CoolHead Brew
The most beautiful brewery in Finland
If you want to visit the most beautiful brewery in Finland, drive to Viikki.
CoolHead Brew, a small brewery that has become very popular for its inventive sour beers, moved its production from Tuusula to the former greenhouse of Viikki Gardenia.
In the same space, there is a sales point and a bar for their own products.
Barfix is behind the beer dispensing equipment tailored to Taproom’s needs.
Restaurant manager Samuli Viljanen pours a glass of Sarmakkivadelma sour beer from the tap.
The brewery’s most popular sour is dark red and thick.
The beer’s thickness is explained by the fact that the sour beer brewed by CoolHead Brew has a huge amount of fruit pith.
Each 2,000 litres contains around 200 kilos of pyrethrum, which adds a tart, tart freshness and flavour to the beer.
This also requires a lot from the beer dispensing equipment.
When Taproom opened its doors in spring 2021, the counter was stocked with taps commonly used at festivals.
After a few months of use, the equipment was replaced by Barfix dispensing equipment.
– Even if we clean our beer well, there is always a residue.
The paste clogs the hoses and therefore the beer dispensing equipment has to be of the highest quality.
The Barfix system uses easy-to-wash RST fittings and components that keep the beer lines clean. 
In the previous solution, the kegs were under the counter and with nearly twenty different beers on tap, the kegs took up all the space.
In the Barfix solution, the kegs are on the brewery side.
The beer goes to the counter through hoses installed under the floor.
– We got almost three metres of storage space under the counter and more taps.
The beer tower Barfix designed for us has 24 taps,” says Viljanen.
The microbrewery partner
It is important for small breweries to be able to decide for themselves what is sold in Taproom taps.
Barfix’s dispensing equipment does not involve a tie-in, which is why many small breweries around Finland have chosen Barfix as a partner in addition to CoolHead.
– The customer comes to Taproom to taste our products.
We may have guest products in one tap, but otherwise all our taps have our own drinks.
The saying that purity is half the food also applies to beer.
CoolHead’s selection is always alive and changing, and the lines are washed frequently. 
Deep cleaning, where all parts are removed and cleaned, is also relatively easy,” says Viljanen.
The brewery has a range of around forty beers, of which about half are permanent and the rest variable.
When one runs out, the next one comes in.
– We want to constantly evolve, and the best way to do that is to keep making new things.
All 20 employees of the brewery are involved in the development of the beer, but the owner and founder Cleber Concalves has the final say.
The man who joined Nokia 15 years ago as an engineer has brewed more than 360 different beers so far, and there’s no end to his creativity.
As well as exotic sour beers, the range includes IPAs and lagers.
At the turn of the year, the brewery launched the Barrel project.
Old whisky, bourbon, sherry and wine barrels are used to age beer.
It is not a quick project, and it will take a couple of years before the finished products can be tested.
Until then, it’s worth making a trip to Taproom to sample at least some of those famous sour beers.
