It has slowly dawned on me that I could live in Sweden until I grow excessively long nasal hair and lose the ability to control most of my basic bodily functions and I will not be a single day closer to understanding this country’s twisted relationship to alcohol.
Take for example last weekend’s Leva & Bo, the weekend supplement of Sweden’s largest national daily newspaper Expressen. It is a perfect case study in just how f”#ked up the messages we’re constantly being fed about booze are as well as a depressingly familiar example of beer’s lowly status in the mainstream media (an issue I’ve already blogged about here).
Under the headline “Välkommen På Poolfest” (Welcome to the Pool Party) Expressen’s ever-so-healthy looking GI-expert Ewa Skiöldebrand invites us to throw a summer pool party with tips on mouth-watering BBQ dishes as well as some “refreshing, healthy drinks”.
Accompanying this six page GI-tribute are several pictures of nutritious-looking green salads, avocado, radishes and sun-dried tomatoes artistically laid out on a table in front of a shimmering swimming pool on a hot summer’s day.
Photograph: Arne Adler
Oh and what’s that I spy on the table too? Why it’s a couple of glasses of red wine. At least I assume it’s red wine as the glasses in question are not actually referred to anywhere in the article (which does give recipes for several other healthy non-alcoholic fruit drinks) but there they stand none the less in amongst the raspberry smoothies.
They’ve somehow managed to sneak in there but it doesn’t really matter because after all red wine is sooooo GI isn’t it what with all those antioxidants and all. The fact you practically can’t turn a page of Leva & Bo without seeing an advert for wine probably has nothing to do with it. No, not at all.
Where it gets even more conflicted is that on the final page of the article there is an advert for yet two more red wine boxes which carries the obligatory government health warning, this time rather ironically the message “Half of all those who drown have alcohol in their blood”.
So if I understand this right it’s OK for the newspaper supplement to indirectly promote drinking 11% +ABV red wine while having a pool party as long as you’re careful not to drown while doing it?
Turn the page and beside the full-page ad for a 3-litre box of Kongsmosel Riesling (which I’m sure could also make you sink to the bottom of swimming pools if drunk in excess) is yet another “10 Best Wines….” column from Leva & Bo’s grape expert Gunilla, this time tipping us off for the best bottles to uncork with tasty summer salads. Once again the association is clearly being made that whenever healthy food is served wine is never far behind.
What is far behind (occupying the bottom edge of page 56) are some expert tips from Leva & Bo’s resident beer scribe Lasse Råde. Rather than the 10 suggestions proffered by Gunilla, Lasse manages to keep it down to just four and rather than all that nonsense pairing wine with summer salads Lasse gives it to us straight under the snappy headline “Good and Cheap”.
He continues: “Being the cheapest doesn’t always mean it has to be bad – at least not where beer is concerned. Here are four of the cheapest right now!”
Lasse then goes on to share with us his thoughts on four beers whose single most notable feature is that you get change out of 11 Swedish Kronor when you buy them. His particular favourite is Åbro’s Femkommatvåan (which translated means 5.2 and specifically refers to the amount of alcohol in it). In my world it would specifically refer to the score I would give it – out of a thousand. Lasse is somewhat kinder, describing it as “well balanced with a little bread, some citrus and a discreet bitterness”.
So what do you make of all this? That your next pool party will be a huge hit as long as you served up some low-carb zucchini and a cheeky glass of shiraz? That wine is the best alcoholic drink to serve up with summer foods?
Well that’s exactly what Leva & Bo seems to want you to think.
It also seems to want to keep the tired old Swedish concept of stor stark alive too by rehashing yet another derisory article about cheap industrial beer that does absolutely nothing to highlight beer’s food pairing prowess or its numerous healthy qualities (when drunk, as with other alcoholic drinks, in moderation of course).
The unappetising truth is we’re drowning in blatantly biased coverage of this country’s two favourite alcoholic drinks and most of the time beer is barely managing to keep its head above water.
In sweden the ”stor stark” is often synonymous with the rowdy semi-racist farmer like guy or just rowdy men in general whereas wine makes a more elegant image.
It will probably always be the problem until swedes take beer tasting, now beer chugging, seriously.
I do beer tasting parties and initially my guests were stunned by the fact that they were not supposed to get drunk, merely taste the product and try not to get drunk.
Ofc I had to give up this idea and allow for them to smash their livers to pieces after 4 sampled beers or so, or they wouldn’t show.
But this is somewhat standard for swedes and beer. It’s a method of getting drunk as fast as possible and also trying to fit the cool stereotyphical rowdy beefy guy that just sits on the beach with big breasted women.
So bottomline: Beer in Sweden is barbaric, and that’s also how it’s presented, viewed, experienced and indulged.
I do hope that beersweden is one of the many many steps we need to take to get beer to a rightful position in this country. It’s more than the alcohol, it’s more than getting wasted.
This country needs to grow out of their teenage values in this sense and start enjoy alcoholic beverages for more than just the alcohol.
I really like provocative articles that aren’t meant to be provocative in the sense that I get insanely provoked. As I’m reading from your article, I get the feeling that I’m not alone with this. Aftonbladet and Expressen are two “newspapers” with too much power and influence over people. And what do almost all companies with too much power do? They influence you in a bad way by making you buy crappy things and think crappy thoughts about crap things just so that they can increase their profit.
The example of Femkommatvåan as a recommended beer sure is an excellent example of just this. In order for a beer to be enjoyed it doesn’t have to be expensive. But it most certainly can’t be that cheap either (in Sweden that is).
Joe and Pierce – thanks for the great comments! As drinkers I feel we’ve got every right to be angry at the way wine is unfairly promoted in the mainstream Swedish media. It would be interesting to know whether the media genuinely believes wine is worth the endless coverage or whether it is driven by the lure of millions in advertising revenue from the wine industry.
Regardless the media has a fundamental responsibility to provide its readers with accurate, fair and balanced coverage of any subject. It is painfully clear that when it comes to its coverage of beer it continues to fail us all.
Great article Darren.
Blow the horn, we are going to war; and hell we ain’t giving upp.
If you really want to be sick to your stomach might I recommend this piece of journalism from Dagens Nyheter: http://www.dn.se/mat-dryck/2.2219/valj-ratt-ol-i-sommar-1.1127506
If the list of summer beers that are recommended there doesn’t sadden you then the comments from the readers will.
Sweden can be a rather cruel place to live when it comes to the media’s (and the population’s) acceptance to what good beer is. I don’t think it will chance till Systembolaget is gone…and that may be a while.
”Leva & bo” is just an advertisement. How mush do they earn from, say, Brill or Wicked Wine? From Åbro?
Lasse Råde has probably never written anything good about beer. At least that’s the impression I got after a another Swedish beer blog (I think it was Manker) highlighted a pretty bad artical from him, resulting in me reading a couple of other of his articles.
The staff at my local Systembolaget told me that they can often see big raise in a specific wines sales when it has been recommended as ”best buy” or a ”bargain” or similar, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some money exchanging owners around that every now and then.
I totally agree with you, Darren. Boring shit and I really hate all that crappy methods of losing weight. And the ad’s, and the magazines, and the ”stor stark”! Once I visited Soldaten Svejk in Stockholm(an amazing Czech restaurant) a guy sat there with his friend , who was quite drunk,and he wanted to order from the waitress: – Öhh, en stor stark, tack!
She just looked at him with VERY steady eyes and replied:- Vi serverar bara tjeckisk öl här. – OK, då tar jag en sån då. She replied faster than a shark and pointed at the board with beers: -Du kan välja mellan dom där. His friend now opened his mouth to give his friend(and the waitress) a helping hand: – Ge honom en Primator.
That was funny:-)
Good article Darren! This can’t be said too many times! This is what a lot of us in the beer blogging community have been addressing for a long time. Everyone who’s in the beer blogosphere seriously, know that what we are facing in Sweden now is what happened in the US a couple of years ago. Look where they are now! Our biggest challenge so far has been to convince the people to be interested in good quality, hand crafted beer. I think the biggest challenge right now is to convince newspapers and other mainstream media channels that what people want to hear about now is good quality, handcrafted beer. I’ve said it before, let’s unite. We are already a strong community doing what we can, fighting with our ”pencils”….
“Half of all those who drown have alcohol in their blood”. That must mean that the other half that drowned DON’T have alcohol in their blood – so which is worst. Drinking or not?
Just today I had a customer (age 55-60) heeding Lasse Rådes advice and asking for Femkommatvåan, luckily he wanted my honest opinion too so I managed to tell him off from buying more than one and instead handed him a can of König Pilsener.