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A Guide To All Those Icelandic Yule Brews
Encouraged by the hoopla around the annual Tuborg Julebryg release, brewers all over have long since started crafting special seasonal Christmas brews to boost their sales. Traditionally, Christmas beers are slightly darker, richer in taste (more malt, spices, caramel), and feature higher…
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Beer Connoisseur’s Guide To Icelandic Beer
You have probably read somewhere that Icelandic authorities banned beer for very, very many years, until 1989. But true freedom of beer did not really begin until 2005, when Iceland’s first craft brewery was established on a remote farm in North Iceland.…
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Six Years Ago
Hooray! We turned ten this year. For a humble street rag like Grapevine, turning ten is a pretty big deal—we barely expected to make it to ten issues (and, indeed, all of our contemporaries from the Reykjavík’s street rag market have long…
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Year In Sports
2012 was a great year for Icelandic sports. It might even have been the best one yet, although such a comparison is difficult for many reasons. But lets take a look at what made 2012 special. Icelandic basketball returned to something resembling…
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Farewell Jóhanna
Iceland’s incumbent Prime Minister and longest serving active Member of Parliament Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir announced her retirement from politics at the end of September. In a letter to members of her party, The Social Democratic Alliance, she said she would not seek re-election…
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The Impossible Feat
Director Baltasar Kormákur is to Icelandic film what Sigur Rós is to Icelandic music. After successfully making the Hollywood box-office hit ‘Contraband,’ starring Mark Wahlberg and Giovanni Ribisi, Baltasar has returned to Iceland with the docudrama ‘The Deep,’ the story of Guðlaugur…
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THREE NOTEWORTHY REYKJAVÍK STATUES
I appreciate a good statue more than most people. This may be because of my background as a stonemason. I have more than a rudimentary understanding of what it takes to reveal the form that resides within a block of stone, or…
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Iceland Airwaves Warm-Up
For years, the staff of the Iceland Airwaves festival has worked tirelessly to promote the festival abroad as an exciting option for a weekend get-away destination for young people on both sides of the Atlantic. As a part of this effort, Iceland…
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Examining the Start-Up Culture
Sesselja Vilhjálmsdóttir and Valgerður Halldórsdóttir are two young successful entrepreneurs, currently in the midst of making a film about their own kind: young successful entrepreneurs. “We are very interested in the start-up culture and young entrepreneurs and we have been following this…
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Gender Rule Statistics
The chart above demonstrates changes between years for ministers in the Icelandic government by gender. As you can see, the late seventies was the age of man. But since 1980, the gender difference is gradually decreasing. Albeit, yes … gradually. Very gradually.…
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Look Who’s Back!
Due to a series of unfortunate circumstances, I have been called upon in this hour of need to briefly (and somewhat triumphantly) edit this issue of the Reykjavik Grapevine. It has been a pleasure to return to my old post as editor of the Grapevine,…
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Jonsí is Way Out West
It is closing in on midnight in Slottskogen in Gothenburg and singer M.I.A. is the last act to take the big stage on a Friday night for the Way Out West music festival. Between her head-splitting bass and cocksure delivery, her dancing…
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Here Come The Creatives
Reconstructing the Icelandic economy will take more than increased fishing quotas. More than a new aluminium smelter. It will require a new way of thinking. In a downtown office loft, the staff of Caoz is immersed in the making of ‘Thor: The…
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Obscura Day: Celebrating the Obscure
Joshua Foer has made a name for himself as a freelance science journalist for various publications such as Slate.com, New York Times and the Washington Post. He is also the author of the forthcoming Moonwalking with Einstein, which documents his journey from…
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Your Last Chance To Go Skiing
The Icelandic ski season is surprisingly short, and we sure as hell haven’t managed to produce the same number of top skiers as our neighbouring countries. There is still a proud skiing tradition in Iceland. Icelandic ski resorts usually open during winter,…
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The View From Afar
It has been six months since I upped and left. Six months since I said: “Hell no! I won’t be a part of this,” and packed my bags to start over somewhere else. Call me a quitter. I don’t really care. I…
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The Angry Sex Election
Here are my thoughts on the recent parliamentary election in Iceland. … … … That’s it. That was the totality of my formed opinion on the recent democratic process this country just experienced. It’s not that I haven’t thought about…
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Slaughterhouse: A Culture Center – The Peregrinations Of A Grapevine Photographer And A Journalist In Egilsstaðir
It is midday when a Grapevine photographer and journalist get on board a plane heading to Egilsstaðir on the east coast of Iceland. The day’s objective is a simple one. To visit the cultural centre Sláturhúsið (Slaughterhouse) and take part in the…
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It’s the Innovation. Stupid!
Hjálmar Gíslason is a computer programmer who has launched four start-up companies in the last 11 years, and some of them have even been successful. He has been outspoken about the need to change the prevailing policy in Iceland when it comes…
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A little Shop of Ink
In 2006, Össur Hafþórsson’s interest in tattoos led him to organise the first Icelandic Tattoo Convention. After the third successful instalment of the Convention, Össur decided that a yearly festival was not enough to infuse the Icelandic tattoo scene with international influence,…
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Skrúður
Julefrukost, or Christmas buffet, is an old Scandinavian Christmas tradition that has grown very popular in Iceland in recent decades. In the old days, before Christmas became a celebration of consumerism, the extended family would gather to feast on every conceivable (or…
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Involuntary treason
Páll Skúlason is professor of philosophy at the University of Iceland, and former Rector at the same institution. A Grapevine reporter sat down with Páll to discuss the philosophical sides of the current economic crisis, and to investigate if the current economic…
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Einar Ben
The restaurant Einar Ben is named after one of Iceland’s national heroes, the early 20th century poet and entrepreneur Einar Benediktsson, who once lived in the house where the restaurant is now located, and ran the first Icelandic newspaper and later a…
