Gow's Bräus

This is an almost sincere attempt to offer some thoughts on the different craft beers that I try. Drinking craft beer is an expensive hobby in Spain but I like to see it as a cultural interchange. Initially I hope to focus on some Spanish craft beers but I imagine that the scope of this blog will broaden in the coming weeks. Whatever the outcome happens to be, I just hope we learn that there's more to Irish beers than Guinness and more to Spanish beer than cheap lager.

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Hecate Mammooth Imperial Stout (9% ABV)

This beer represented the wild card selection from my most recent trip to the local purveyor of beers. I say this because I had never actually tried an imperial stout before popping this one open. I find stout to be somewhat hit and miss. In casual drinking situations I do enjoy them but when I go out with friends I sometimes find them a bit heavy for regular consumption. That being said, at times there really is nothing like a fresh pint of Beamish in a bar in Dublin.

This example is a new release for 2012 by the Hecate brewery in sunny Granada. Their range includes a pale ale and a Weissbier, neither of which I've tried, so here I took a leap of faith. In general one should not expect too much from stout in Spain. Guinness is definitely the staple stout but much of the flavour seems to be lost over here, perhaps through transport or the poor pouring technique of Spanish bartenders. Some supermarkets offer their own interpretations of stout ('cerveza negra') but you'd really have to use the term stout liberally with them - none have the rich flavours or smooth textures that Irish drinkers should be used to. In fact, many seem like black lagers.

This beer really impressed me. The aroma is sweet, initially reminding me of strawberries - maybe in milkshake or yoghurt form - but as my nose picks up the alcoholic hue it becomes ripe banana, again in milkshake or maybe even ice cream form, such is the underlying sweetness. There is a hint of toasted cereal but this is hard to detect behind the banana overtones. This beer wasn't as tempermental as the last and pouring it resulted in a nice, even, finger-thick head that dissipated quite quickly. The head never reaches the same density as a Guinness or a Beamish and by the end of the beer it has gone altogether.

The banana like character of the aroma remains as the beer hits the tongue but it is carried away quickly by a more bitter flavour that ends with a strong taste of alcohol as you swallow. This beer has none of the toasted coffee flavours of Guinness and its imitators. Nor does it have the charred meat flavour of some of the craft stouts I've tried in recent times. This stout has a definite fruity character that I find much easier on the palate than many of the other stouts on the market, despite its much higher alcohol content.

The higher alcohol content is something that I don't really notice as I drink the bottle but I certainly notice it as my body starts to digest the beer. Unless you want to unleash your inner Rasputin this might not be a beer for every day consumption - the price of €3 a bottle might also dissuade you - but if you want to relax with one or two bottles of something flavoursome, relatively light and quite special then this beer could be the one for you.

4.5/5

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Domus: Regia Bitter (4.3% ABV)

Having already tried Domus' pale ale offering, Aurea, a beer of exceedingly high quality, I had high hopes for this, the flagship beer of the Domus factory in Toledo. Identifying precisely what style this beer aspires to has proven slightly difficult. As I hope to explain in a forthcoming post, the Spanish language seems to lack some of the basic vocabulary that we use to describe beers. While this particular beer is certainly an ale, it is another example of a 'cerveza tostada', something that we might translate as 'bitter' or, even more simply, as 'ale' itself!

As I opened the beer a gush of foam immediately shot out and soaked my arm in precious beer. This surprised me somewhat as the bottle had by no means been shaken before opening. Being covered in the beer seemed to be something of an anti-climax. As I licked the beer off my wrist nothing really spoke to me...

Upon sniffing the bottle, the aroma reminded me of dried apricots but with a slight alcoholic kick in the back ground. There was not even a hint of hop, which is something that I normally look for in a beer. The colour is amber and almost opaque with some sediment at the bottom of the bottle. As I poured, the head became quite voluminous and took several minutes to settle down. Part of this might have been due to the tall glass I was using though.

In terms of taste this beer disappoints. After being truly wowed by their IPA, which I shall be reviewing in the coming days, I found none of the same distinctive character in this beer. Clearly it is a different variety but the taste lacks something crucial to set it apart from the many mediocre beers on the market. The taste retains the note of dried fruit - to me it seems very similar to dried apricots, although this is quite unscientific - with an initial sweetness that moves towards bitterness as you swallow.

This is by no means a poor beer. The taste itself is perfectly fine but it has nothing to make it stand out. In that sense it's really rather unremarkable. Given its density, certainly when compared to lager, and its steep price tag - again €3 for 330ml - it hardly seems worth it. As I drink more, its insipid flavour almost makes it a chore to drink and I find myself thinking that a can of lager might have been the better option. I don't dislike the taste but it offers little that one can really savour.

2/5

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Kettal: El Almiar (5.1% ABV)

I bought this little bottle of gaditana IPA the other day in Salamanca's only craft beer shop, La Boutique de las Cervezas. Yesterday I promised myself that today I'd open a nice bottle of Imperial Stout that I bought for myself but since the weather was so warm I fancied something a little less robust and alcoholic. As a beer drinker I tend to be a fan of most pale ales, although I normally have to be in a special mood to pick out an IPA.

The presentation of the beer is quite good. 'Almiar' translates as 'haystack' in Spanish, and the word almost certainly comes from Arabic. Cádiz is of course a city with strong Arabic connections so the name seems fitting. The symbol on the bottle is a nice little haystack, relaxing in its field with its cyprus tree friend in the background.

As I opened the beer I was immediately hit with fresh, hoppy aroma but as I poured it into the glass this dissipated almost totally and left a distant, citrussy smell - perhaps grapefruit - along with a hint of rose petal. The head was quite thin and, again, dissipated quite quickly.

The flavour itself is relatively uncomplex. The sweeter citrus aromas don't carry over and what strikes me most is the grapefruit-like bitterness. I've tried many pale ales with a hint of grapefruit in the flavour but most tend to be slightly milder in taste - normally there is an initial sweetness to balance the flavour out. This, however, is bitter from the start but it is still very enjoyable. The label describes it as a 'cerveza amarga' - a bitter beer - and that is precisely what it delivers.

At €3 for a 330ml bottle it is quite expensive, even if we were talking about Irish prices, but enjoying craft beers is certainly not the most pocket friendly hobby there is in Spain. For the same price I could have bought a six-pack of lager but I'm glad I didn't. The beer itself is marked by its bitterness, something which I enjoyed, although I imagine that I would limit myself to one of these in a single sitting as much of the impact is lost after the initial shock of the first sip. This is what I would call a rotation beer - one to have occasionally, perhaps to break up the drinking of two or more of another variety in one sitting, but perhaps not a real 'go to' beer for regular consumption.

3.5/5