Many a time has a well-seasoned drinker offered up a prayer while on his knees.

Alcohol and religion have gone hand in glove for 2,000 years. At the last count there are some 20 or so patron saints of all things beery.

Jesus may have got a lot of coverage with that neat water to wine feat in Galilee. But when it comes to miracle and myth these saints of suds have said “Jesse, hold my beer.”

From brewers to bishops, from Dark Ages through Medieval Times, they’ve been credited with curing plagues, putting out fires, warding off invasions and conjuring up assorted transformations.

For example, there’s Arnold of Metz (580-640) and his crucifix-in-the-brew-kettle gambit to persuade the folk of Oudenburg to drink beer instead of water amid a plague.

Beer was much safer to drink. No-one had a notion of boiling water – the British obsession with tea was more than a thousand years away – and fermenting the bejesus out of it was the only known way to kill bacteria.

Then there’s Arnold of Soissons who popped up around 400 years later.

The patron saint of hop pickers (wonder if that was where Fluff Freeman got his inspiration?) was said to have produced barrels of beer from thin air after a monastery roof collapsed, mullering most of the monks’ stock. They celebrated, and he was said to have been canonised on the spot.

Brigid (457-525) founded an abbey in Kildare. She was renowned for her love of beer and an apparent ability to spontaneously reproduce it. The legend goes she once changed bathwater into beer. I’ve come across a couple of breweries here in Spain who haven’t quite perfected the trick.

We also have Augustine of Hippo, (353-430), a prodigious beer guzzler who covered all the lascivious bases of wine, women and song until his conversion to piety.

Imagine being made a saint simply for being the prototype of Oliver Reed.

A sort of Hop-On, Hop-Off, if you like

And then there is San Lúpulo. San who?

Nothing much appears to be known about San Lúpulo de Capua, other than he was said to have been martyred in that city in Campania, southern Italy. The date of his death is unknown.

But that didn’t stop someone allocating him a saint’s day. It is celebrated on October 14 and is marked by drinking beer, which given his name translates to hop looks as good a reason as any.

And as St Bernadus shows, you don’t need to be canonised in order to be venerated.

The festival of Sant Llúpol (to give him his Catalan name) takes place next week in Barcelona’s Eixample district, the beating heart of the capital’s craft scene. It is a bar crawl billed as “the hoppiest pilgrimage of the year”.

Ten bars – BierCab, BrewDog, Brew Wild, Cocovail, Conesa, Garage, Humble, Mikkeller, OKasional and Rosses i Torradas – are taking part in the event organised by the team behind the Barcelona Beer Festival.

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A €17.50 ticket gets you one beer in any five of the 10 participating establishments (updated post from organisers on 13.10.20), all of which are within walking distance of one another.

It is a revival of a one-day beerathon that was held for the first time in 2012 as an autumn companion to the initial BBF. It ran for three editions.

Then it was more of a jolly boys’ (and girls’) coach outing. A sort of Hop-On, Hop-Off, if you like.

None of the bars from that first foray feature on the upcoming roster, though Manolo Baltasar, then of German-themed Freiburg, is lauded these days as the driving force behind the garlanded BierCab.

The BBF initially hoped to revamp March’s cancelled event for this autumn, as mentioned in a previous post.

“Common sense says it is not the time to do a festival of the volume of the BBF, and we will have to wait a little longer,” the organisers said in a statement.

“We do not rule out initiatives of a smaller format of spreading craft beer culture in the coming months, adapting to COVID safety standards at all times.”

That wait will be until next spring, with April 16-18 unveiled as the date for the 2021 Festival.

In the meantime, Barcelona’s hopheads have a bar crawl to dive into.

And if any are on their knees and seeking celestial guidance as that last triple IPA hovers tantalisingly over the bar they will not be short of a saint or two.

Bars Brewers Craft Beer

Continue reading “Saints alive! Barcelona’s going to the hop” →

I’ve lived in Spain since around 5 B.C. (Before Craft). During that time I would regularly be asked what was my favourite Spanish beer. Estrella Galicia was the unhesitating reply.

Clearly that has changed since the craft revolution reached the Iberian peninsular at the end of the noughties. But I still have a hankering for the signature brew from Hijos de Rivera in La Coruña.

It seems I am not alone.

A recent study conducted by DataCentric involving 35,000 “big beer” drinkers declared the Helles-style lager the nation’s preferred tipple, securing twice as many votes as any other, including Mahou and Heineken.

Quite the feather in the gorro for the family-owned brewery founded in 1906.

Well, yes and no. The survey was nuanced. It was not seeking an answer based on consumer volume, but on an emotional attachment; in short, being a fan.

Hijos de Rivera ranks fourth nationally in sales, comfortably outstripped by market leader Mahou-San Miguel which produces those eponymous beers and which in 2019 increased its stake in Founders, the Michigan craft brewery, to 90 per cent.

As a consequence Founders All Day IPA can now to be found on the shelves of the nation’s supermarkets. (And Canadian Breakfast Stout in discerning bars, but I digress.)

Nonetheless it represents a significant upswing on a similar survey conducted three years earlier. Then Estrella Galicia was shown making little impact outside its north-western heartland.

Estrella Galicia’s market share currently hovers around 10 per cent, yet compared to the likes of Barcelona’s Moritz is one of the few beers with deep-set regional roots to thrive on a national scale.

Its brewery has almost doubled domestic production in the last 10 years. It might produce only around one-fifth the volume of a giant like Mahou-San Miguel but Estrella Galicia boasts a brand awareness that would be their envy.

Just how has the beer from Galicia managed to become the most loved macro in Spain?

Savvy marketing has played its part.

The alcohol-free Estrella Galicia 0,0 is already well known in motorsport. In Formula 1 it sponsors driver Carlos Sainz, currently with McLaren, while in Moto GP it backs multiple world champion Marc Marquez.

In football Estrella Galicia is shirt sponsor to several football teams, the best known being Deportivo La Coruña and Celta de Vigo.

But perhaps the master stroke has been the commercial tie-up with a Spanish TV show.

La casa de papel premiered on Spanish channel Antena 3 in May 2017. It was taken on by Netflix, was rebadged as Money Heist, became a global phenomenon and won an Emmy.

And through it all the characters were regularly seen glugging Estrella Galicia in Mahou’s homeland of Madrid, where much of the series is set. Product placement gold.

Thirty-two million bottles of specially branded Estrella Galicia were produced for the domestic and Latin American markets ahead of the show’s fourth season release in April.

The brewery also has a reputation for social responsibility.

In May, Hijos de Rivera signed a 12-month agreement with La Federación Española de Bancos Alimentos (the Spanish Federation of Food Banks) that initially saw it donate €400,000 for urgent projects.

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The second phase saw one million bottles labelled with 1 millón de gracias (one million thanks) in support of front-line workers during the height of the pandemic.

The brewery has been affected by COVID-19, suspending operations on occasions due to positive tests from staff, or spikes in the locality.

Estrella Galicia is available in the UK, though anyone seeking a taste of macro Spain should know the product weighs in light at 4.7% compared to the domestic 5.5%.

Three years ago Hijos de Rivera took a 32 per cent stake in the Carlow Brewery Company, the independent Irish craft brewer. Subsequently the O’Haras craft range has come to Spain.

Though clearly “Big Beer” with a capital B, the brewery has dabbled in its own craft-style beer, producing brews flavoured with, for example, Goose Barnacles (percebes, a Galician delicacy) and Padron peppers.

I’ve tried the latter. It’s billed as a 6.5% chilli beer into which are added whole Padron peppers (those thumb-sized firecrackers) and ground cayenne. Bizarrely it was actually rather good, a malty mouthful with a pleasing follow through of throat-tickling heat.

I will readily admit to the guilty pleasure of necking a well-chilled Estrella Galicia – or a 0,0 – on a hot afternoon.

And if today you were to ask me what is my preferred mainstream Spanish beer the answer would be the same as 15 years ago.

Bars Brewers Craft Beer

I was pulled up short by a headline in a Spanish trade publication. It was a sobering read: “More than 90% of craft beer festivals planned for this year in Spain have been cancelled.”

Cerveza Artesana Magazine reported that only seven festivals out of more than the 100 scheduled for 2020 took place before pandemic protocols in mid March put everything on hold. The first big casualty was the Barcelona Beer Festival that would have expected to attract some 35,000 folk over its three days.

Clearly the situation is reflected across the craft beer world, but for Spain’s ever-increasing number of small regional craft breweries festivals represent a vital shop window that is key to exposure and income. 

You can read the full article (in Spanish) here, but in a nutshell there are scores of festivals where organisers have been compelled to pull the plug.

Others have postponed, clutching at any straw in the hope that a perceived second wave of infection might simply ebb away.

Among these was Barcelona, who had quietly suggested a possible rescheduling for the second week of October. That now looks an improbable dream. 

At least one festival did take place. Cangas, a small town on the opposite side of the estuary from the port city of Vigo in Galicia, hosted a three-day outdoor event held under strict procedures in August.

Temperature checks were taken on entry, there was a significantly reduced capacity with greater distancing between tables and face masks were to be worn.

It was organised by Asociación Gallega de Cerveceros Artesanos, who promote Galician craft beer. The local paper reported on it warmly.

Otherwise a couple of organisers opted for virtual technology. One was the three-day SanBernaBeer that would have been held in Logroño in the heart of La Rioja wine country in early June.

Bigger players have picked up that baton. Barcelona juice kings Garage arranged an English-language drink-along aimed at the UK market in early August.

Collaborating with established outlets, Garage presented half a dozen beers for a two-hour Instagram live event hosted by the Craft Beer Channel’s Jonny Garrett.

The beers were new releases with the exception of the signature Soup IPA. I’ll drink Garage at the drop of hat, but the Fanghirl 8.2% Imperial New England IPA was a rare treat; beautifully balanced with enough bitterness and bite to transform it into a complete and utter joy.

It’s the big sister of their superb Fanbhoy, that impressive cinc-hopped 6.2% IPA (Simcoe, Columbus, Galaxy, Mosaic and Cascade) that has proved such a success.

One of the bottle shops involved in the Garage-a-thon was A Hoppy Place in Windsor, which shared the evening experience with several socially distanced customers.

Co-owner Dave Hayward reflected on its commercial merits.

‘I will likely not choose to be involved in another virtual event where the risk of not selling the boxes is on the bottle shop’

Dave Hayward, A Hoppy Place

“For the drink-along, what’s very clear is that pre- and post- lockdown most people who seek interactivity have returned to the pub,” he said.

“The numbers were about 15 per cent of those that attended a similar Omnipollo night. We just about got through the beer but it was incredibly challenging.”

It’s a challenge Dave might not take up in future.

“I will likely not choose to be involved in another virtual event where the risk of not selling the boxes is on the bottle shop,” he said.

“It was naturally fun to meet the brewers, and ‘remote’ breweries can only ever host an event in this way, but as I say, it’s a challenge.”

Dave remains a firm fan of Garage (who isn’t?), and putting him on the spot was akin to the old “who’s your favourite child?” conundrum.

“The best beer of the night? I enjoy all of Garage’s IPAs. Not a bad beer there.”

Unfortunately for fans of Spain’s craft festivals there’s barely a beer to be had anywhere.

Bars Brewers Craft Beer

Move over Brigitte, there’s a new blonde in town.

Saint-Tropez, the once docile Côte d’Azur fishing village that sprang to prominence on the back of Brigitte Bardot’s rise to international stardom in the 1956 film And God Created Woman, is creating beer. And it has to be said it’s pretty good.

The Blonde of Saint-Tropez has been quenching sun seekers’ and Tropéziens’ thirst since 2014. It’s an engagingly drinkable 5.6% lightly carbonated bottled blonde, a product of a collaboration between Blonde De Saint-Tropez and the Belgian Brasserie des Légendes.

It’s available in all discerning outlets, as they say. The most discerning would be Le Senequier, the renowned people-watching waterfront spot which will deprive you of €14 for the privilege.

It was one of the better beers I encountered on a sojourn to the south of France. Craft bars in the region are a rare bird and unfortunately the Colgans Brewery brew pub in Mouans-Sartoux, a few kilometres from where I was staying in Mougins, had not reopened post lockdown.

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A stopover in Aix-en-Provence allowed time to visit Le Bière Paul Jack, a well-stocked bottle shop and taproom. From draft I sampled Tiboulen, a likeable dry hopped pale from Marseille brewery Zoumai.

I discovered Zoumai laid claim to being Marseille’s first brewpub, having been set up in 2018. I also learned that their beers are named after the islands dotted off the port city’s coast, of which Tiboulen is one.

Paul Jack’s house rules demanded the purchase of a snack; a platter of charcuterie and regional cheese was hardly an imposition.

The shop had a heathly selection of UK, German and Spanish beers. It presented opportunity to stock up on supplies of Cierzo, the Zaragoza brewer whom I have praised previously.

After a return visit to the Craft Beer Pub in Dijon I scheduled a pitstop in Reims around L’Escale, a Belgian-beer-focused bar not far from the cathedral.

I’d never tasted anything from the island of Guam before (hands up, who has?), but L’Escale stocked Cherry Blossom IPA, a 5.8% Belgian-style beer from Ishii Brewing. I never got to learn how and why, and though the beer itself was unremarkable, it was worth it for the experience.

Better options were found in the fridges.

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I reconnected with an old favourite, Kramah, from Brauhaus Bevog. It’s a 6.5% American IPA that’s all big hops, mellow mouth and a lovely lingering finish. It is a bloody good beer.

Led by the knowledgeable barman’s advice I landed upon Slovenia’s Libok: Tank Top was a punchy West Coast style 7% IPA with Amarillo, Cascade and Centennial hops, while Dankesaurus Rex was a piney 7.2% American IPA.

I bookended my session in L’Escale; with benefit of hindsight I should have stayed put for the night.

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I’d searched Google for other craft bars. The first option, L’Antirouille, beguiled with its 20 taps and low-lit industrial decor. It was only on closer inspection that it dawned they were serving up Camden Hells and Pale, plus Budweiser and St Austell. These were not the beers I was looking for.

I settled on a couple of French beers. Neither La Française, a 5% pale from L’Instant, nor the 6.5% La Rémoise Blonde, stirred the blood but they were domestic, and craft.

And they were considerably better than what was on offer at the second proposition.

As I ventured into this bar on the main boulevard replete with buzzing restaurants I was greeted by Kronenbourg and Grimbergen fonts standing proud.

My polite inquiry (in French) of “do you serve craft beer?” was greeted with a grunted “non” and a wonderfully insouciant Gallic shrug.

C’est la vie.

Bars Brewers Craft Beer

It was a plan put together with all the military precision of Fred Karno’s army. But it was my plan. And as it involved beer I believed it would all come right on the night.

It was due to begin in mid March with a first visit to the Barcelona Beer Festival , a treat denied me for previous editions by a required presence at a Festival of a different kind at Cheltenham.

However, after 40 years of watching horses run round fields, retirement brought the joy of being able to divide my time fully between London and Santiago De Compostela in the green (ok, wet) region of Galicia in the north-west of Spain. It allowed me to chart a new course.

The first step was five-days in the Catalan capital, and thanks to a craft-drinking pal and festival veteran from Santiago I was armed with handy insider tips.

Among beers I was eager to find were those from Soma, the Girona-based brewery who last year was Spain’s top-scorer on Untappd, and the rapidly up-and-coming new boys Cierzo from Zaragoza.

I’d not actually come across anything from Soma though had heard plenty, while I was already firmly in the Cierzo fan club.

I was also looking forward to meeting more people involved in the world of Spanish craft beer and getting this blog off to a flying start.

Barcelona would be followed by summer schleps to northern Portugal; Braga, for the second edition of the Hopen in late June and a couple of weeks later to Artbeerfest Caminha for one of the Iberian peninsular’s biggest international beer events.

Well, as I said, that was the plan.

Then it and so much of what we took for normal was put on hold. 

I still made it to Barcelona. The festival was cancelled at the 11th hour but I had scored a great deal at the Room Mate Anna hotel opposite the Cocovail Beer Hall and Barcelona is a great place to delve into Spain’s burgeoning craft scene – something which will hopefully form much of the future content on here.

Cocovail, opened in September 2016, leans on Catalan beers. You can expect to find a range from the local Edge Brewing, winners of this year’s Barcelona Beer Challenge among their 24 taps.

Garage’s brew pub and BierCab with its distinctive ceiling decoration also had a first-evening look-in, before I dedicated the following day to the former’s range of lauded IPAs and juice bombs. (You can expect to read more about these venues in future.)

That fateful Friday evening news filtered through that the Catalan authorities were to introduce an imminent lockdown. Time was about to be called. So I called for Clinging To A Rock, which seemed appropriate and was pretty much as nice a 9% DIPA as you could wish to find.

The following day dawned to shuttered premises. Streets that would normally be bustling were eerily quiet. The odd coffee and sandwich shop offered takeaway to clients adhering already to what we have come to know as social distancing. 

One superbly stocked bottle shop, OKasional Beer, soldiered on to provide sufficient sustenance until I hightailed it for the airport.

Back in London home delivery was soon to replace trips to the local. Battersea brewery Mondo delivered a case via a moped courier within 80 minutes of ordering on the first Monday of the UK lockdown. It set a trend.

Deliveries arrived from breweries I had hitherto not discovered, including Drop Project and Ora, while bottle shops Ghost Whale, Craft Metropolis and A Hoppy Place also ministered to beery needs.

A Twitter thread that started with someone posting a picture of a bottle of Peroni became the place to virtually prop up the bar in the months before pubs were allowed to reopen.

They say you never truly miss something until it’s gone. Well, I missed the pub.

As we began to emerge from lockdown in July I have been back to the pub, enjoying a very socially distanced pint of Polly’s down the Cask, my local in London, on re-opening day.

I have also travelled. It may not have been back to Spain, but I was able to enjoy a couple of weeks in France.

More about that next time.