And Icelandic beer is still pretty lame as a result.[...]
Scandinavian mass-market beer, except for Ringnes, Frydenlund, Tuborg and a few others, is generally fairly dire. The only beer you can buy at a grocery store or other off-licence in Finland or Sweden is the aforementioned 2.25% ABV (known as
lättöl in Sweden, and very popular there); anything stronger has to be bought at Alko (Finland) or Systembolaget (Sweden) (both rather like Virginia ABC stores) or at a restaurant or bar (for on-premises consumption).
And yet...in the mid-1980's the Pripps brewery in Sweden tried marketing
lättöl in the United States, under the brand name 'Nordik [sic] Wolf Light'. Suffice it to say that compared to this brew, Bud Light packs a Dogfish-Head-style punch...it was a flop, and if I recall aright was off the US market within a year.