God bless America and God bless beer.
Last Wednesday, October 17th, 6,000-7,000 American troops landed on Iceland for joint training exercises with other NATO forces. This is the largest NATO training exercise since 2015 and officialy started on Thursday, October 25th and will last through November 23.
But, before their actual mission began, American troops decided they would partake in some good ol' fashion drinking in the nation's capital. In just two short days, bars across Reykjavík had to go into emergency mode as their beer supply simply could not keep up with the copious amounts of drinking that the American forces completed.
According to press reports, "several bars in downtown Reykjavík ran out of beer while serving thirsty US sailors." Other bars, were forced to break into their emergency supplies:
The local news site Vísir reports that the brewery Ölgerð Egils Skallagrímssonar, which makes the popular Gull, had to send out emergency supplies to the bars. According to the sources of Vísir, the soldiers preferred local beers over imports and were very willing to sample different microbrews as well as the more popular standard lagers.
The local blogger Eiríkur Jónsson spoke to restaurateurs who said they had never experienced a similar situation. Bar owners who ran out of beer tried to solve the issue by borrowing from bars which were better stocked, whilemembers of the delivery team from Ölgerðin were called out to help the bar owners cope, but “they were fighting an overwhelming force,” as Eiríkur puts it.
To the men and women who completed this task, thanks for your service and best of luck in the training exercise. We'll have some beer waiting for you when you get back to the States
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