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The 11 Best Places to Drink in Helsinki
Finland...more like Winland 😆
Photography courtesy of Grace Lee-Weitz | Hop Culture
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Two years ago, BeerAdvocate Founder Todd Alström dropped a bomb on us: He and his family had decided to move to Helsinki, Finland. We couldn’t fathom why our fellow West Coaster, living in the land of sun, sand, and surf, would want to move to a place where, for certain months of the year, it’s almost entirely dark and there’s this thing called cold and snow.
But during our recent visit to Helsinki, Alström shared a few reasons with us as we devoured blueberry pastries at the historic Ekberg bakery.
The general quality of living is very high. The Finnish government covers the cost of education from early childhood up through general upper secondary, along with universal healthcare. And as Alström shared with us, these’s a great work-life balance—most shops work lighter hours and get busy around lunchtime because Finnish companies provide all employees with free lunch.
We couldn’t help but compare this to our exceptionally frustrating experiences with healthcare in the States or the exorbitant cost of higher education.
Reason after reason started to make a lot of sense to us.
Of course, you’re not here to hear us rant about those things. You just want to know the best places to drink beer, but hey, it’s worth sharing with you why folks in Finland have such a high quality of living. You should understand what the culture is like.
When it comes to beer, though, Alström fully admits that craft beer has had a tough time breaking into the Finnish market. Historically, Finns love light lagers, so craft beer hasn’t quite struck with the lightning it did in the States. One might call it more of a soft wind, blowing in slowly and gently.
Still, a few standout breweries in Helsinki have caught the attention of folks worldwide. Pair that with English-like pubs, oddball music-inclined dive bars (metal music is apparently huge in Finland), and cozy craft beer bars, and you can have a pretty good time in the Finnish capital.
As we did ourselves last month over a couple of days!
Alström showed us some of his favorite spots, and we hooked up with a group from Brewtopia, who take thirsty travelers to beer destinations worldwide. Started by Owen Ogletree, Brewtopia gives folks the backstage pass to breweries, pubs, and beer-centric restaurants in well-known beer countries like Germany, Belgium, and the U.K., but also some surprising places, such as the trip we went on to Finland, Estonia, and Latvia.
Pro Tip: Check out all of Brewtopia’s upcoming trips here.
We’d never considered Finland a drinking destination before, but that was our mistake. From a brewery in an old greenhouse making some of the country’s best Nordic sours to a British-style pub hidden off the main thoroughfare with one of our best beers of the trip, here were our favorite spots where we drank in Helsinki.
Hop Culture’s Top 11 Best Places to Drink in Helsinki, Finland
Salama Brewing Company – SalamaNation Taproom
Eerikinkatu 5, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
Salama’s Passion Rzzie and Neo-Elektro beers | Photography courtesy of Salama Brewing
In Finnish, Salama means lightning. “We came up with the phrase to prepare for a brewing storm,” says Salama Brewing Co-Founder Christian Holmlund.
Many of Salama’s beers strike down like an electrifying bolt, shocking and awing immediately.
So it makes sense that Salama’s first two beers were called Elektro (today known as Neo-Elektro) and Electrocution.
The former was one of co-founder Jaako Ailio’s homebrew recipes with fifteen malts and three different yeasts.
“It was really good, but totally crazy,” says Holmlund, noting they now call the beer Neo-Elektro because of all the changes they had to make to the recipe to streamline it for a commercial operation. Today, the beer starts with Viking pilsner and wheat malt, Simpson’s Golden Promise, Fazer flaked oats, and Weyermann acidulated malts. Hops include Citra, Mosaic, and Centennial in the whirlpool.
Both nod to the OG hazies from Trillium and Tree House, illustrating a larger goal for the four co-founders, who all grew up in the 1980s and 1990s.
“We want to take over the world,” Holmlund jokes, mimicking the Brain’s iconic line from Warner Bros Animation’s nineties cartoon Pinky & The Brain.
You’ll find those nostalgic, almost nerdy Millennial moments everywhere at Salama (including if you drop in three nights a week when Holmlund and Honkonen play a J.R.R. Tolkien card game. Holmlund himself has read the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy three times).
They named their intensely hopped core triple IPA with Citra, Chinook, H. Blanc, and Galaxy, Get Rich or Drunk Trying, after a famed 50 Cent song, hoping to stir up some controversy.
Razzie Passion, an imperial Berliner weisse with raspberry, cherry, passion fruit, and vanilla, earned the nickname “the butthole beer” thanks to Saarikoski’s illustration—a pair of puckered red lips that to some look like a different body part.
Salama’s helles, Brainzilla, features a nod to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, while the fist-pumping Dozer series’ graphics mimic what one tends to do at a techno party.
Even though they aim to jolt and jar, Salama’s beers should, at the end of the day, have one thing in common.
“Drinkability,” says Salama Brewing Vice President Jussi Honkonen.
Holmlund describes Salama’s style as a sort of Miami Vice meets Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles meets Brett Easton Ellis’ Rule of Attraction—that 80s LA life with sparkling swimming pools meets Miami art deco vibes and pale pink lawn flamingos.
Which is why, at the brewery’s taproom, SalamaNation in Helsinki’s city center, all twenty beers are listed with neon markers on flamingo cutouts.
“People complain it’s not the easiest to read,” laughs Holmlund, “But they love it.”
During our visit, general manager Aleksi Laurila, aka Allu said that they keep nineteen beers on draft with one cider. “We try to keep it pretty varied,” he told us. “But obviously, now that summer is here, we’re selling more sours.”
Cue two out-of-towners walking in and ordering a Passion Razzie, fruited Berliner weisse with raspberry, cherry, passion fruit and vanilla.
“It’s really good,” Laurila told them.
The taproom is an acid trip. A neon fridge holds packs to-go while tabletops sport blow ups of some of Salama’s most iconic labels (an idea Holmlund says he came up with and is very proud of).
The location right in the heart of Helsinki is as colorful as Salama’s history.
In the last six years, Salama Brewing has rocketed up the Untappd charts.
Now the second highest-rated brewery in Finland (with 10k+ check-ins), Salama has continued its ascent by producing some of the most exciting aromatic hop-forward IPAs, silky imperial stouts, and innovative mixed-fermentation ales in Europe—now listed on Untappd as 272 total.
Salama isn’t afraid to get their feet wet and kick up a little fuss. Loud, weird, pink, and wildly passionate, Salama’s four co-founders have created a place where triple IPAs named after 50 Cent songs coexist with Berliners nicknamed for body parts.
They’re not just one of the most exciting breweries in Finland—they’re aiming to be one of the most exciting breweries in the world.
If you’re in Helsinki, you have to visit Salama Brewing.
CoolHead Brew
Gardenia Päärakennus, Koetilantie 1, 00790 Helsinki, Finland
A fan on Instagram turned us onto CoolHead Brew, but pretty much everyone we talked to couldn’t mention Finnish craft beer in the same sentence without also referencing CoolHead.
Started by Cleber Goncalves, a São Paulo native, who fell in love with Finland while on a months-long trip to Europe in the early 2000s, CoolHead holds the title of one of the best craft breweries in probably the entire country.
The former IT specialist and homebrewing hobbyist started his own consulting company in Finland before eventually pivoting and investing in his 1,500-square-meter brewery.
Located in Vikki, a Northern suburb about a thirty-minute drive outside of Helsinki’s center, the creative Finnish brewery focuses on Nordic sours and hoppy ales. The former helped CoolHead break out of the mold, developing a niche in a lager-dominated market.
And while it may be a little tougher to get to, CoolHead is worth the trip. You can’t miss the almost Louvre-like glass triangle, an old greenhouse space that welcomes you to the taproom.
Today, CoolHead epitomizes Finnish craft beer, using creative ingredients and exciting experimentation to make bold beers. For instance, the Salted Licorice Raspberry Sour, which highlights Finland’s special love of Salmiakki (aka salted licorice), or Naked Sauna Sour, a citrusy sour that pays homage to Finnish sauna culture.
For a fun, whimsical taste of Finland, CoolHead has to be at the top of your list of places to drink in Helsinki.
Factory Brewing
Kumitehtaankatu 5, 04260 Kerava, Finland
The second-highest rated brewery in Finland, according to Untappd, Factory Brewing was also a recommendation from one of our fans.
With just 61 beers and 66k ratings on Untappd, Factory maintains a super-high 4.1 rating thanks to its intensely hopped IPAs, kooky pastry stouts, and badass barrel program.
Like Coolhead, you’ll also need to stretch your legs to get to this brewery. Technically located in Kerava, about a thirty-eight-minute train ride outside of Helsinki, Factory is about a five-minute walk from the Savio train station. But again, visiting this taproom is worth the trip, especially if you’re a hophead or have a sweet tooth.
In the recent Untappd Community Awards, Factory picked up thirteen medals, with five golds in categories like imperial stout, triple IPA, imperial hazy, imperial pastry stout, and hazy IPA.
Don’t miss the gold-medal Continuum, a fruit-bomb of a DNEIPA with Nelson Sauvin, Nectaron, and El Dorado Cryo, or Alchemy, a hazy collab with Track Brewing in Manchester that features Citra and Motueka.
Olarin Panimo
Bruno Granholmin kuja 1 3, 00510 Helsinki, Finland
Salama Brewing Co-Founder Christian Holmlund highly recommended Olarin Panimo, the savvy streetwise skate-focused brand that dishes out graffiti-laced, hip-hoppin’ beers that could be at home in any LA neighborhood in the 1990s. Those like Hepialus Humuli or Hopz N the Hood.
While we didn’t personally have time to visit the taproom (about a twenty-five-minute train ride outside the city center in the Otaniemi suburb), we drank plenty of Olarin Panimo’s beers around town. And a few snuck their way into our favorites of the trip.
Like the One Pint Pub (see below) collab called Red Neck.
The amber ale won an Untappd Community Award gold in 2024 and prompted us to write in our notes, “best beer we’ve had since we’ve been in Finland.”
Sips with equal parts caramel malt and a firm handshake of hoppiness reminded us of sticky toffee pudding with just a whisper of herbaceous hops.
Judging by the seventeen Untappd Community Awards the brewery has racked up over the last couple of years (the second-most in Finland), Red Neck is just a shade of Olarin Panimo’s colorful palette.
If you’re in Helsinki, don’t miss these ollie-popping ale artisans.
Juova Hanahuone
Kaisaniemenkatu 3 b, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
Photography courtesy of Grace Lee-Weitz
Photography courtesy of Grace Lee-Weitz
Multiple people, including Holmlund, told us Juova Hanahuone was the one craft beer bar we had to visit in Helsinki. So we were stoked that Alström took us there.
Holmlund told us that in Juova, we’d find mostly Finnish craft beer. And he wasn’t wrong. On the day we visited, names like CoolHead, Factory, and Olarin Panimo peppered the taplist.
Alström was particularly excited to try Olarin Panimo’s Pachanga, a West Coast IPA with Simcoe, Chinook, and Strata that the brewery made just for Juova’s fourth birthday.
Almost more like a coffeehouse than a craft beer bar, Juova’s comfy chairs and little nooks invite people inside to socialize.
In fact, as Holmlund told us, you won’t hear any music here, encouraging people to actually talk to each other. He recounts one time to us where a friend tried to show him a music video on his phone and the staff came over right away saying, “Sorry, you’re not allowed to have music in here,” says Holmlund. “You have to talk!”
For those looking for something other than Finnish craft beer, a to-go fridge in the back had bottles of everything from Drie Fonteinen to Firestone Walker.
One Pint Pub
Sinikaislankuja 2, 00180 Helsinki, Finland
Photography courtesy of Grace Lee-Weitz
Photography courtesy of Grace Lee-Weitz
The nondescript One Pint Pub is a little hard to find, tucked into the corner of what looks like an office building sitting alongside a tiny canal.
But those willing to venture a little further afield will find a packed pub that’s clearly a locals’ watering hole.
As SalamaNation’s General Manager, Aleksi Laurila, told us, “It’s an OG place. They were the first ones to bring special beer into [Helsinki] in the late 90s.”
While Carlsberg and Fuller’s coasters plaster the ceiling, you’ll find plenty of craft beer here (although Krombacher did seem to be a favorite group order). We snagged a seat at the tiny bar and settled in with a pint of the aforementioned Olarin Panimo Red Neck.
For thirty minutes, we watched a steady stream of those speaking mostly in Finnish (and a few in English) order hoppy pints of Olarin Panimo Jarmo DDH IPA, Krombacher Pils, and even an occasional Andechs Weissbier Hell.
With the smell of wood, sweat, and beer everywhere, local newspapers littering the bar, and a corner of used board games beckoning, we could have believed we were in a pub on the corner of any London street—the only thing missing was a fireplace and some British banter.
Pien Brewing
Ateneuminkuja 2, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
Photography courtesy of Grace Lee-Weitz
Photography courtesy of Grace Lee-Weitz | Hop Culture
All the cool kids are drinking at Pien. Finland’s first private bottle shop has over six hundred different bottles and cans along with eight taps. From the series of glittering beer fridges, you’ll find local freshies and favorites—Olarin Panimo, Salama, ETKO, and Factory—and hypebeasts from overseas—Fidens, Parish, and Wild East, to name a few.
Scanning the clear glass doors jam-packed with beer made us feel like kids in a candy store.
Started in 2016 by two friends, Tuomas Kokkonen and Erkki Häme, Pien literally buzzes. You can hardly miss the splashy teals, pinks, and yellows, calling out to you as you walk down Helsinki’s city center.
When we walked in on a Friday, you couldn’t even find an open table. That’s how you know this is one of the best places to drink in Helsinki.
Pien touts that “glasses are always half full!”
From what we saw, their tables are always full, too.
Pro Tip: Watch for their Friday pop-ups with FLIP, a vegan pizza restaurant. We just happened to visit on one of these days, and while we couldn’t stay for dinner, the smell was absolutely incredible.
Bier-Bier
Erottajankatu 13, 00130 Helsinki, Finland
Photography courtesy of Grace Lee-Weitz
Photography courtesy of Grace Lee-Weitz
For some place that’s a bit swankier, Bier-Bier also topped Alström’s list of the best places to drink in Helsinki.
Walking inside the 130-year-old historic building, the ornate wood and jade green painted walls set the vibe—this sort of retro Renaissance meets Brooklyn swank. But on a beautifully cloudless May day, we didn’t find anyone inside—everyone crowded themselves onto the bar’s sun-dappled outdoor patio on Mannerheimintie street.
With eight beers on tap and another 150 in bottles and cans, Bier-Bier highlighted a selection of Finnish and continental European breweries, including Tuju, ETKO, Northern Monk, and FUERST WIACEK.
We might call this a place to see and be seen.
Black Door
Iso Roobertinkatu 1, 00120 Helsinki, Finland
Another suggestion from Alström Black Door is just a three-minute stroll from Bier-Bier.
An English pub amongst the bustle of Helsinki, Black Door bills itself as “the beer-lover’s living room since 1992.”
Following the mantra “life is too short to drink bad beer,” the modern-day watering hole pours U.K., Belgian, German, and Finnish breweries and more alongside cask ales.
This was a great place to pull up a chair and nurse a pint for a few hours.
Bob’s Laundry
Merimiehenkatu 40, 00150 Helsinki, Finland
Photography courtesy of Grace Lee-Weitz
When we build drinking guides for any new city we visit, we reach out to folks we know who live there for suggestions, we find recs from our friends on Instagram, and we do some good old-fashioned research ourselves from our sister brands like Untappd and BeerAdvocate.
And then sometimes, we just stumble into places surreptitiously.
Those like Bob’s Laundry, a tiny, almost subterranean bar with killer cocktails, small Asian-inspired bites, its own beer, and a laundromat.
Yes, you read that correctly. Walk into Bob’s Laundry; you’ll think it’s laundry day at the Flip N’ Fold. (Which we needed at this point in our trip, since we’d already been traveling for a week.)
But walk past that second door, and you’ll find a legit place to drink. Right now, we’re thanking our lucky socks for having to do laundry because we found a true hidden gem.
While you’ll find a series of sensational cocktails here (all printed on a linen menu that could be cut straight from a laundry bag), we enjoyed the eponymous beer—Bob’s Laundry.
Brewed by Kakola Brewing Company, this Japanese rice lager, as the bartender explained to us, is meant to be easy-drinking, crisp, and light enough to enjoy a few of while you fluff and fold.
Which is precisely what we did.
We’re saying it here first: Please bring the bar-with-a-laundromat trend to the States.
Liberty or Death
Erottajankatu 5, 00130 Helsinki, Finland
A suggestion from multiple people, Liberty or Death is the place you go for expertly crafted cocktails in Helsinki.
Inspired by Patrick Henry’s famous phrase, “Give me liberty, or give me death,” Liberty or Death opened in 2011, starting a bit of a spirited drinks revolution in Helsinki.
Liberty or Death (owned by the same folks who run the aforementioned Bob’s Laundry) creates cocktails with a twist, paired with top-notch service.
Unfortunately, when we visited, the spirits emporium was in the middle of a remodel, but based on the great things we heard, you need to add Liberty or Death to your list of the best places to drink in Helsinki.
If you go, drop us a line and tell us what you think.
About The Author
Grace Lee-Weitz
Currently Drinking:
Fort Point Beer Co. KSA
Grace is the Senior Content Editor for Hop Culture and Untappd. She also organizes and produces the largest weeklong women, femme-identifying, and non-binary folx in craft beer festival in the country, Beers With(out) Beards, and the first-ever festival celebrating the colorful, vibrant voices in the queer community in craft beer, Queer Beer. An avid craft beer nerd Grace always found a way to work with beer. After graduating with a journalism degree from Northwestern University, she attended culinary school before working in restaurant management. She moonlighted as a brand ambassador at 3 Sheeps Brewing Co. on the weekends before moving into the beer industry full-time as an account coordinator at 5 Rabbit Cerveceria. Grace holds her Masters degree in the Food Studies program at NYU.
