Carlsberg's mini brewery, and I have enjoyed some of the other Jacobsen beers earlier. The dark lager was not a favourite. It was a dark beer with nearly no carbonation and a small head. Except for a tiny hint of coffee and caramel, there was no aroma. In the mouth the beer felt watery with some caramel. I felt it was boring.

As I went to my flight, I had once again the same feeling: Why is it not possible for Oslo airport to sell some Norwegian craft beers? And why not as draught beers? The airport is the largest in Norway, and many tourists travel through it. This could be a nice place to show the better beers of Norway to visitors.

Three beers in Bodø

Bodø railway station

Bodø is a very compact city. It takes about ten minutes to walk from the railway station to the town hall. If you want to go to the airport, it takes five minutes in a taxi from the bus terminal in the city centre. If you prefer walking, it would take about 20 minutes.

In the city centre there are several bars and pubs. I wanted to watch a soccer game, so I ended up at the pub with a very fitting name, Wembley.

Wembley pub & lounge is first and foremost a sports bar. I enjoyed my soccer game and wanted something to drink. Sure, I could have had a half litre of Nordlandspils, which is available everywhere in Bodø, but I preferred something else.

The nice and friendly female bartender offered me toasts to eat, but I did not want any. Instead I looked around the bar. Carlsberg from tap did not tempt me. Neither did bottles of Tuborg Lime or Budweiser. Instead I ended up with a glass of Guinness stout from tap.

After the game was finished, I walked a few blocks and found another bar. Piccadilly looked like the closest thing to an English pub that I could find in Bodø, so I walked in.

Piccadilly could just like Wembley offer Guinness and Nordlandspils. In addition to these beers Kilkenny, Frydenlund Bayer and Stella Artois were available. Being in an English style pub made me choose what a hooligan would order: A pint of Wifebeater. Stella Artois, I mean.

Stella Artois is not my favourite pale lager, but once again I felt it took away my thirst. The pub was nice with leather furniture and classy interior. I liked staying there, but I would have liked some Haandbryggeriet, Nøgne Ø or Ægir beers on tap as well. And by the way: I did not share the Swedish waitress' music taste.

My time in Bodø was over for this time, so I found my things and got ready to go to the airport. I went down to the bus terminal and started to wait for a bus. It was not due to arrive in nearly an hour, so I ordered a taxi to the airport.

Bodø airport is a small airport, and most of the air traffic go to local airports in Northern Norway.

Inside there is a pub called Bodø Aktiebryggeri. It is found before the security check, so if you want a beer you must enjoy it before entering the departures hall. I sat down and ordered my first and only Nordlandspils for this trip. Once Nordlandspils was the local beer brewed in Bodø. Nowadays the beer is brewed in Trondheim, so it is not even brewed in the same part of Norway.

I drank my 0.6 litre of Nordlandspils and thought it was better than Stella Artois. But still it is inferior to the pale lagers I have tried in for instance the Czech Republic.

I left Bodø thinking that the city needs its brewpub back after Bryggerikaia has stopped brewing its own beers. The little city also needs bars, pubs and restaurants with a bigger selection than pale lagers and Guinness.

UK in Trondheim

British pubs can be found all over Norway. Some feel authentic, while others are of the constructed kind without any atmosphere. Usually you will find some taps with a Norwegian pale lager, some ales (often Kilkenny) and Guinness stout.

While visiting Trondheim I wanted to check out some of the British pubs. The first I entered, was Three Lions Pub in the city centre. My visit was during the world cup, so most guests were watching football on the screens. This is probably one of the better places to watch sports in Trondheim, as the atmosphere was great.

Beerwise Three Lions Pubs are among the better ones in Norway. In addition to bottles, you can find several draught beers. The local Dahls pale lager is supplemented by other pale lagers like Carlsberg, Tuborg, Carling and Stella Artois. Ale drinkers can enjoy Old Speckeled Hen, Newcastle Brown Ale, Guinness and Greene King IPA. I was ready for an IPA that day, but unfortunately the tank was empty. Instead I ended up with a forgettable pale lager that took away my thirst.

Not far from Three Lions, you can find a Scottish pub. Macbeth was a calmer place than the English pub, and I felt it had no atmosphere.

On tap there was Heineken pale lager, Newcastle Brown Ale, Murphy's Red and Guinness. I was not tempted by any of the beers, so I asked the bartender if they had any Scottish beers. After all, they call themselves a Scottish pub.

He had one Scottish beer, Belhaven Twisted Thistle IPA in bottles. I had not tried that beer before, so I ordered a bottle. In the glass, this was a copper coloured beer with little carbonation. In the nose I found malts and citrus. The citrus was also present in the mouth with a nice bitterness. I liked this beer a lot, and I hope this so called Scottish pub can offer a Scottish beer like this also as a draught beer.

I will probably not be back at Three Lions or Macbeth on my next visit to Trondheim. There are better places for beer lovers in Norway's third largest city.

More airport beers

If you travel to Norway on a plane, most visitors enter the country through Oslo's airport Gardermoen. Gardermoen is the largest airport in Norway, and the second largest in Scandinavia.

Gardermoen's terminal building is built nearly as a long in-door street with gates on both sides along the way. There are several shops in the building as well. The airport is divided into an international and a domestic section.

All passengers have access to the domestic section, but you need to go through the duty free shop to get to the international section. This shop is by the way the largest tax free shop in Europe.

There are twenty restaurants or eateries on the airport. Among others you can find sausage stands, a seafood restaurant, an Italian restaurant and a Pizza Hut.

In the domestic section you can find O'Learys. O'Learys calls itself a "real American sportsbar", and is part of a Swedish chain with franchises in Scandinavia and Singapore. It is a typical bar with various beverages available with various American snacks and courses. I can recommend their large hamburgers and fries.

O'Learys have five different beers on tap. Like in most Norwegian airports Ringnes and Carlsberg are available. Here these pale lager beers are supplemented by draughted Kilkenny and Guinness. There is also Stella Artois on tap, and they also sell various bottled beers.

Guinness is still one of my favourite stouts. It was the first stout I ever tasted, and it is widely available in cans all over Norway. I am very fond of its creamy textures and coffee notes, and I really enjoy drinking it as a draught beer. Sure, there are better stouts out there, but Guinness is still a very good stout in my opinion. I do not remember the price at O'Learys, but I believe a pint costs around 80 NOK. That is nearly 9 GBP or 10 EUR.

I have also had my share of Kilkenny the last ten years. Suddenly in the nineties Kilkenny was easy to find in Norwegian shops and bars, and I have taken the odd pint now and then. Kilkenny is a good ale, but I feel it is a bit watery. The texture is nearly as creamy as in Guinness, but I feel Kilkenny is not as tempting as Guinness if both beers are available in the same bar. The price for Kilkenny is about the same as for Guinness at O'Learys.

When I visited Gardermoen lately I was in the mood for a lager beer. Ringnes and Carlsberg was not tempting, so I had my first draughted Stella Artois since my visit to Avignon. The Belgian pale lager was served in a 0.6 glass and was priced at 89 NOK, which is around 10 GBP or nearly 11 EUR. The glass looked worn with stripes on it. It was not branded, but looked like a often used (but clean!) Carlsberg glass.

There was a lot of carbonation, but nearly no head. The nose had some malts, but otherwise nothing. In the mouth there is more malts, some sweetness, a hint of hops and a watery aftertaste. Stella Artois is completely drinkable. It is far from my favourite lager, but I feel it is OK to have a glass of this beer from tap when the competition is Carlsberg or Ringnes.

Star of the papal city?

Avignon is one of the cities I never had visited, but that I always had heard about. I remember that my friends who chose French as a second foreign language in high school, used to sing the song about a bridge in Avignon in their French lessons. It had an easy melody, so I learnt the song myself. Without the words, of course, as I chose German as my foreign language.

This summer I got to see the bridge myself. It never crosses the Rhone river, and the day I saw it, people were not dancing upon it like the lyrics say people do.

More reknown than the bridge, is the Papal palace and the story about the popes in Avignon. It is a beautiful building, but I did not take the time to see it from the inside. Perhaps that was unfortunate, but I did enjoy the sight from the outside.

After walking through the inner city of Avignon, it was time to sit down and enjoy dinner. I found the brasserie L'Hotel De Ville and ordered a portion of fish. It was very tasty, although I would have preferred more fish on the plate.

To drink I chose a half litre of the brasserie's draughted beer. That was none other than Belgium's Stella Artois. I have had Stella from draught before, and mostly in a licenced version in British pubs. I consider it a drinkable lager beer. This time I was given a pale lager with some carbonation and a small head. In the hot weather, this was an OK beer that took away my thirst. It had some maltiness, but I felt it was a little bit sweeter than I prefer lagers. It had much more taste than Jupiler, and if I had to choose between the two Belgian beers, my choice would be Stella Artois.

As I left the brasserie in the main square of Avignon, I thought to myself that Stella Artois gets a lot of undeserved badmouthing. Sure, there are better lagers than Stella, but there are also worse beers than it.