catalan Archives - Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog

Damm launch posh new beer

The Damm brewery in Spain have just launched a posh new beer, Inèdit, which I believe means something like “new” or unknown (pardon my Catalan if not, I’m sure someone will correct!)

It is designed specifically to go with food, “to be an alternative to wine in the best restaurants”. It’s been designed with the help of Ferran Adria and sommeliers from El Bulli, which is supposed to be the best restaurant in the world.

It’s not clear from the Damm press release whether the beer will actually be served at El Bulli — it would look a bit weird on the 150 page wine list. They make a big deal about how this is supposed to be a high end product. That said, the recommended price is starts at 8 Euros for a 75cl bottle — a bargain compared to what Meantime bottles for in London restaurants! The beer itself is bottle-conditioned, containing a mixture of wheat and barley malts, with coriander, orange peel and liquorice flavours.

It certainly sounds interesting. In our humble opinion, Damm already make the best mass-produced beer in Spain, and their Voll-damm (pictured) is an excellent strong amber / maerzen by anyone’s standards. I’m looking forward to reading the first tasting notes…

Story via Culturilla Cervecera – thanks Andres!

Boak

Rosita — Catalan real ale

We spent yesterday in Tarragona — now a fairly sleepy Spanish city by the sea, but once one of the biggest in the Roman Empire.

Imagine our excitement when, as we were on our way out of town, we saw an advert in a shop window for “Rosita — cervesa artesanal de Tarragona”. That translates, more-or-less, as “Rosita — the craft beer from the Tarragon region”.

We bought two bottles, and asked the helpful shopkeeper where we could try it in a local bar. He sent us to the town square down the street, and before 10 minutes had passed, we were cracking open two cold bottles.

BAILEY: “It’ll be a boring fizzy lager.”

BOAK: “Hmm. Maybe not. I don’t speak Catalan, but I think this says that it’s ‘refermented in the bottle’.”

BAILEY: “It’s bottle-conditioned!?”

BOAK: “It’s also top-fermented!”

And, sure enough, Rosita is a pale, citrusy, slightly cloudy and very hoppy pale ale. It was also only lightly carbonated, and not like fizzy pop. We were impressed. This is a great beer, by any standards, but tasted all the better amidst a sea of bland so-called ‘pilsners’.

We were even more impressed when we tried it with seafood later that evening. The citrus flavours leapt out, and it seemed wonderfully refreshing, without being overpowering.

We’ve often said that we can understand why there’s only boring lager in Spain — the locals wouldn’t go for anything else in that heat — but this wonderful beer shows how to do it.

Rosita’s ingredients are listed as malt, hops, yeast and sugar. Our guess is that there are some American hops, and possibly some English ones too. There’s more info (in Catalan only) on their website.

PS – Tarragona’s worth a stop for the Roman ruins and medieval old town, and also seems to be quite a gastronomical sort of place. We had lunch in a restaurant called (we think) “Cervesera La Nau” on Carrer de la Nau, which had a quite extensive beer list. Tarragona is about an hour away from Barcelona by train.