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Let's Learn Beer!

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beer

in the shadows

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So finally we had some rain yesterday, a good day for sitting in the window and sipping on a nice dark beer.  I kept my porter until today, though.  When I was browsing, there it was, sitting proudly on the shelf, all in its brown bottle, like a cone of chocolate.  Onso porter might not have that chocolate touch, though, being porter rather than stout.  There will probably be a little fruitiness to it, which is acceptable.  Now that it’s not 100 damn degrees out, even a little black beer stickiness won’t be so bad.  Cerveza Rodonda, show me what you got.

Extra foamy, and I’m a little surprised the bottle didn’t overflow on opening. The head is barely tinted beige, but the beer carries a pretty good dark color. It’s dark brown, not black, but good enough. There isn’t a strong puff of aroma at first, but letting it sit out allows just a hint of pickled plum to waft out and settle over the area near the bottle. In the glass there’s more of a light raisiny scent. The taste also has a lot of dried fruit rather than fresh, prunes and raisins over plums or apples. As a porter I would expect it to have some fruit to it, and along these lines. It’s a very subtle and unassuming flavor, displaying a little heft in the mouth but going down softly and not leaving hardly anything behind. Left to its own devices, the beer develops a wisp of smoke in the aftertaste, adding some interest and complexity to a solid but otherwise simple brew.

Supplier: Birra Y Paz

Price: €3.70

The Wonderful Words of Beer Draft 12

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μπίρα – is the Greek word for beer, pronounced [‘bi ra].  It is a borrowing of Italian birra, and also spelled, more popularly, μπύρα.  Although Greece has not been considered a beer country, there is evidence that beer was drunk even in antiquity, with finds pointing to the Bronze Age.  Modern industrial beer began in the mid-19th century, with a push from a king of German origin.

summer harvesting

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Squeezing in another purchase before a short vacation, I grab a couple of things from Birra Y Paz (they’re going on vacation, not me.)  I feel like I ought to be getting some things that I don’t normally subject myself to, and actually the bars are full of various types of ale more than anything else.  A lager here and there, but there’s a downright shortage of sours this year, plus the typical lower offer of stouts for the summer.  As interesting as lambics are as a style, I just can’t get into them as much as a taste experience.  I do, however, deeply enjoy a black currant drink.  It’s one of Lindemans lesser-seen lambics, at least in Madrid, but I think Cassis is worth a shot.

Slightly winey smell, fruity, but old fruit. Like a lot of lambics, it has a deeply tinted appearance with the essence of its most promoted ingredient. It looks a lot like black currant nectar, in fact, but with a rosy head on top. It has that fruity lambic stickiness, and a good amount of sweetness with no bitter at all, very much like Mort Subité, for example. It’s maybe even heavier than currant nectar, with more body and staying power in the mouth. It builds in sourness, but maintains a refreshing cleanness to the flavor that allows it to take a place among summer beers.

Supplier: Birra Y Paz

Price: €3.15

Summer Buds

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I double checked some timetables and Cervecissimus is going on vacation for the month, but I managed to sneak in before they closed their doors for a couple of weeks. I could not resist grabbing a stout, especially one connected to the home zone: Peninsula is one part of the producing and Rio Azul is the other, giving us the result of Entre Amigos, an Oat Imperial Stout.

Along with a pleasant, cakey aroma, the beer sports a dark tan and heavy looking head. Even liquid, it looks like it wants to be solid. Along with the cake comes a tinge of fruit scent, raisins or plums, and a crispy undertone of smoke and toast. Despite its powerful entrance, the head dies back quickly, leaving the demon’s-heart-black brew behind. There is a strong note of dried fruit in the flavor, not terribly sweet, but with a presence on the tongue. It doesn’t have much of an aftertaste, although there is a sensation of stickiness after the beer leaves the mouth. It has the smoothness of an oat stout, but it’s pretty weighty. Eventually there’s even a touch of wood sneaking in. Finally, just the barest hint of chocolate also makes it’s appearance. It’s a beer that has surprises if you’re willing to look for them. Like a lot of potential friends, I guess.

Supplier: Cervecissimus

Price: €4.30

Tradewinds

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It’s vacation month here and things are slow and at odd hours. Of course, if I were a better planner it wouldn’t make any difference because these are things I know ahead of time, I just choose not to do anything about it. A macro beer, getting back to “roots”, is still easy enough to pick up, though. You can’t have supermarkets closing for an entire month. You can’t even really have them altering their hours significantly. Essential work, that’s what that is. Sipping San Miguel’s Manila India Pale Lager is really more of a luxury task. Yes, it is San Miguel, but I was told it was really alright, and Cruzcampo’s IPA wasn’t bad. So, might as well give it a try.

A relatively strongly aroma-ed lager, dark orangey color, and rather abundant head. It’s very heavy on the grain, but mildly sweet and bready, not grassy or toasty. The flavor follows closely with the scent at first, but lets in a little bit of deeper bitter at the end. It has a heavy, kind of old-fashioned lager feel, definitely not pilsner, which is interesting given the origins of San Miguel. Still, in a warmer climate you want to feel well stocked with energy as much as you want to be refreshed. Overall it’s smooth, no spikiness or bite on the way down, but there is some feeling of lingering bitterness. It’s less an aftertaste than a vague sensation, the shadow of bitter if you will. It develops a little more lager round feeling as it gets warmer, but the aroma maintains itself at a fresh and inviting state.

Speaking of poor planning, I found out about a beer store a couple weeks ago, put off and put off and put off going, and then this last week I was making the time – only to find it was closed for good! Too bad, Lambeer, it wasn’t meant to be.

The Wonderful Words of Beer Draft 5

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Brewski – is an informal term for beer in English.  It is associated with US usage.  The word is a compound of “brew”, referring to the brewing process of making beer, and the suffix -ski, giving the word humorous Slavic tone.  It may have been invented to go along with Polish jokes, once a staple of American humor, although the first recorded use is late for that, being in 1977 on a Saturday Night Live skit.

The Wonderful Words of Beer Draft 4

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 Pivo – is the Czech word for beer.   It is also the word found in Slavic languages in general.  It comes from an Indo-European root, meaning drink, and has a related word in modern Czech: pit, to drink.  It is also cognate with Ancient Greek πῖνον, apparently meaning “beer” as well.

The Wonderful Words of Beer Draft 3

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Bier – is the German word for beer.  Like the English term, it comes from old Indo-European roots, but the exact ones are undetermined.  It could be related to words for barley or for cooking, are from Latin bibere – to drink.

Germany is the home of the famous Reinheitsgebot, which limits the ingredients of beer to water, malt, yeast and hops (actually a later addition).  While it sounds good for marketing a pure and traditional beverage, there are large numbers of beer drinkers who will happily take a glass of more creative brew, with other plants giving aroma, flavor, color or feel to the beverage.  German beer is divided into categories according to strength, as well as into different styles.  Craft beer is Germany follows similar trends as in other countries in terms of tastes.

The Wonderful Words of Beer Draft 2

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Cerveza – the Spanish word for beer, from Latin as one would expect.  What one doesn’t expect is that the Latin word could be a borrowing, or be influenced by, a Celtic language.  The Proto-Celtic *kormi- could be related to Latin cremare (to burn), as well as having produced a number of Celtic words for a fermented beverage.  The experts doubt that there is any connection to ceres (grain) despite the use of grain in brewing, possibly because it wasn’t that popular among the Romans. 

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