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For me, craft beer is synonymous with quality, with a natural product made with time and care at all stages of production, or with variety. For example, it takes an average of 2.26 minutes to produce a bottle of craft beer, while industrial beer takes 0.05 minutes. A new and surprising palate, aroma, or texture are experiences for which I encourage you to try this type of drink.
And if I encourage you to try a good craft beer, it's because this world has seduced me, not because I have professional interests in it. In fact, my work is not at all related to beer. I have been professionally dedicated to sports journalism for twenty years. I have worked in radio, in print media, and currently on television, on the specialized motorcycle channel Movistar MotoGP. As you may have deduced, one of my great passions is sports, but I have another: eating well, drinking better, and, in short, keeping my belly, taste buds, and sense of smell happy. I am always open to trying new things and, above all, I always try to seek culinary excellence and in products. Indeed, I have a refined palate, what can we do, I was born this way and I have been educated like a bon vivant. And it is this facet that you will find here, in The New Barcelona Post, where I will share with you the greatest number of gastronomic experiences.
Craft beer, a beverage that completely changed my perception of this drink at all levels and in all senses. The first time I tried one was in a totally improvised way while walking through my neighborhood. It was back in August 2013. For days, months, and years I had been passing in front of the Ale&Hop bar, located on Carrer de les Basses de Sant Pere, in the heart of the Sant Pere, Santa Caterina i la Ribera neighborhood, in Barcelona. I had never quite decided to go in, until I did... And I had waited too long.
That tasting opened the doors to a new universe for me. I never would have imagined that a beer could have so much flavor, could smell so good, and have such an expressive color. How was it possible that until I was 36 I hadn't tasted anything similar? How could I have taken so long to discover this marvel? It's as if my whole life I had only drunk cheap wine when I had the possibility of drinking a Montsant. It was love at first sight. And to this day we are still very much in love, the idyll continues. Since then, I haven't stopped trying craft beers: the catalog is practically inexhaustible.
Barcelona is one of the meccas of Southern Europe, both in terms of bars and microbreweries and for the variety of specialized stores in the field, fairs, and festivals.
In Catalonia, 901 different varieties of beer were produced, according to the report Estat de la cervesa artesana a Catalunya 2016 (State of craft beer in Catalonia 2016) from the Gremi d'Elaboradors de Cervesa Artesana i Natural. There are beers that taste more like cider than beer, like sours or lambics (my wife had never liked beer until she tried these types of brews); there are IPAs, well-hopped or more malty; Imperial Stouts, with that aftertaste of the whisky barrel and which can almost be chewed; Saisons, with a taste of any type of slightly acidic fruit...
There are 105 craft brewing companies in Catalonia, according to the latest data from 2016: 76% are located outside the capital and the region, 62% in cities and towns of less than 20,000 inhabitants, and 20% in a rural environment. In addition, summing up all the production of Catalan breweries in 2016, we see that three million liters were produced, 46% of which were for local sale (less than 30 kilometers from the factory).
In any case, according to the Gremi d'Elaboradors de Cervesa Artesana i Natural, what best indicates that Catalonia has become a point of international brewing attraction is the high volume of craft beer exports: close to 16% of the beer is exported to 28 different countries.
I am convinced that, among such a wide and varied offer that we have at home, we can all find a favorite craft beer. Now we are lucky that Barcelona is one of the meccas of southern Europe, both in terms of bars and microbreweries and for the variety of specialized stores in the field, fairs and festivals. If you wish, on the website www.ratebeer.com you will be able to find, thanks to the votes of the consumers themselves, the best bars, microbreweries and shops in Barcelona where you can try or acquire a craft beer. It is a growing community of consumers that has expanded the market and has even made the big Catalan beer producers move their pieces.
So, I suggest you step out of your beer comfort zone and try something that surely won't leave you indifferent. To encourage you, I went to look for Albert Coromina, owner of the Ale&Hop bar and co-owner of the Cyclic microbrewery, which opens its doors to the general public this March. We met to chat for a while about the matter in order to offer you, above all, an authorized voice that encourages you to take the step and try this wonderful drink.
BARCELONA BEER FESTIVAL
Apart from the many specialized bars in Barcelona and throughout Catalonia, from Friday, March 16 to Sunday, March 18, at La Farga de l'Hospitalet, the Barcelona Beer Festival is held, where you will have 450 beers from all over the world (it is not necessary to try them all and, obviously, always in moderation and with care, since it is an alcoholic beverage, and in certain cases of high alcohol content).
At the Barcelona Beer Festival, a large bar with more than one hundred taps is set up, where the more than 450 beers present rotate. There are also a series of stands that correspond to collaborations with other international festivals. Enjoy craft beer. Cheers!