Gutbrain Records

Wednesday, 02 August 2006

Alice and I just got back from an extremely pleasant vacation in Finland, Sweden and Estonia. Above is something you can see in Tallinn. It's interesting, but not as interesting as the delicious rye black bread ice cream at Bonaparte Deli in the old town.

Here I am getting directions from one of the bartenders at Kaisla in Helsinki. He and the other bartenders there were some of the nicest people I've ever met. Kaisla is a lovely place, a huge bar with couches and enough light to read a book in comfort. Alice and I spent many hours there. Of course they have a great beer selection, too, including the infernal Tervapiru — "Tar Devil" — a Finnish microbrew spiced with tar. (I don't know what kind of tar or why. It smells and tastes like the smell of newly paved New York City street.)

We loved Helsinki. It's one of our favorite cities.

Of course we visited our very good friends in Sweden, one family near Göteborg and the other near Stockholm. We spent just one day in Stockholm and most of it was at Belgo Baren, pictured above. That beer on the counter is the Westvleteren 12, a Belgian quadrupel which has been voted the best beer in the world! I tried it for the first time at Belgo Baren and thought it was amazingly good, certainly one of the best beers I've ever had. I followed it with the Westvleteren 8 (dubbel) which I think I liked even better. I need more tastings to be sure. The Westvleteren Blonde was rather ordinary by comparison, I thought. I won't bother with it in the future.

Now I'm back and the new Gutbrain CD is here! It's a recording of guitar/drums free improvisation that I made with David Grollman at Reuben Radding's studio. It will get its own page and ordering links soon.