Utepils

A Norwegian (Scandinavian in general?) concept that I haven't been able to find a good English expression for. Literally, it means "outdoors beer" or "outdoors lager". An utepils is the action of sitting outside in the sun with a glass of beer (or other alcoholic beverage). Note that nice weather is optional, but is still a big part of the niceness of the utepils.

With such cold weather as can be found in Norway, the year's first utepils is a very important one, and is usually enjoyed around May 1. Among the most competitive young males, having the earliest utepils is a very important thing.

In Denmark we use a similar word, at least around where I live, "Havebajer", meaning "Gardenbeer".

It is common in beer-drinking nations, such as most of Scandinavia, Germany and the UK, to have lots of strange words for specific beer-traditions.

Others are the "Morgenbajer" (Morningbeer - compare to German "Frühtrunk", early drink), "Fyraftensbajer" (Closing time beer) and the classic "Reparationsbajer" (Repair-beer, what you drink the next morning to wake up).

As a side-note, the word bajer is a transliteration of the German "bayerish", meaning Bavarian. The pils mentioned in Sverre's writeup comes from Pilzener, meaning from or of a part of the Czech Republic called Pilzen.

Audited October 6, 2001