Which should you drink, beer or tentacles?

Tlonkero is suitable as a refreshing drink and beer for every occasion. Non-alcoholic versions of both drinks are also available. Timo Pylvänäinen, Antti Nikkanen

Beer and lonkero are popular summer drinks. What kind of nutritional differences are there in the drinks, and in what situations are the drinks at their best?

Beer is suitable for every occasion

Beer is made from barley malt, hops, yeast and water. Sometimes other grains and spices, fruits or berries are also added to it. All are natural substances.

There is a wide selection of beers and it is possible to find a suitable beer for every situation, says the beverage expert and chairman of the Olutliitto Anikó Lehtinen.

According to Lehtinen, consumers are most interested in light beers in the summer.

– A Finnish classic is light lager and cottage or summer festivals.

Darker beers, especially those with a stronger alcohol content, are instead well suited for moments of enjoyment.

– Dark tuhti and other full-bodied beers are like good whiskey or port wine. They are suitable when you want something good in a small glass.

Beer has a lot of trace elements

Beer is also well suited as an accompaniment to various dishes.

– This is well understood in old beer countries, such as Belgium, Germany, England and the United States. For us, this thinking is still a bit in the shoes of a child. After all, we already know how to combine beer with street food, pizza and sausage.

There are also plenty of non-alcoholic beer options on the market.

– They can be used like a soft drink or even as a recovery drink after sports. I’ve been to run a marathon in Germany, and there you get slapped with a sloppy beer right after the run, says Lehtinen.

In 2015, a master’s thesis was published at the University of Jyväskylä, the conclusion of which was that beer, due to its trace element content, is excellent for rehydration after sweaty sports.

Also a journalist Baba Lybeck has said that he drinks non-alcoholic beer after long runs.

Tlonkero is a summer drink

A traditional long drink is a mixed drink that contains water, sugar, gin and grapefruit soda. There are also mango, juniper berry and peach flavored tentacles on the market.

The consumption of the leafy mug tentacle increases at the same rate as the temperatures rise.

– Lonkero is a summer drink because it is usually drunk with ice.

Due to the fresh taste of lonkero, it is well suited as an intermediate drink for e.g. beer tastings or restaurant dinners between different courses.

Lonkero has a soft drink-like taste based on a combination of tartness and sweetness. Because of this, according to Lehtinen, tentacles belong in the same category as soft drinks or cocktails in terms of their taste profile.

Tentacles and salt go well together

The tentacle is also suitable as a food drink.

– Lonkero has the same sweetness as citrus soft drinks and Coca-Cola, and it goes well with highly salted foods such as pizza. Tentacles are alcoholic drinks, so of course the rate of drinking is different than soft drinks.

In the heat, the tentacle can be used to make granita, i.e. an icy sorbet-like dessert.

– Put the tentacle in a plastic bowl in the cold, break the surface from time to time, and the drink will become ice cold. You can offer it in cocktail glasses or on the rocks glasses, for example.

Tentacle is also available in alcohol-free form. In terms of nutritional values, tentacles are comparable to soft drinks, and it has no health effects.