Drunken sailor

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was recently in Barcelona for the Primavera Sound festival. Though I've never considered myself a nautical type, we ended up staying on a (moored) boat because it was cheap and extremely convenient for the festival. The purpose of the trip wasn't beer, and it wasn't a wander by day, booze by night holiday either. Still, I did get a chance to stock up at BeerStore, a bottle shop I'd highly recommend - its well stocked in general, but heavily promotes local beer. Each evening, I sat on the deck with a couple of bottles, enjoying the last of the sun before heading out to the festival and its plastic cups of rancid Heineken. Here's what I thought of those beers.

Guineu - IPA Amarillo

On a previous trip to Spain, I was really impressed by a double IPA Guineu brewed in collaboration with the Bavarian BrauKunstKeller. On the strength of that, I opted for two of their IPAs from the bulging Beer Store shelves. This one is resolutely old school in approach – British IPAs seem to have become paler and paler over the past few years, but this pours an attractive hazy red-gold, with a thick, tight white head. Peach and orange aromas jump out immediately, with lots of peach carrying into the flavour along with apricot and some grapefruit. There’s a savoury element to the beer which almost recalls tomato (possibly a characteristic of some of the darker malts? I often get the same thing in red ales) which sounds weird but does kind of work, and the finish is notably bitter but not excessively so. It reminds me of the IPAs doing the rounds when I first fell in love the style – not-so-pale, not afraid to bump up the IBUs – and it definitely still hits the spot.

Guineu - WIPA (Wheat India Pale Ale)

I was hoping for something like a white IPA, my current favourite pseudo-style, from this, but it doesn’t have any of the estery or phenolic flavours of either a Belgian wit or a German weisse beer, seemingly brewed with a standard ale yeast with wheat mainly contributing some extra body.  There’s a sweet-ish candy sugar thing going on which, along with the hops, presents as a summery stone fruit character before a long, bitter finish. It’s kind of non-descript and a little disappointing given the label’s reference to dry-hopping – it doesn’t have that juicy, amped up hop flavour and aroma you’d expect, possibly because the malty sweetness refuses to let the hops sing.

Edge - Apassionada

The motivation stated on this beer’s label is refreshment in sticky Barcelona weather, and in that respect, Apassionada absolutely knocks it out of the park. A passion fruit beer in the generic ‘sour’ category, its flavour is incredibly vibrant and has all of the freshness and complexity of the fruit itself. A restrained honey sweetness, a floral note, rich tropical juiciness and a light tart finish. It’s deftly managed - any sweeter and you could almost believe you were drinking a can of Rio rather than a beer, any more acidic and it would become hard work – and extremely accomplished.

BeerCat - La Masia

How could I resist that branding? And the BrewDog-aping isn’t the only British influence on this beer. Described as an English-style bitter on the back of the label and table beer on the front, it has a super-pale malt base (100% Marris Otter) and a big, juicy hop character in an otherwise relatively small beer. I could be wrong, but I’d wager that this is modelled on The Kernel’s majestic Table Beer. The aroma is beautiful, a big burst of sherbet, and in the mouth there are tangerines and grapefruits and something almost herbal or botanical which recalls gin. For one of the lowest-ABV beers on the shelf, this is packing a huge amount of hop flavour and was undoubtedly the best beer of the whole trip.

Barcelona Beer Company - La Niña Barbuda

One of a healthy number of brown ales on offer, La Nina Barbuda pours a translucent cola-brown with a tight off-white head. There’s wholemeal bread and boozy Christmas pudding on the nose, and the flavour is exactly what I want from a modern brown ale – cola, cereal, savoury cereals and the peach and clementine flavours characteristic of a meeting between New World hops and darker malts. Its drawback is its pointlessly high 7% ABV – some mouthfuls have a kind of boozy spikiness which just clashes with the otherwise smooth flavours. Knock this down to 5% and you’d have an excellent brown ale.

Zula - Hoppala!

I was drawn in by the beautiful label on this beer – not the best way to choose, but faced with hundreds of bottles from unfamiliar breweries, what else do you have to go on? This is just one of the reasons why beer branding is important. This is far, far darker than I’d like an IPA, veering towards amber ale territory. The malt brings a kind of caramel and candy floss foundation for a smooth mango hop character before a slightly spicy and bitter finish. There’s great promise here -that tropical hop flavour is gorgeous, but I’d suggest lighter malt character would accentuate it a little further.

Having recently re-read this old post from Mark Dredge on the 'pale and hoppy' cask ale, a style that's remained prominent in the UK, I started to ponder my reservations with the malt character of a couple of these beers. Many modern British breweries favour a very pale malt base, at least in beers which prominently showcase American and Southern Hemisphere hops - consider the Juicy Banger and the latest breed of  IPAs favouring ever-later hop additions and geared towards massive, booming hop aroma and flavour (the Cloudwater DIPA and BrewDog Born to Die series spring to mind here). It's telling that the beer I most enjoyed was the BeerCat, which acknowledges a British influence - I like beers like this, and they're also what I've become used to drinking. I hope this doesn't come across as a suggestion that this is what beer should be like - I'm just stating a preference.

Cat Bar, Barcelona

Hot on the heels of my recent trip to Valencia, last week I was back in Spain. This time Barcelona was the destination and, since we were there for the Primavera Sound music festival, there was considerably less time available for beery pursuits. I didn't even scratch the surface of what seems like an interesting beer city, but on the first night before the festival properly kicked off, we stumbled across Cat Bar. We found it whilst researching vegetarian-friendly restaurant options, and I jumped at the chance to check out a bar with a fully vegan kitchen and a broad range of Spanish craft beer.

It’s a fun place - cramped and candlelit, all mismatched furniture and low ceilings, just on the right side of the bohemian/divey spectrum. The burgers we ate were fantastic, and even if the dominant accents around the tables were British and American, the draught beer is heavily skewed towards the local. I drank the Powerplant saison from Barcelona’s own Edge brewery, which was sadly drastically under-attenuated and under-carbonated and should be approached as a faintly phenolic pale ale to avoid disappointment. There are some nice lemon and lime flavours, with just a hint of juniper and pepper. It stood up well to a big, bready burger and patatas bravas with lots of paprika, which is high praise.

Also from Edge was Padrino Porter, a beer with a rich, decadent chocolatey malt depth that suits after-dinner drinking. There’s a certain earthy, Shredded Wheat hop character (East Kent Goldings?), but also a hint of New World fruitiness before a light bitter finish. It’s a little thin bodied for the style, but was also served at a temperature that suits the close Barcelona evening which makes this less of an issue. I'm rarely so refreshed by a dark beer.

Paying my tab on the way out, I decided to take advantage of the pub’s CAMRA discount, more for the novelty value than the 60c it saved me – I always forget about it and so have never used it at home, and I like the idea of doing so in Spain at a bar serving precisely no cask beer. I'd guess that not many people redeem this generous offer as it completely baffled the bar staff. The British ex-pat proprietor seemed delighted to oblige, though - he explained that there's only one bar in Barcelona that sells cask, as few bars have cellars and the climate means that a cask goes off almost instantly. He did reassure me that all his beer was KeyKeg - "beer in a bag!"

I also stocked up at Beer Store, a great bottle shop recommended to me by Joan at Birraire, via Steve at Beers I’ve Known – thanks guys! Since all conventional accommodation in the immediate vicinity of the Primavera site books up within minutes of tickets going on sale, we ended up staying on a boat in a nearby port. Heineken is the only beer available at the festival, so I established a routine of sampling the wares of Barcelona’s craft breweries on the deck before consigning myself to the Dutch fizz. A separate post detailing those nautical brews will follow soon.

La cerveza artesanal en Valencia

When I visited Seville last year, I drank some very fine Spanish beer. Spain’s beer culture is young, and this is particularly true in Seville; Ratebeer now lists four breweries or brewpubs within the city, but at that time there were just two. Valencia is the larger, hipper and more cosmopolitan of the two cities and beer culture here is far more established, with a handful of local breweries and a fine choice of bars and pubs. You’re likely to simply stumble upon good beer in this town, where bottle shops and brewpubs mingle with tourist attractions in the city centre and restaurants may include ‘cerveza artisanal Valenciana’ sections on their drinks menus.

Birra & Blues is probably the most visible beer spot in Valencia, located in the heart of the old town just moments away from the central indoor market. Though it looks like the beer is brewed in a different premises, the bar is very much in the vein of a US brewpub – clean and bright, family friendly, and doing a good trade in tapas and coffee as well as beer. Indoor seating was, as far as I could see, fairly limited, but it’s a great place to stop by for an al fresco afternoon beer whilst wandering around the city centre.

La Negra, their brown ale is very good despite some problematic branding. It’s full of cocoa, raisins and dates, with a faint suggestion of coffee and some peach-skin earthiness before a finish which is ‘nutty’ in that it recalls the dry, bitter sensation of biting into a nut. John Lee Blues, a dry-hopped amber ale, has a strong candy sugar character along with some caramel, and just enough savoury toasted cereal notes to reign in the sweetness. The hop profile brings peaches, apricots  and mango and there’s a gentle bitter finish. Sadly only available in bottles, Black Blues Abbey is their interpretation of the Belgian abbey style, which is a strange experience – initially bland, it then becomes dry and quenching before a very late and very big burst of flavour. There’s blackberry, blackcurrant and cola along with a little phenolic bubblegum, and finally some gentle roast and ash. It’s not much like any Belgian beer I’ve tasted, but it’s an accomplished and interesting beer with complexity far beyond its modest 5.4% ABV.

The aforementioned Mercat Central also houses Las Cervezas del Mercado, a bottle shop which is astonishingly well stocked given its limited space - pick up some Spanish beers along with your smoked paprika, saffron and delicious juicy oranges. On the other side of the old town is the bizarrely named Beers and Travels – the shop is very much geared towards the beer side of things, though their website suggests they do book beery trips too. Here I picked out CCCP, a classic session IPA from local brewery Tyris, which is beautifully dry and full of pine and citrus zest – the sort of IPA that’s becoming unfashionable in this era of ever-later dry hopping and rapidly receding bitterness, but still holds a lot of charm in the afternoon sun. 

In the younger, more bohemian environment of Ruzafa is Olhöps, an achingly hip craft beer bar decked out in a Scandinavian minimalist style that reminds me of restaurants in modern art galleries. The likes of Mikkeller and Brew By Numbers are on tap alongside the Spanish beers, and there’s a small but tastefully curated selection of bottles to take away. Here I go for Zeta Hell, a lager from Valencia’s Zeta brewery, which is a delight – clean and full bodied with plenty of quenching carbonation and a spicy edge. Like Birra & Blues’ brown ale, Paqui Brown – the name puns on Jackie Brown with the nickname of a Valencian footballer - from Tyris also has questionable branding. It’s questionable in other ways, too – so pale that I can’t believe I’ve been served the right beer. Wondering whether the wrong keg has been attached to the tap, I enjoy the caramel-coloured beer anyway – approached as an amber ale, it has a pleasant peach and sherbet hop character over a smooth caramel malt backbone.

At the nearby Valencia on Tap, the mystery is solved. As the owner talks me through the beers on tap, he comes to Paqui Brown, explaining – “it’s a brown ale – well, they call it a brown ale, really its amber.” This place has a lot more in common with the unfussy locals bars you see everywhere in Spain, but with ten taps of great beer from the likes of Founders and Hitachino Nest in place of the solitary condensation-soaked Estrella Galicia font. Despite the name, the beers go beyond the strictly local – I try Achtung! Imperial Porter, a collaboration between Yria , from Noblejas in the Toledo province and the Bavarian Hanscraft & Co. which appears to have been brewed at Domus in Toledo. This is a beer of great complexity – earthy and slightly tart, it’s full of black cherries and dark berries, with a dryness that recalls cocoa powder before some dusty, musty barnyard flavours round it out. Garage IPA from Barcelona’s Espiga is a glorious burst of lemon peel, pine needles and herbs – there’s a particular zingy citrus flavour here which I also find in Beavertown’s Neck Oil and certain BrewDog beers – Simcoe, perhaps? The body is full, even verging towards creamy, and extremely satisfying.

My overall impression of Valencia suggests a beer culture that's catching up to where are in the UK in terms of visibility. The likes of Mahou may still dominate, but a focus on local and artisan produce in general benefits beer - you can, for example, fill growlers with Tyris pale ale at the central branch of El Court Ingles. Not all the beers were hugely exciting, but I certainly encountered nothing rough, amateurish or marred with off-flavours. Valencia may be some way off becoming a beer destination, but for a holiday of exploring by day and boozing by night, I'd highly recommend it.

Spanish beer haul pt.2; Lupulópolis

The following beers were purchased at Lupulópolis in Seville.

Espiga Elixir Vitae Black IPA (Barcelona)

A very lively pour from this bottle, with deep black beer foaming insistently into the glass and settling into a thick, lasting beige head. The aroma is richly savoury, an intense nose full of toasted malt, and the first sip is satisfyingly full bodied with a beautiful viscous mouthfeel. The trio of US hops (Amarillo, Simcoe and Cascade) bring bitterness, but not a huge amount of juicy fruit flavour, which is fine by me as they never threaten to step on that malt backbone. There’s a slight tonic-like tang in the finish, which only encourages you to go back for more, and the beer’s 8.5% ABV reveals itself in a lasting boozy warmth. It’s subtle for a black IPA, but it’s a well-made beer all the same.

Kettal El Yunque Porter (Los Barrios)

A mid-strength porter although, amusingly, it says 4.8% on the front label and 5.6% on the back. The aroma is weak, with a hint of the tart, malt vinegar tang I associate with Harvey’s beers, and which is never inviting even if the beer is good once you taste it. Yunque has some very unusual flavours going on; I don’t get the usual treacle or coffee, with the roasted malt flavour taking a bit of a back seat whilst hazelnuts and big vanilla dominate. It tastes good, but I’ve never had a porter quite like it, and it’s not really what I’m looking for from the style.

Cárdenas Stout (Dos Hermanas)

This is the most local of all the bottled beers I picked up in Seville, brewed in Dos Hermanas just 15km outside the city. It’s an inauspicious start, as unfortunately there’s a lot of floating sediment in the glass, though the bottle has remained upright and I poured slowly. Even worse, the aroma is positively pungent, and not in a pleasant way. I don’t mean to be harsh, but it really does smell like a well-used chemical toilet, with a note of toothpaste in the background. I almost don’t want to taste it, though it’s not terrible when I do – just very, very strange. The roasted malt flavours are in the background, and the most prominent flavour is mint. As with the Kettal porter, it’s not that it tastes awful, it just isn’t anything like a stout should be. Compared to some of the other Spanish beers I’ve tried alongside it, this is, sadly pretty unaccomplished brewing.

Cervezas Guinea Pigs! Hopvana Continuously Hopped IPA (Madrid/Toledo)

I don’t mind admitting that I selected this beer from the fridge based mainly on the wacky label and the fact that I love guinea pigs. Words cannot describe the joy this label brings me; I want a print of it on my wall, I want it on a T-shirt. Anyway,  Guinea Pigs! is based in Madrid, but works as a contract brewer, and Hopvana was brewed at Domus in Toledo. Whilst it’s a broadly American-style IPA, some interesting and creative decisions have been made here; for example, the hop bill mixes German Herkules and Saphir with Australian Summer, with Cascade being the only US hop included. The beer’s unusually dark colour can be attributed to the inclusion of chocolate malt alongside pale ale and crystal. The resulting flavour is both familiar and surprising at the same time; mango and sweet oranges, pink grapefruit and candy floss, balanced by a solid malt profile. I may have chosen it for dubious reasons, but Hopvana was nevertheless a fine choice!

Guineu/BrauKunstKeller Collabrew Double IPA (Barcelona/Michelstadt, Germany)

Guineu is the only Spanish microbrewery I’d heard of before this trip, and this double IPA is a collaboration with BraunKunstKeller, a German craft brewery. Whilst there are obviously exceptions, the thought of double IPAs sometimes makes me wince, because they’re just too much for me; too bitter, too strong, too demanding. This is not the case here, as the juicy fruit flavour is prominent, but without lip-puckering bitterness, and with a solid malt framework, too. The hops are a mixture of European varieties – Mandarina Bavaria and Hull Melon from Germany – in the kettle, and US – Mosaic and Citra – for dry hopping. It’s full of mango, papaya and pineapple, but built on a  foundation of crisp malt which I’d like to imagine is the German influence. It’s excellent.

Domus Super Aurea Double IPA (Toledo)

Not knowing any of the breweries on offer, I had to make my selections in the bottle shop on very limited data. So I figured, go for the beer with the personified cartoon hop on the label, and you can expect something really hoppy, right? Well, kind of. Take a sip and wait for that lupulin hit, and you’ll be disappointed, because the bitterness in this beer is surprisingly low. Nevertheless, it’s very flavoursome and fruity, with lots of juicy papaya and ripe white grapes. It hides its 9% strength very well, with light carbonation and a modest body that demands another gulp. It’s not at all what I expected, and I can imagine some people being really disappointed by it (the handful of reviews it has on Ratebeer are lukewarm at best, for example) but I loved it.

***

It would be arrogant of me to make any broad claims to know Spanish craft beer based on the beers I've tasted in these posts; the generously stacked shelves in Lupulópolis are testament to the fact that I've barely scratched the surface of a rapidly growing scene. This is all the more remarkable when you consider that Spain, as far as I'm aware, doesn't have much of an indigenous beer tradition.The best beers I sampled are good enough to compete with the best beers coming out of the UK and the rest of Europe, and the ones that weren't so good are hopefully examples from brewers still on a learning curve. I'll happily take a light lager in an ice-encrusted glass from time to time, but on future holidays in Spain, it's great to know that proper beer is out there waiting to be discovered.

Spanish beer haul pt.1 ; El Court Inglés

The Spanish department store, El Corte Inglés, stocks a small range of craft beer. The beers featured here are a selection from across the country, and were purchased from the store in the centre of Seville.

Cervesa del Montseny Luplus (Sant Miquel de Balenya, Valencia)

Though brewed with pilsner malt and possessing all of the defining features of a lager, Lupulus is actually top fermented. The motivation is, apparently, a reconnection with the brewing traditions of the Iberians of the Bronze and Neolithic ages. I wouldn’t know much about that, but the beer is surprisingly modern in style, with a flavour profile reminiscent of Camden Pils; clean, crisp and refreshing like a pilsner, but packed with fruity hop flavour. The complex hop bill includes Cascade, Fuggles, Nugget, Styrian Celeia and Target, though the US varieties dominate with juicy mango and mandarin flavours. I’m always partial to beers that combine the refreshment and citrus bite of a pilsner with the moreish complexity of hoppy pale ales, and found this one particularly enjoyable. Accomplished, inventive brewing, and an auspicious start to my exploration of Spanish craft beer.

Cerveza Artesanal de XativaEr Boquerón (Xativa, Valencia)

Though I suspected a gimmick, I couldn’t help but satisfy my curiosity for a beer brewed with sea water. It’s unfiltered and unpasteurised, but even by these standards, the pour is very murky, and the yeast aroma incredibly pungent. I’m expecting it to be undrinkable based on the smell, but it’s a pleasant surprise, full of smooth, subtle yeast flavours reminiscent of wit beer, with notes of pressed apple juice, pineapple and raspberry, and satisfyingly full-bodied. Though you can’t help but search for it, no salt is detectable, though a certain aftertaste does leave you feeling like you’ve recently returned from a walk on the beach. I ended up really enjoying this, despite having bought it principally for the weirdness.

Sagra IPA (Toledo)

Yes, that’s Sagra, not Sagres – there’s no connection to the ubiquitous Portugese lager, despite branding so incredibly similar that I’m not sure how they’re getting away with it. This is the only Spanish IPA on offer on the El Corte Inglés shelves, and I’m immediately sceptical when I get a nose of the beer; it’s dominated by malt, mostly cereals, with no discernible hop aroma. There is a hop presence in the taste, but the overall flavour is cloyingly sweet malt. The bitterness is there in the finish, but the taste of the hops lacks a punch. It’s reminiscent of an English IPA – say, Bengal Lancer – but, although it’s far less robust in flavour, the ABV is 7.2%, which adds nothing but sickly booziness and ruins the beer.

La Cibeles Rubia (Madrid)

A pale ale, which pours a hazy blonde with an appealing rocky white head. The taste is immediately quite underwhelming, if actually quite pleasant in its subtlety and easy drinking. There’s a little toffee with a strong mineral tang and, weirdly, the closest comparison I can make is the non-alcoholic version of Erdinger. The brewery’s website tells me they use Cascade hops here, but very little hop profile is apparent in my bottle. It’s fine, but not full of character.

Antara (Foios/Venta del Moro)

Antara appears to be the creation of a Valencian organic food company, Terra I Xufa, based in Foios, and is brewed at Fernández Ponz in Venta del Moro. It’s by far the best presented beer of the selection, with a minimal white and gold label that reminds me of Wiper and True’s classy branding. This only makes the strange mess of a beer inside the bottle all the more surprising. It pours an unappealing golden brown, like the colour of apple left out too long and oxidised. The aroma is floral, with perfume and strawberries. A chalky mineral flavour leads to an intense and unpleasant bitterness; it’s not a hoppy bitterness, though – it’s more medicinal, like an alka seltzer. Once this fades, the remaining flavour is a little ‘off’ – ‘barnyard’ might be the kindest way to describe it, but it tastes more dirty to me, especially with the smoky finish that’s closer to cigarette ash than it is to rauchbier. This is one to avoid.

Tor Quemada 25 (Palencia)

This beer is billed as a pale ale, and so I was a little alarmed to discover that it was bottled around a year ago, as the hop flavours I’m hoping for will have lost most of their punch in the meantime. Thankfully, this stretch in the bottle seems to have only improved the beer’s character, as, whilst it is technically and ale which is pale, it’s closer to a Belgian golden ale. Though it doesn’t quite reach the same heights, 25’s closest relative is Orval (small complaint as Orval is one of the best beers in the world), though the lactic tang here is sharper. It pours a dirty blonde colour with a big, lively, fluffy head. The aroma is sour apples counteracted by sweet pear drops, and the first sip is full of those tart apples amongst a bold yeast presence. The finish is very dry and moreish, accentuated further by brisk carbonation. It’s absolutely not to style, but it’s a very good beer nevertheless.

Burro de Sancho Roja (Toledo)

The Burro de Sancho range immediately caught my eye, as their labels quite flagrantly rip off Brewdog’s style prior to their recent rebrand. Closer inspection reveals that Burro de Sancho is a subsidiary of the Sagra brewery who, evidently, have previous in their blatant “inspiration” from other breweries’ branding. This is the first filtered beer of the bunch, and pours a clear amber with a quickly receding head. The initial aroma is a quite frightening combination of bitter chocolate and tomato. A little bitter chocolate flavour is apparent, too, along with some toast. There’s a spicy, very savoury quality here, and what little hop flavour is detectable tastes stewed. I find this is not uncommon amongst red ales, but I don’t find it very pleasant, and can’t recommend this beer overall.

The beers I bought from Lupulópolis, a more exciting place to buy beer in Seville, will follow in another post soon.