Cervezas La Grua – Let's Learn Beer!

osmý

by Ceit
January 1, 2026December 14, 2025

On the eighth day of Beermas I went and got for me
Eight pirate maids a-sailing
Seven boney swimmers
Six geese post-laying
Five gold nuts
Four obvious non-kiwis
A three-time remade masterpiece
Two guarding lions
And a crow glaring silently

I would like very much to have an all stout Beermas, but it would require a lot of stretching of the gifts. Maybe I’ll be feeling flexible next year. For the moment, we have La Grua’s North Shore, a DDH NEIPA. I’m not sure if there’s any history of pirates in the brewery’s area, although the community of Cantabria is on the coast. Actually, a golden beer is more appropriate for a pirate to be stealing, fossil fuels weren’t a thing when the romantic pirates were having their heyday.

It releases a tiny geiser of hop aroma, snappy, catnippy, jungly. No beer explosion though, and it pours very nicely. Not as heady as others, and cloudy like the past couple of weeks. There’s a wave of brightness in the sip, and an almost honeyed finish. Dry hopped beers in my experience have a bit more bitterness and edge, while this one has the NEIPA part of its background clearly coming out on top. If anything the dry hopping took off any edge a NEIPA can have. It gets more and more candylike, kind of like a flat soda, or a low-sugar lemonade. I guess I can imagine it’s sweet like pirate rum.

Supplier: Más Que Cervezas
Price: €5.91

taste of the season

by Ceit
December 3, 2023November 13, 2023

I could not leave this can behind, no way, even though it’s on the pricey side. It’s coming on Christmas, so I guess that’s my excuse. But really, marzipan chocolate stout? Who can resist?! I do have my doubts about the creaminess of Choco Cream with the use of almonds, but I’m happy to see where it takes me. La Grua and 28030 cooperate in its creation, so it’s a reliably made labor of love.

Another extra heady one, although this foam isn’t quite so luxurious and dies back quickly. It has kind of a green scent to it, foresty, slightly woody. I was expecting a little more sweet chocolate or vanilla, but if anything it tends toward chili. Some deeper breaths pull back the curtain on some cacao-ishness. Taking a sip it becomes clear that it was all hiding out and waiting for the tongue to come along. The taste is an explosion of rich choco-nilla, like a well-made slab of gourmet chocolate. It develops a little bit of powdery texture, not quite as smooth as most gourmet chocolates, but there are certain companies that insist that sort of thing is proof of natural ingredients. It’s not distracting from the overall experience anyway. The beer has a nice moderate weight and never gets overbearing, which seems like a great accomplishment. It could have gotten syrupy or sticky, too sweet or even sour, but it stays balanced and controlled, extremely pleasant and a good for an animated talk or a quiet read.

Supplier: La Buena Cerveza
Price: €7