Categories
beer reviews breweries Spain

Beer in Madrid

spainflags.jpgMadrid is home to some of the best art galleries in the world and some of the best bars too. Best in terms of atmosphere anyway, but the beer is rarely anything to write home about.

Ron Pattinson has put together a guide to bars in Madrid, which includes two brew pubs. As they are handily within a minute´s walk from each other, I tried them both together.

Naturbier is on the busy Plaza Santa Ana, which boasts many other fine cervecerí­as. It has two offerings – rubia (blonde) and tostada (brown, literally “toasted”). I slightly preferred the Tostada, with its heavier malty flavour, but both are excellent – extremely fresh-tasting and refreshing, balanced malt and hop flavours, and none of the unpleasant “homebrew” flavours you sometimes get from brewpubs. Pubs in Franconia would not be ashamed to serve these. Oh, and apparently it´s organic too.

Naturbier also has a great atmosphere – friendly staff and a good mixture of locals and tourists. So you can take your non-beer geek friends too, to experience the madrileño bar culture. It also serves tapas, which is rather pricy (although normal for that area) so I didn´t try any – but they do tend to bung you a plate of olives or nuts.

Magister is just off Plaza Santa Ana, on Calle de Principe. I think it´s supposed to be decorated like a German beer hall, but it just didn´t feel like one. They make a point about giving you free tapas, usually a staleish bit of bread with some meat on it.

They offer a rubia and tostada too, which aren´t as good as the Naturbier offerings — slightly acrid flavour, and didn´t taste as fresh. However, they also offer a “caramalizada” which is a sort of stout, and which I liked. It wasn´t the most amazing stout flavouring I´ve ever experienced, but the body and mouthfeel were bang on, which was a pleasant change from the last three months of lager texture. If that makes sense. Finally, they were also offering a “double bock” at 8.2%. This one was interesting. Like a not very good home brewer’s attempt at a strong Belgian-style ale, with a slightly odd fruity taste. It might even have been off….

Overall I prefered Naturbier for the atmosphere, but Magister is also worth your support if you´re in the area.

Notes

1. Closest metro stations to Plaza Santa Ana are Anton Marti­n and Sol. It’s also about 15-20 minutes walk away from Atocha station, so handy for getting a drink if you´re just passing through. There is left luggage at Atocha station, but it can be a pain to find — it´s at the far end of the tropical garden, away from the platforms, under Sambar Kanda restaurant.

Categories
Uncategorized

The Science of Beer

How much science is behind some of the ideas we have about beer? These sound convincing, and we’re inclined to believe them, but we’ve never really seen any evidence, as such:

  1. If you pour beer with too big a head, the hop oils will come to the top and disappear (“migrate”).
  2. Beer spoils more easily in clear bottles because of the action of light.
  3. Artificially carbonated beer tastes noticeably different from naturally carbonated beer.

We’re going to be asking some brainiacs of our acquaintance to give us their views, but we’re also interested to hear of any evidence you know of to confirm or deny any of these, or of any other theories you’d like to prove/debunk.

As a starter for ten, I’ve got this nagging feeling that, just as sea salt is still sodium chloride however you package it, surely carbon dioxide dissolved in water is the same stuff however it got there?

Categories
beer and food buying beer

Christmas gifts for beer lovers

What do you buy a beer lover for Christmas, other than beer?

jacksonbook.jpg1. The late Michael Jackson’s new book, the Eyewitness Guide to Beer — probably an update of his 1998 Dorling Kindersley book Ultimate Beer, but looks interesting anyway.

2. Some glassware. You can pick up branded Fuller’s glasses for around £4 in most of their pubs. Many supermarkets are selling gift sets with branded glasses from Shepherd Neame Spitfire, Old Speckled Hen and other well-known brands. Or, you can go posh — here’s a selection online. I like the look of these but could also do with one of these to drink imperial stout from.

beermachine.jpg3. A homebrewing kit. There are some basic, gimmicky automatic brewing machines, which look like fun. Or, you can buy a decent beginners kit from these people and pay less for it. But don’t forget to get a decent book to go with it.

4. More homebrewing stuff. If your loved one is already brewing, why not help them take it to the next level with some fancy kit like a

pubinabox.jpg5. There are all kinds of “pub at home” kits and accessories, from the cheap and cheerful to the ludicrously elaborate and expensive. If you don’t fancy having any of that in the house, what about the shed…?

6. Some rare and, erm, beautiful breweriana from Ebay might go down well. Not sure I’d want a load of old bottle tops for Christmas myself, but who knows what evil lurks in the minds of men.

7. What about the ludicrously named World’s Best Bottle Opener? Or even a nice traditional one. You can never have too many. Like umbrellas, they have a habit of disappearing. Just don’t buy a Homer Simpson novelty bottle opener. Believe me, the novelty of hearing “mmmmm, beer” wears off after, ooh, two bottles or so.

8. What about some food to accompany beer, or a combination of the two? O’Hanlon’s port stout and stilton; almost anything Belgian with some chocolate; or some pork scratchings…

9. CAMRA membership!

10. goodgift.jpgGood gifts are increasingly popular. If there’s too much junk in your house anyway, and you don’t want to encourage your loved ones to get fat and drunk, why not buy a brewery in Tanzania on their behalf?

11. And finally, if you are going to buy beer — and, let’s face it, it’s probably your best bet — choose them with a theme such as strong stouts, Christmas beers, German beers, or whatever, and package them nicely.

Categories
beer and food

Who decided that IPA went with curry just because of the name?

Bailey´s been holding the fort while I´ve been studying for exams, but now they´re over, I feel I should make it up. However, as I´m still in the middle of Spain I´m stuck for immediate inspiration, so thought I´d post on something which has been bugging me for a while.

IPA and curry. I´ve been told by many wise people that instead of fizzy lager, one should drink IPA with curry. But I don´t see it. I´ve tried it on several occasions, and each time, the curry just completely kills the flavour of the IPA. Even a powerful tasting IPA like St Austell´s “Proper Job” is left completely bland by my chickpea massala.

Curry kills hop flavouring. Not that crazy really, given that hops are another spice. It´s just a waste of a decent IPA.

So what to drink with curry? A “Munich-style Helles” or alternatively Cornershop East European Lager (I´d like to see that as a style in the BJCP guidelines!) is inoffensive and refreshing, but then again, if you can´t really taste the beer, is it worth bothering at all?

I have a theory that a nice belgian wheatbeer might work, although it would have to be one that´s not too spicy. One to try when I get back.

Any other suggestions?

Boak

Categories
beer reviews

The ubiquity of Timothy Taylor’s Landlord

postll.gifWould-be trendy pubs seem to think it’s compulsory to offer Timothy Taylor’s Landlord. Maybe it’s something to do with Madonna?

Last night, I went to a friend’s birthday party in a supposed “gastropub” (viz. they had square plates). It was a perfectly nice place, with very friendly bar staff and (impressively) a dog. But I wasn’t impressed with the TTL. It wasn’t off — it was just old and tasted dull, with no discernible hop flavour or aroma. In fact, it tasted of Marmite, which is not a quality I look for in a beer.

The last good pint of TTL I had in a pub was in 2005, at the Trafalgar in Greenwich. Since then, I must have had 10 or 12 off, hot, stale or just plain dull pints. It’s a nice beer when it’s on form but, like a lot of similar products, its reputation is being damaged by indiscriminate distribution and poor quality control.

It must be a real dilemma for smaller breweries — push to expand and risk losing control over the quality of the product, or keep control and never sell a pint more than two miles from the brewery.