What kind of hellhole is developing? One that’s a little less infernal than last year’s, but uncomfortable nevertheless. It’s a good excuse to drift into the light lane, remember the most important influence on beer history, and enjoy a good German beer. Schneider Weisse is always a name to keep in mind, although not in the same craft category as, say, Ratsherrn or Frau Gruber. The beer is quality, the respect for tradition as well as innovation is present, and damn if that’s not a fine looking bottle!
It certainly looks the part in terms of color and head. It’s slightly cloudy, so definitely weissbier more than regular lager. It has the typical aroma of light German beers, with the grain and grass wafting up like from a Bavarian meadow. I detect a hint of something more sour-citric, a nod to modernity perhaps? Or just the way this weissbier is supposed to be. It’s more bitter and bitier than the aroma would lead you to believe, with that clean kind of bitter you expect from German and Czech beers. There’s lemon zest hiding in the undertones, getting more noticeable as an aftertaste. As much as I love a good black beer, there are times when you have to bow to the mastery of summer friendly weisses.
Who likes an imperial stout on a steamy summer night? Me, of course! You’ll never change my mind. While I’m open to new possibilities, I do like to have a good stout as much as I can, so certain names are go-tos. Laugar is one of those names. But what’s this? Cerberus is not a stout, but a double red ale! Whisky barrel aged at that. Will it measure up to the standards the stouts have set?
It’s more whisky brown, old, old whisky brown, than red, and the spirits (hah) of the harder stuff make themselves known to the nose immediately. Head is fizzy, and quick to disappear. It’s an odd bouncy ball of flavors – rubbery, woody, syrupy and smoky. The beer as a liquid is fairly easy to drink, smooth and only a little sticky. After the first impression, the taste seems to die down a little, becoming less complex and highlighting the woodiness more than the other notes. It probably shouldn’t be a surprise that the texture gets rougher as the beer sits and warms up, but it’s not as throat grabbing as some whisky barrel aged beers can be. On the heavy side for some certainly, given the weather. But I am impressed with Laugar’s flexibility.
In our first full-length episode Ceit and Joanne talk about the uproar among conservative Americans regarding Budweiser’s brief marketing foray with transgender Instagram influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Link.
A week ago it was supposed to rain for days, but that dried up pretty quickly. I picked up a few black beers in anticipation, and now I feel a little bit cheated by the weather. But it’s hardly the first time for that. At least a Double Black IPA has some of the light and dark to fit in with any eventuality. Drunken Bros. has some good ideas, and some damn interesting label designs. It (the name of the beer, not just the pronoun) is one of a series, which can only stimulate the desire to find those beers and drink them too.
It comes out like a porter, dark chocolatey brown and fizzy head, but it has the unmistakable IPA aroma. With concentration you can pick up a little bit of toast, but it’s subtle. The taste starts out like an IPA, bitter but herbal, but it drags a good amount of burned toast behind it. Actually, it’s more like burned pizza crust, with the herbs infiltrating from the sauce. The beer feels light enough, but it leaves a sensation of tickliness after the swallow, like the carbonation has escaped the liquid somehow and decided to lie out on the tongue. The toastiness dies down after a while and a sort of marmalade develops in the flavor. The beer feels smoother and sweeter, oddly a little more like a blend of IPA and porter than at the start.
I have not traveled far and wide to beer fairs and festivals, a little to my chagrin. Well, I don’t like to drive, I don’t like crowds, and I’m not a good trip planner. So much easier to stay close to home – Beermad, La Ruta del Lúpulo, other assorted fairs and fests, there’s no lacking of opportunity in the area. For some reason, this seemed like the year to add Barcelona Beer Festival to the list. It’s supposed to be the biggest in Spain, with the most professional bent, in previous years they had up to 600 beers on the list.
So…it wasn’t quite as big as that. It was a little bigger than the last Beermad, but not too much. The professional area was bigger, but I don’t think there were many more stands and there certainly weren’t more toilets! That seems like poor planning to me. Also, the food just wasn’t as nice as from the food trucks at Beermad, although it was quite a bit cheaper. I was unsurprised to see all the info on the food stands in Catalán, and where there was Spanish it was lower down and a little smaller. They have to make their point. The best thing about BBF was that it was convenient to get to; I came in on the train and walked about 15 minutes down the street. Beermad is always a little bit out of the way for people from out-of-town, and even for people in town sometimes.
I didn’t want to waste time once inside, but I had just had a two hour train ride and a walk in the sun (it was kinda hot that weekend!) so I snapped up the first pick-me-up looking beer I saw, and it was Naparbier. A fruity apricot sour, something that sounded both soothing and like a good opener to more. It’s dark orange, rusty, with some potent alcohol fumes and a coating of old fruit. It really tastes like the liquor part of chocolate liqueurs, with the apricot being on the sour side and only a film of sweet on top. There’s a base of woodiness underneath, what you might expect from a barrel aged beer. I think I almost feel shreds of pulp as I drink, but it’s probably just the intensity of the flavor. It is a thick beer, though. While it starts out refreshing, it gets heavy if you don’t drink it fast, which is a little hard to do with the texture and alcohol feel. It’s a little stronger than I meant to start at, but definitely tasty.
Next I find something a little more local, Kom’s Amazonas NEIPA. Not quite ready to dive into stouts yet. It has a good color, very juicy looking. It turns out not to be as spiky as some in flavor, quite soft and creamy in fact, something of an easy drinking beer. The taste gives you the impression of natural, fresh squeezed orange juice. It’s a lovely NEIPA, happy on its own and probably not too bad with a little snack (was a little put off by some fishier odors by the food stands, so no lunch yet).
The time has come for a stout to take the stage, something bitter and black at last, so Petrolis seemed like the place to go. They had a Bidassoa Russian Imperial too, but I was told Mica Roble y Pino was more bitter, and that’s what I was hankering after. I don’t think it is that bitter, but it’s a barrel aged stout and that part is evident in the flavor. It’s even a bit peppery somehow. I was warned about a little wine taste coming out, and some does indeed, but I’ve had more obvious wine-beers. The combination of flavors is fairly heavy, but the beer itself is smooth and goes right down with little cling to the mouth. Well done, Mica!
Practically all the beers were Spanish and mostly from the north if not Cataluña (although Península was also there), but there was a stand with Polish beer on one end and French on the other. There must have been some buzz about the Polish beer because a line formed out of nowhere and snaked all the way around the corner, leaving me with little desire to stand around. The French beers looked like your typical craft offerings, IPAs and pale ales, and I thought after a barrel aged stout a hoppy IPA would hit the spot. They had Cambier IPA Mosaic/Idaho 7, which sounds like it ought to be bright enough to balance out the previous darkness. It is a perfectly acceptable IPA, good Mosaic flavor comes out, it’s not very bitter, mildly fruity, really a good pick-me-up after a disappointing pizza. The info on the stand recommended a Czech style pilsner as the beverage of choice, but I think the stronger tasting IPA is needed to make up for the disappointment. I was also treated to a taste of La Pirata’s barrel aged Black Block from a South African/Canadian couple at the table. They were on a Mediterranean cruise, spending the day in Barcelona and coincidentally saw the festival happening near their hotel. Hope you enjoyed the rest of your trip, Tim and Robin! Also, I hope I guessed right on the spelling. The Black Block was a delectable contrast to the IPA, even more of a comfort after underwhelming food.
I have time for more! There’s Althaia, who I remember from beer calendars. They have an interesting sounding smoked chilli stout, I ask if it’s very spicy and am told not very. Let’s try it out. There’s a smoky bacon aroma, good stout appearance. First flavor impression? Tabasco rauchbier. It has a good feel to it, very balanced in the smoke-earth-spice, but not much of a mealtime beer in my opinion. It’s a good little taster, actually perfect for the glass size at the festival. You get a good idea of what it is, but when it’s gone it’s just in time. It might actually be good with ice cream. I’ve had a bit to eat so now I feel like I might deserve dessert.
But I spend my last wristband tokens on Gecan Porter. This is a beer festival after all. It has a good dark color, but nothing in particular on the nose. It’s bready and toasty, more what you’d expect from a stout than a porter, although it’s not especially strong. Certainly not as fruity or smooth as I have come to expect from porters, but it is supposed to be a more traditional take. We can probably chalk it up to that.
And that was my Saturday in Barcelona Beer Festival. It could have been worse in so many ways, but it was a let-down from build-up on their website. Much more of a local festival than a national or international one. Next year what, Hamburg? Granada? I guess it depends on if I feel like flying or not.
Have you ever wondered where the word beer came from, what we called the drink, in English before we used the word beer, and, for that matter, if the drink was any different when it was called by another name?
Introduction to the podcast and my goals and aspirations around it.
I hope that you will join me on this journey to explore the history of beer and brewing in general, as well as some focus on the current goings-on in craft beer culture.
After weeks of warmer than usual weather, spring has returned! It makes me think I should have saved that stout from a couple of weeks ago. Oh well, there’s nothing wrong with a little light beer on a rainy evening, and Oso Brew know how to make light beers too. I think I remember their table beer from a Beermad of the past, now canned in a hot and swimsuit worthy color. Mesa ought to be just the thing you’re ready to grab whatever the weather.
It’s a summery gold color and the head is a clean white while it lasts. There are promises of IPA-like fruit aromas, and there is a good whiff of citrus and maybe pineapple. It has a full beer flavor with just a touch of fruit, less bite-y than the aforementioned, more like mango or watery peach. There’s a strong breadiness that rushes out ahead of the end of the swallow and sticks around for a while after. The beer itself has a very light feel, predictable for its less than 4% alcohol, but the aftertaste makes it feel like a more corpulent one, with more presence than a beer that banks on its low ABV to be appealing. It certainly feels like a beer that could be at the table – a pre-meal drink, a midday break, the beverage of choice at dinner are all believable.
After a beer fair you might not want to go back to the same old, same old. Garage is a very familiar and beloved brewery, but they do have a few special things in their cans. I have had Barcelona Weisse before, but in a different iteration; this is the 8th anniversary version, with a collectable sticker on the can. Calvell 45 does its best to bring you in, with a list of tropical fruits promising a bouncier, more colorful weisse.
Can seems extra full and aroma is extra fruity. It has a distinct mandarin scent to it, and while it does pour out fizzy, the liquid looks a lot like mandarin juice from a can. Well, a little more color, Fanta thinned with mandarin juice. The head dies back immediately although tiny bubbles continue to rise. The first sip starts out thick and much more bitter than expected, rolling over to a more citrusy tang, and ending on an orange pith note. The weisse kind of sour actually takes a couple of sips to come out. It’s that blend of bitter and sour that weisses tend to have, with a touch more fruit than the traditional ones offer. It’s very light in the mouth, effervescent even, with sort of a champagne feel; it might be a good substitute for a beer focused celebration. Now that temperatures are reasonable for the time, I’m wishing I had more good stouts, like were at Beermad, but you really can’t complain with Garage.
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