Days 1-3: Iceland/Ísland

The journey has begun. I arrived in Rejkjavik, Iceland at 06:30 local time and proceeded shortly after with a king's worth of luggage through customs en route to my commuter bus. No sign of any of my 25 bottles of beer damaged in any way (thus far). By the grace of god, I was able to check in at 08:30 and take a short nap before exploring Reykjavik. The scenery on the edge of Reyjkvaik was fairly craggy, rocky, and mossy, but otherwise uninteresting. Reykjavik does feature a lot of modern/minimalist (or whatever the correct term is- feel free to correct me architecture majors, i.e., Kiley and Chris). By that I mean that they have a solid, primary color painted on it with a standard, triangular house frame. There were other examples of the style with cubic-like housing.

I spent a fair amount of time exploring Reykjavik before making my way to Micro Bar, a bar founded by Gæðingur to showcase their beers, as well as other microbrews across Iceland. In Iceland, the macro brewers have a near monopoly on where their beer is sold in Iceland and Reykjavik, making it very hard for startups to get their beer attention. Hopefully, Micro Bar overcomes these issues. I began with their German-style wheat beer, Hveiti, which was a bit too light bodied and somewhat overly citrusy but not hard to drink. I also tried Gæðingur Lager which appeared to still have some issues, despite their claim to have overcome such issues. Gæðingur Pale Ale and Gæðingur Stout were both pretty solid beers. My bartender, Steini, was incredibly friendly and generous. Upon asking about the Christmas beer that Gæðingur brews, he gave me a bottle of their Easter beer, Páskabjór, gratis. I tried a couple of other above average beer at Micro Bar, as well. It really had a local, cafe feel to it with really only locals frequenting it. I did enjoy seeing some young twenty somethings enjoying a wide variety of bottles including Mikkeller Spontankriek, Mikkeller USAlive!, and To Øl Black Ball Porter, among others. I imagine that this establishment will be the beer highlight of Iceland for me.

I forgot to mention that I did stop at Vínbúðin Austurstræti, one of the government run liquor stores in Iceland, and picked up a couple of bottles that I will be opening momentarily. While I began home around 8:00pm, I did stumble upon Íslenski barinn, which is known as one of the better beer bars and restaurants in Reykjavik. I enjoyed two beers here, but it was a tourist haven, so I preceded home pretty quickly. It is now 10:30pm here and light as if it was 3:00pm in Colorado. Hopefully, I can get to bed in due time. Tomorrow will be more sightseeing focused, but be sure to keep up to date with my ratings on RateBeer.

UPDATE: Days 2-3 were mostly filled with touristy stuff, though I did get a small tasting completed in my hotel room featuring several Icelandic macro lagers. Nothing noteworthy and therefore nothing to report.