It’s hot and uncomfortable, at least for cold weather people like me, and the metro is full of hot weather warnings. Nobody suggests having a beer to relax in the evening, but that’s probably part of the general trend of less alcohol consumption over the last few decades. Still, if you’re familiar with the effects of a good, sharp, modern IPA, it’s an idea that tends to entice. Something about dinosaurs also perks you up, I think. And best of all, it’s a NEIPA! Well, New England double IPA, but within the group. I’ve been seeing a lot of Stu Mostów lately, I think people have the idea that those central Europeans must be making quality beer as always. It has worked out that way with this brewery for me. So, on to Art+66!
Very fluffy and bubbly, bright orange-y color, tingly and vaguely herbal aroma. There’s also a hint of dry grass and pine, which is probably how a lot of natural areas are smelling right now. Bitter at first, bouncing between that and an odd touch of wood and cilantro, the beer feels very controlled and calming, rather than explosive and exuberant as some do. There’s a hum of bitter in the aftertaste and the liquid feels a bit thick and sticky for its color, but it isn’t hard to swallow and the bitterness is stimulating rather than distracting. After a few minutes a little cantaloupe starts to form in the flavor, giving the beer another layer of freshness and roundness. If you don’t slam it down, there will be a bit more citrus starting to cling to the back of your throat, but even that is light and kind of a pick-me-up in this kind of weather. It’s not as juicy or beermosa-like as many NEIPAs, which could be a plus or minus depending on your mood at the time. I’m perfectly satisfied with what I got.
It’s as summery as you want and I will insist on a stout. Pastry stout! It’s almost more refreshing to have a pastry stout than a normal one, since that sugar kicks in. And this particular stout by Malandar is not only sugary, it’s chocolatey and coffee…-y. Some might be put off by the name – Donkaccino – but those people probably shouldn’t be drinking exotic liquids anyway.
Appealing color, but not very heady, even with an abundance of bubbles. There’s a good whiff of chocolate and vanilla, although with a touch of licorice. All come through in the flavor, although there’s also a good bit of toastiness, almost to the point of burned toast. The smokiness of charred bread hangs around in the aftertaste, well after everything else floats away. It starts off smooth and silky, every easy to get down, but the stickiness rises over time and after a few sips starts to leave a little residue along with flame-based aftertaste. Towards the end a woody flavor develops, reminiscent of barrel aged stouts, but maybe it’s just some absolutely sucked-dry coffee beans.
It’s been a hallmark of craft breweries to do some seasonal beers, either traditional styles or more modern innovations. Sometimes they become regular, like Christmas beers, sometimes they appear and vanish into the dark expanses of memory. Even those breweries taken under the papery wings of Big Beer sometimes continue fun, like Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy or La Virgen’s Castaña ale. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see Estrella Galicia joining the fun, after all they hype themselves as being at the level of craft breweries in terms of innovation and attitude. Is Fresh Summer Ale another way to resist the summer temperatures?
Very bubbly, fluffy head that gently dissipates, very light orange and transparent. It has a somewhat ale-y aroma, but it’s more like industrial beers with a good load of grain than the citrusy craft ales. Flavorwise, it hits you with a firm bitter, but rolls back into more of a maltiness. It’s light and easy going down, doesn’t leave a lot of aftertaste. It gets a touch of lemon after a couple of sips, although not to the point of being shandy-like. It has a very summery profile, definitely something that you would enjoy under an umbrella on the beach or at the bar, you could probably put several down without thinking much about it. I don’t mind this for a little change, but I think I prefer helles even for the summer. Keeps my grounded, or something.
A present! Yay! A friend had gone to the lavender festival not far from Madrid, where musicians had performed and many snacks had been sold, and brought me back a lavender beer. It turns out about 10% of the world’s lavender comes from Brihuega! Not bad at all. I have the vague memory of coming across a lavender beer at a past Beermad, when they were still at the Railroad Museum, which I did not hate. I know because I have not hated a single Beermad beer. Could it have been the same maker? This bottle says it was made by a butcher shop, so perhaps not. But who knows? Maybe Carnicería Clemente got Vulturis or some other brewer to cook up and bottle a few years ago too. The beer contains wheat, so I’m expecting that that will be the overwhelming experience of the beer and the lavender will be more in the aroma without affecting the liquid parts so much.
Very light golden color, straw yellow at first but gaining in golden quality. Not a lot of head, and what there is fizzles off into a tiny ring around the edge. The perfume is double-edged; searching for the lavender, you do find it floating on top, but there’s a much stronger almost musky aroma coming in low. It’s a little more like a wet field than a field of lavender, at least based on the scents I’ve been exposed to. But maybe this is the more natural aroma before it gets processed? The taste starts out tingly, flower-sweet, with a sort of perfume essence to it, then rolling down into a more spicy-sour, a battle of field and hay barn. The flowers come back in the aftertaste, although I don’t think I would be able to identify them as lavender if I didn’t know. Whenever something tastes flowery I default to clover. It has a quality of a sour beer without being especially sharp and yet it’s not a beer that you would drink without even thinking. It makes me wish I had a cheese board or something, it’s a beer that would not be harmed by a little mellow snack to take the edge off the bite of nature.
There’s a fine brewery to my north where many a fine beer has been produced. Maybe not the most interesting beers, mostly varieties of pale ale, but all quite tasty. Of course they have branched out into sours, it’s the hot, hot summer, and we need that little snap of almost sugar with that cheek grabbing sour. The can is almost subdued, pastels but promising something exciting. Not a Boogaloo, actually, but maybe you’d want to get up and dance with all those blueberries, mangoes and currants flying around your mouth. Oh, you want to know what brewery is making this potion? Of course you do! It’s Península.
It’s kind of a fizzy grapefruit color, with a little head in the beginning, although it fizzles out. That sulfury aroma that many sours have is present, along with whiffs of astringent fruit. There’s a balance of sweet and sour in the taste, but definitely more weight on the sour. It has kind of a sour candy sort of flavor. While bubbly at first, the carbonation starts to wane with the minutes and the beer takes on the smoother texture, leaving only the sourness to smack your tongue around. It starts off pretty clean, many the fizz sweeps up on the way down, but as it gets flatter it gets thicker and heavier. Not to the point of unpleasantness or where you wouldn’t want to finish the glass, but it is a noticeable difference. Still, for those that are wary of taking on a black beer under a broiling sun, it might be a good option.
It’s true that stouts aren’t the beer of choice in a Madrid summer for most people. It’s not a surprise, I can’t fault them too much. But dammit, why can’t there be just a couple floating around for us lovers of darkness? Well, at least packaged stouts aren’t too hard to find, and very tempting ones too. La Quince astonished me with their Vanilla Black Velvet years and years ago, and it’s still a class act, although different years give slightly different results. Part of the fun! They also have different versions of Black Velvet, sometimes with different collaborators, but this is the old team of La Quince and Guineu, back with a new variety – Doughnut Black Velvet Pastry Stout. I now what you’re thinking, it’s going to be far too heavy for the current temps, but I say a little sugar water/beer is just the thing to get you up off your sweaty ass.
It’s extra foamy, very resistant dark milk chocolate head. I was expecting a little more aroma from the get-go, but it’s pretty subdued. There’s kind of a sweetish smell, but there’s a little bit of milk that’s just a tiny bit too old floating on top. It also seems kind of … meadowy? Clovery maybe? The taste is smooth at first, and very much Black Velvet. The doughnut doesn’t weigh it down very much or add excess sugar. Weirdly, it’s toward the middle of the sip that you notice the fizziness, so the beer actually ends feeling more like a soda or sparkling wine even though the flavor is unmistakably stouty. It’s quite pleasant and not at all a burden of a drink on a summer evening. Sure, some might prefer a fruitier or zippier style, but this is a remarkably light pastry stout and a tasty evening beverage. La Quince (and Guineu), you’ve done it again!
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.
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.
English 
Spanish