Bar Base & Tuska – Helsinki

June 2015 – Kalevankatu 3, 00100 Helsinki, Finland

I wasn’t even on Untappd yet when we were in Finland!! Luckily I took this photo of our first beer in Helsinki. We had a horrible flight. We flew overnight getting no sleep, and arrived in the late afternoon. That seems to be the only flight schedule available from Edmonton to Europe, and no matter how many times we do it I still get screwed up by the jet lag every time.

We tried really hard to stay up, but just couldn’t do. After sleeping for a few hours after dinner we were both wide awake at midnight, so we figured we may as well go for a walk.

Right around the corner from our hotel we stumbled across this place, which was open and oddly busy for midnight on a Tuesday. They were playing Amorphis when we walked in. Welcome to Finland.

Since I wasn’t on Untappd yet, I have no idea what the beer selection was like. I don’t remember much about the beer in Finland other than drinking a lot of Koff and Karhu.

So instead, I will talk about our reason for being in Helsinki. Tuska!

Tuska was our first European festival. Our first festival on land actually, as we’d only been on the 70K cruise before.

I didn’t plan it that way, but it was actually a perfect first festival. We were a bit stressed about logistics. Where to stay, how to get back and forth from the festival, etc. We have a friend in Helsinki that we met on the cruise, and he was a massive help, but it was also just a really easy city to get around, and an easy festival to get to and navigate.

It was also a really small festival with just 2 main stages, and 1 smaller stage. The crowd wasn’t too overwhelming and lineups for entry, food, bathrooms, and anything else were basically non existent.

The only other proper festival I’d been to before was in Edmonton, and the beer garden consistently has an hour wait to get in, and none of the stages are visible once you’re in there. So I was pretty stoked when we walked into Tuska and the beer garden was right between the 2 main stages, and there was no line! We were soon to learn from other festival goers (and future festivals) that most in Europe don’t even have a beer garden and you can take your drink anywhere. This also seems to be becoming the norm in Alberta, finally.

My only real complaint about Tuska was that the merch sucked.

Another awesome thing was that it seemed like the entire city was taken over by the festival. I’ve never seen that anywhere else. There was a 2 day pre-party in the main square, and metal shows at bars all over the city during and prior to the festival. Consequently the city kind of blew me away. I’d like to go back, and to see more of Finland.