Saunaolut: the sauna beer, and where it belongs in the cycle

There is a specific kind of quiet on a Finnish cottage porch in July: you have just come out of the last round, the lake is flat, the mosquitoes have not found you yet, and someone hands you a beer that has been sitting in the lake since dinner. That is saunaolut. It is a real tradition, and it is also the one thing in sauna culture that the safety research is unambiguous about, so it deserves a careful post.

The short answer: saunaolut is one cold beer on the porch after the last round, never in the hot room and never between rounds. Drink water and cool down first. Finnish forensic data found alcohol involved in about half of all sauna deaths, so the order matters more than the beer.

What the tradition is

Saunaolut, literally sauna beer, is the drink after the sauna, not during it. Most Finns keep it simple: a lager, sometimes a long drink (lonkero, gin and grapefruit soda, a Finnish institution in its own right), occasionally a sahti, the old farmhouse ale flavoured with juniper, if someone has brewed one. It is drunk on the porch, by the water, wrapped in a towel, while the body is still warm and the evening is cooling down.

It goes with the rest of the ritual. Sauna at the cottage is a slow thing, an hour or two on a summer evening, and the beer marks the end of it. It is not really about the beer. It is about sitting still, being done, and having nowhere to be.

Japan has its own version. サウナ後のビール is a phrase everyone understands, and the sauna-specific drink is オロポ, Oronamin C mixed with Pocari Sweat, which tells you something about the two cultures: one reaches for a lager, the other for electrolytes and vitamin C. Both are drunk in the same chair, in the same state of mind.

Is it safe to drink beer after a sauna?

You come out of the last round dehydrated, with your blood vessels wide open and your heart rate elevated. Alcohol does nothing helpful to that state.

A review in the American Journal of Medicine lists what alcohol during sauna bathing raises the risk of: hypotension, arrhythmia, and sudden death. It also affects balance, judgment, and hydration after heat exposure. Heart-rate responses vary, and a Furolog chart cannot identify alcohol as the cause of a particular pattern.

Finnish forensic research is clear about the scale. A study of sauna deaths in Finland from 1990 to 2002 found that about half of the people who died had been drinking, and the authors' prevention advice came down to two things: drink less, and never leave a drunk bather alone in the sauna. The full list of who should be careful is in who should skip the sauna.

How to keep the beer

None of that means the tradition is wrong. It means the order matters.

• Water first. Drink water between rounds and a full glass after the last one. Rehydrate before you do anything else.
• Cool down first. Wait until you are out of the heat, sitting, and your heart rate has come back toward resting. Furolog's recovery confirmation, the point where you drop below 50% of heart rate reserve, is a reasonable marker. Beer after that, not before.
• After the last round, not between rounds. A beer and then another round is the version that causes the problems. If you are going back in, it is not time yet.
• One. The tradition is one beer on the porch. The version with six is a different tradition and it ends worse.
• Not in the sauna. Alcohol raises the risk of falls, overheating, and loss of consciousness in a hot room.
• Not before a cold plunge. Cold shock with alcohol in your blood is the sharpest cardiovascular event in the whole cycle. If you want to go back in the lake, do it before the beer.

The non-alcoholic sauna beer

Finland's breweries have noticed that a lot of people want the ritual without the alcohol, and non-alcoholic lagers are now as much a part of the cottage fridge as the regular ones. They deliver everything saunaolut is actually about: cold, bitter, on the porch, at the end. Your heart rate chart the next morning will look better, and nobody on the porch will notice the difference.

The Japanese answer, オロポ, is arguably the more rational drink: it replaces what you sweated out. A Finn will still hand you a beer. Take it, drink the water first, and sit down.

What it looks like in Furolog

A session with the beer in the right place, after the last round, once you have cooled down, looks like any other good session: the climbs, the drops in the cold water, and a recovery curve that slides back to resting within half an hour. A session with the beer in the wrong place, between rounds, shows the second and third climbs starting higher and the final recovery stalling. If you ever wondered whether the beer was affecting you, the chart will tell you.

Read next: Who should skip the sauna · Vihta: the birch whisk in the sauna · Finnish sauna terms

Sources

• Kenttämies A, Karkola K. "Death in sauna." J Forensic Sci. 2008;53(3):724-729.
• Hannuksela ML, Ellahham S. "Benefits and risks of sauna bathing." Am J Med. 2001;110(2):118-126.

Quick answer

• Saunaolut: one cold beer on the porch after the last round. A real tradition, and a good one.
• The risk: alcohol plus heat raises the risk of low blood pressure, arrhythmia, and dehydration. About half of Finnish sauna deaths involve drinking.
• The order: water, cool down, then beer. Never in the hot room, never before another round or a cold plunge.
• The alternative: non-alcoholic lager, or the Japanese オロポ. Same chair, same state of mind.