When we were starting our journey with fruit and berry heavy sour beers, barely no one in Finland had heard the term sour beer let alone a brewery called CoolHead Brew. But we quickly captured Finnish people’s attention as well as their hearts with a beer named Mango Chili Gose, a sweet but spicy-hot sour beer with a good pinch of salt, based on a Brazilian snack with fresh mango and chili. While we were making these new and a bit weird beers, we were also teaching people about sour beers and how to drink them, and pave the way for other breweries to start making their own sour beer -programs.
The next big thing was a BIG thing, Salted Licorice Raspberry Sour. Now, Finnish people love salmiakki, so why not pair it with this slightly tart berry and make a beer out of those. It went on to be the best seller beer for years and won the Best Sour Beer -category in Suomen Paras Olut -competition in 2020. And this win really cemented our footing in Finnish beer-culture. And people couldn’t get enough of it.
Then, a year forward in 2021 we’ve moved to our new digs in Helsinki, Viikki and with new brewhouse, bigger facilities and lot’s of sweat and tears (and laughs) our peachy, sweet and slightly sour Party Smoosh won the Best Fruit/Berry Beer -category. This made it clear we can make these beers on a bigger scale and still keep the high quality that we demand.
It’s not easy to make the next big thing, particularly when the previous one was really BIG. We made some really good beers with licorice but none quite got to the level of Salted Licorice Raspberry Sour. Well we weren’t the only players in the ballpark anymore, and also, there was this COVID-thing… Usually good things happen when you don’t force it and then it happens. A beer that now feels like it’s always been there, everything that we want from our sour beers: sweet, sour, complex, surprising, balanced and with licorice.
So now, after (too) many years we won, and not only the Best Sour Beer -category but Salmiac Licorice Blackcurrant Sour is the Best Beer in Finland. For the first time ever sour beer won the Best Beer -award and it somehow feels right that we were the ones that made it.
By the way, our first win was not sour beer but a nice and sticky barley wine named Maple Bourbon Barley Wine and that was in 2018 in the Other Beers -category (just two years after we started commercial brewery). The year 2020 when Salted Licorice Raspberry Sour won the Best Sour Beer we also won the Best American Style IPA for our Juiciness Hazy IPA.
Pics from the award ceremony
This year our founder Cleber was in Tallinn, Estonia and our Head Brewer Ram was in Scotland so our Head of Sales Miro was there to receive the diplomas.
From left: Miro listens intently for the Best Sour Beer -category winner announcement, top center: Miro with Competition Director Anikó Lehtinen and Head Judge Jussi Rokka, bottom center: Miro receiving The Best Beer in Finland -diploma from Competition Director Anikó Lehtinen (already won the Best Sour Beer), right: It’s easy to smile when you’re a winner!