salamanca Archives - Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog

Irish pubs in Spain

I used to avoid Irish pubs, particularly when abroad, thinking they´d be full of tourists. Then I discovered that in a lot of places they´re actually really good places to meet the locals thanks to (a) the bizarre belief that Irish and British things are just inherently cool (b) the fact that they´re shunned by self-righteous tourists like me. So I became more tolerant, and stopped going into a sulk everytime someone suggested going to an Irish pub. But now I’ve been in a few here in Spain, I find myself very unnerved by the fact that they are, here at least, another weapon in the fearsome armada of Heineken International.

Salamanca has at least four Irish pubs and for various reasons I’ve now been in three of them. They´re all Heineken beasts so you get Paulaner and other delights such as Adelscott and Desperados. You may also come across an advert for the local Octoberfest franchise, a subject I blogged about a couple of months ago.

More sinister still (I find) are the various efforts to make the locals drink more and more. Special offers for large drinks, for example. Even the pub quiz turns out to be a syndicated marketing effort.

The very things about the drinking culture in Spain and France that the Government in the UK want us to emulate — moderation and smaller measures — are an anathema to people in the business of selling.

It’s not all bad news though — some of these Heineken outlets do have a guest beer from another brewer. Guinness. Sigh.

Snacks to beer — Pintxos

A pintxo (or pincho) is any tasty little morsel of food you can nibble with a drink and some good company. In practice, these days they’re usually slice of baguette with interesting toppings, speared through with a cocktail stick.

Although they´re to be found all over Spain (particularly in studenty places like Salamanca), the Basque country is the spiritual home of the pintxo, where even the caff in the railway station has a few on the counter.

In some bars, they bung you a couple for free, to accompany your drink. In most places, they’re a Euro-or-so each. You help yourself, generally, and present all the used cocktail sticks at the end of the night so they can tot up the bill.

They’re yet another brilliant “snack-to-beer”. Whatever the experts say, salty food is great with beer. Sometimes, we find we really only get a real sense of the taste of a particular beer when we’ve calibrated our tastebuds with a salty snack.

Here are some excellent Pintxo toppings to accompany a glass of almost anything:

1. Pickled fish — sounds grim, but sweet, salty little bits of herring or anchovy go exceedingly well with beer.
2. Tapenade (olive paste) — salt and oil, basically, with some spiciness from the olives.
3. Small pieces (what they call “goujons” in pretentious pubs) of battered salt cod — salt, oil… are you beginning to see the pattern here?
4. Spanish omelette — nothing soaks up booze better than spuds and, although the thought of eggy potatoes and beer might not sound that appetising, it works a treat.
5. Anchovy and cream cheese — not the pickled variety, but the dark brown salty, oily ones you get on cheap pizzas.

To be honest, you can put just about anything on a bite-sized slice of bread and it works. And they’re very easy to make. Give it a go.