FAROE FRIDAY: TROUBLE BREWING

This week's Faroe Friday post is all about beer. Well, kind of.

As I'm sure you all know, there is but one brewery on the Faroes, and they make Föroya Bjór, which I'm pretty sure literally means "Faroese Beer." This week, a member of the Faroese parliament introduced a bill that would allow the brewery to make a beer with more than 5.8% alcohol.

I'll be honest, I don't have a lot of experience with beer (none, as a matter of fact), so I had to do a little poking around the Internet to see if 5.8% was really all that much alcohol to begin with. What I've learned is that they measure alcohol in two different ways (by weight and by volume) and I can't make heads or tails of the thing. But I'm pretty sure 5.8% is a lot of alcohol by American standards.

So anyway, Föroya Bjór makes a beer that's 5.8% alcohol, and a lawmaker wanted to allow them to brew some stronger stuff.

Apparently, this didn't sit well with members of the "Centre Party." From what I can tell, the term "Centre" may be a bit of a misnomer. I'm told the Centre Party is actually pretty right of center and peopled by evangelical Christians. Something of a brouhaha broke out and names were called and some unwise words may have been spoken. I'm a little sketchy on all the details, so I don't want to be more specific. But suffice it to say, those Centre Party people are very much in favor of weak beer.

So it's unclear if the good folks at Föroya Bjór will be able to make a new brew to help the Faroese stay a little warmer during the fast-approaching winter.

This week's Faroe photo is of Klaksvík, where the country's only brewery is located. The photo was taken by a woman in the Netherlands called Sietse Snel. Sietse's hobby is to visit and photograph buildings before they are demolished. An example of some of that work can be found here.