Catalonia is becoming a bit of micro-brewing hub, and we were determined to track down a few local beers, albeit without high hopes for the quality based on previous experience.
Moska is based in Girona, and we managed to track down their beer in bottles, hidden away in Cafe Babel on Carrer de Anselm Clave.
The Negra (4.4%) is an interesting thirst quencher. It doesn’t taste particularly malty or dark except for a slight burnt aftertaste, but there was a great big hop aroma which we weren’t expecting to find in a Spanish beer. Too bad it didn’t carry through into the flavour.
The “torrada” (toasted) is amberish and stronger at 6%, but tasted pretty thin for something of that strength. The aroma was like that of an IPA but it was, sadly, much too watery to be a knockout.
The Blonde (4.8%, “Rossa”) was our favourite, with grapefruit, slightly acid flavours, and very refreshing. Did we like it more than, say, Estrella Damm? Probably not, much as we really wanted to.
4 replies on “Hoppy beer in Catalonia”
They don’t sound like the sort of beers you could pay homage to 😉
Heh. No, but there is better news to follow…
Not better than Estrella Damm? That’s frightening…
…Sounds really like an experience I had in Italy earlier in the month. We found a brewpub about three miles away from where we were staying. We rocked up, found a pleasant, rough-hewn, colorful bar and grill in the U.S style, and three home-brewed ales on offer – a Pils, Weizen, and a malty Ale they called a ‘Bock’. We ate thier (admittedly nice) grilled meat and sampled the beer. It was awful. No aroma, and really lifeless. We wanted to like the place. Really, we did. But it let itself down so badly. It was like Nando’s – with a brewing kit in the back. (actually that doesn’t sound THAT bad)