What beer are we drinking this week, too?

Koptain Liverpool

Ravelleman wrote: »

One of the great things about Madrid and indeed many other places in Spain is the vermouth taps in a lot of bars - delightful mystery vermouth, sometimes even from gravity casks. Sure beats Martini.

Any more trip reports from Madrid?
Did you find many places serving good beers?
How do they drink the vermouth, neat?

I'll be visiting there quite a bit in the future so any tips about where to go would appreciated!

C.K Dexter Haven

adamski8 wrote: »

Macivors is really good, craiges is pretty bad

You couldn't be more right about Craiges- it's like drinking cooking apple juice. I'm sorry Cragies, I wanted to like you being Wexford and Irish, but I just won't buy again:(

adamski8

C.K Dexter Haven wrote: »

You couldn't be more right about Craiges- it's like drinking cooking apple juice. I'm sorry Cragies, I wanted to like you being Wexford and Irish, but I just won't buy again:(

Thought it was wicklow?

lee_baby_simms

C.K Dexter Haven wrote: »

You couldn't be more right about Craiges- it's like drinking cooking apple juice. I'm sorry Cragies, I wanted to like you being Wexford and Irish, but I just won't buy again:(

I was sold this in drink store in Stoneybatter and was promised it was really good. Cost me a fiver for a bottle and it was really underwhelming/rank.

More fool me. Never again.

I love Stonewell extra dry cider myself.

lee_baby_simms

marco_polo wrote: »

I tried 2/3 different beers out of the Kinnegar range a couple of weeks ago, can't remember the exact names but found the same thing with them all really, quite bland and a bit watery.

I really like their Rustbucket. Alfie Byrnes have it on tap.

C.K Dexter Haven

lee_baby_simms wrote: »

I love Stonewell extra dry cider myself.

Medium Dry Stonewell is good also

5 euro was 2 euro more than what I paid for the other one

adamski8

lee_baby_simms wrote: »

I was sold this in drink store in Stoneybatter and was promised it was really good. Cost me a fiver for a bottle and it was really underwhelming/rank.

More fool me. Never again.

I love Stonewell extra dry cider myself.

They also recommended it to me. Strange as they usually are good at that. I knew better at the time as i had tasted it before.

lk67

In Rathmullan this week and have tried a few of the Kinnegar beers here. The biggest issue seems to be supply v demand in the local pubs!
Limeburner is pleasant and exactly what it should be for a pale ale.(That is, not overly hopped.) Scraggy Bay is as good if not better than most other Irish or English IPAs and also does exactly as the says on the tin - or bottle - as it is an IPA and not an APA - or West Coast APA for that matter.
Otway is harder to pin down to style but good too. And of course Yannaroddy is a sublime porter - with a sort-of-matching icecream also available!
More to try tomorrow!

Ravelleman

Koptain Liverpool wrote: »

Any more trip reports from Madrid?
Did you find many places serving good beers?
How do they drink the vermouth, neat?

I'll be visiting there quite a bit in the future so any tips about where to go would appreciated!

Yep, vermouth comes neat with a slice of lemon and an olive. It's a very weekend drink in Spain - just before lunch. Red vermouth is the most typical. Some places just do Martini from their tap but others have Spanish brands, even their own versions if it's popular enough.

Madrid has comparatively few options for craft beer. Given that I had rather a lot of free time after work on my most recent visit I checked out most of them.

Fábrica Maravillas (C/ Valverde, 29 - in the middle of Malasaña): I found the decor in here really sterile - metal bar top, wood veneers, straights lines, exposed brick. The beer was not much better. The Valverde Saison was really lackluster, despite liberal use of cascade and saaz hops. Nothing like a real saison in my mind. I was assured that the Malasaña Ale was different but also 'very special' but it was just as bad. The special element comes from the rye they use but I found it really lacking any kind of character at all. The hops were weak and there was none of the pepperiness you might expect from rye.

Naturbier (Plaza Santa Ana, 9 - close to Puerta del Sol): I spent a couple of hours sitting around here while attempting to avoid the peak of the sun. Despite marketing itself as a craft beer pub it is terrible unambitious. They do only two styles - a lager and a tostada somewhat reminiscent of a red ale. The prices are high - their jarras aren't really jarras, they're half the size - but the beer is decent. The lager has more depth than your typical Spanish fair. I'd even go so far as to call it a Marzen-style, which is not common in Spain. The tostada was better, perhaps even comparable to some Irish reds. Nice pincho of chorizo and pisto.

La Tape (C/ San Bernardo, 88 - in Malasaña): I arrived here after a long walk and was incredibly thirsty. The prices are pretty high but they have an ever changing blackboard of beers on tap and a set menu of bottled beers. I think I actually just had a Brew Dog Fake Lager in the end. There were a number of Spanish beers on offer in pint and half-pint form but I couldn't face a full pint, such was my level of dehydration. This is about 50 metres away from Irreale (C/ Manuela Malasaña, 20), which is reputedly the best craft beer place in Madrid. It being August though, the opening hours were severely curtailed and I never managed to be there at the right time.

El Pedal (C/ Argumosa, 33 - down by Atocha, behind the Reina Sofia): this place had so much promise but the execution was just terrible. They were launching a Spanish-made 'triple IPA' called Destroy All Humans, which appeared to be a collaboration between El Oso y el Cuervo and Yria-Guinea Pigs breweries. This was surprisingly a very good take on an imperial IPA, though I'm not sure you could call it a triple. Lots of resin and deep citrus flavours in there. The blackboard mentioned a Belgian black IPA so I also order that, though it actually turned out to be a full on stout, completely mislabeled by the bar. Throughout this the owner and barperson had terrible trouble with all the taps, resulting in pints that came out as 90% foam. Presumably too much gas was coming out due to miscalibration. This meant that it took about 15 minutes to get a drink, which was made from the liquid contents of about five different foam glasses. When I finally got my beverage my seat on the terrace had been taken by the brewer of Destroy so I quickly finished and went on my way.

There's also a cat cafe across the road from El Pedal, should you be into that.

banjopaul

Anyone know if drinkstore have the new 8 degrees Simcoe rye in? Not on their site.

drumswan

banjopaul wrote: »

Anyone know if drinkstore have the new 8 degrees Simcoe rye in? Not on their site.

Pretty sure I saw it on the shelf the other day.

In other news, Trouble have a new beer

symbolic

drumswan wrote: »

Pretty sure I saw it on the shelf the other day.

In other news, Trouble have a new beer

I like the look of that!

I've enjoyed the latest Trouble Brewing offerings a lot.

banjopaul

drumswan wrote: »

Pretty sure I saw it on the shelf the other day.

Cheers will pop in on the way home from work so.

BeerNut

Oh Yeah! now pouring in Against the Grain.

Koptain Liverpool

Thanks Ravellman! Sort of what I expected in Madrid.

Ronan|Raven

A bottle of Kentucky Kölsch, I will be drinking far better Kölsch in two weeks time when back in Koln.

One the upside I also got a bottle of Old Rosie in o'Briens in the Beacon. I have never seen it here before. I intend to harvest the delicious yeast contained within.

jsa112

Had a founders rubaeus, good beer if you like raspberry's. Didn't particularly enjoy their Curmudgeon though

Bebo stunnah

I finally got my hands on a pint from the White Hag; Fleadh Ale. I think it tastes great! Very hoppy flavour and at 6.8%, very smooth. Can't wait until their stuff comes out to try it!

Hidden Cyclone

Buried At Sea in bottles

Haven't had it since it first appeared. Those first few bottles I sampled were almost flat (saw a few people on here comment similar). All sorted now, they were delicious.

lufties

Samuel smiths oatmeal stout..

Malty, chocolate smell...sweet but strong, nice with some beef jerky.

Friday treat. Can't get enough of this stuff. The Rebel Red is good too! :P

BMJD

Wychwood Scarecrow - boring as flip

cunnifferous

St Mel's pale ale, great big meh. Much better available for the price

FirstinLastout

Bebo stunnah wrote: »

I finally got my hands on a pint from the White Hag; Fleadh Ale. I think it tastes great! Very hoppy flavour and at 6.8%, very smooth. Can't wait until their stuff comes out to try it!

Had a few of these the other night at the Fleadh in Sligo and was really surprised how good it was.
Been a while since I was taken aback at how good a new beer that I'm trying for the first time was so was all the more delighted when it's the nocal brewhouse.
Description above is pretty spot on but I thought it was stronger?
Or maybe it just felt it after a few....

Knifey Spoony

Tried Blacks new IPA, Rocket Ship, last night on cask in the Bierhaus Cork. It's hopped only with Galaxy and quite a lot of it as well. It's extremely hoppy, but delicious. Blacks can do no wrong imo.

Herb Powell

A cold Czech Budweiser. Always reliable enough.

I've been out of the loop for a good while (a year at this stage) regarding Irish craft beer, and I see people posting about tons and tons of new brews on here. I'll be back in the country soon enough, so do ye have any particular must-try recommendations from the new stuff (i.e beers released this year) ???

BeerNut

Pretty much anything new from 8 Degrees is well worth your while. The new Trouble and Galway Bay beers are great too.

Creamy Goodness

BeerNut wrote: »

Pretty much anything new from 8 Degrees is well worth your while. The new Trouble and Galway Bay beers are great too.

I'd second this. The new 8 degrees single hop series are great. The trouble brewing specials (lazy Sunday et al) and the galway bay & begyle goodbye blue Monday and their table beer are stunning. Not to mention the brú guys with their pale/lager/stout/hefe/red.

Brilliant time to be buying local.

Heroditas

Started off with a Blacks Session IPA, then a Sabotage followed by a Rustbucket.
Numbers 2 and 3 aren't really hitting the spot. However, I think I'm still slightly hungover after the mother of all school night sessions on Thursday night.

Herb Powell

Excellent, 8 Degrees are probably my favourite, nice and local in Cork as well.

Very excited to sample the new stuff, I have to say