Loco fermentis

The second host brewery for the 2019 EBCU autumn meeting in Madrid was Mad Brewing. It's in the north-east of the city, about half an hour's journey on the metro from the centre of town. This is a much slicker operation than Península yesterday, with a full kitchen serving the taproom, though the place is still very much a production brewery first. A glass partition lets punters watch the production happen while they drink.

Just as Península answers the need for lager with a Kölsch-clone, so Mad does too. San Blas is its name and it's appropriately pale yellow with just the faintest haze and lots of froth on top. The soft texture matches the best Cologne has to offer, and there's a mild herb complexity, on the sweet side, like basil or mint. The only thing preventing this from being a perfect interpretation of Kölsch is the ABV: a tiddling 3.8%. But the beer doesn't care for numbers and is highly enjoyable anyway.

That was the first beer with lunch. I think there was supposed to be a second course but we seem to have leapt straight to dessert and Darker Matter, an 11% ABV imperial stout. Despite the walloping strength it's rather dry, with a crisp roasted crunch. A layer of bitter dark chocolate sits over this base while a sweeter, floral, countermelody plays. This is a no-nonsense sort of imperial stout with plenty of flavour but nothing silly, and is pleasingly light on booze heat. I enjoyed taking my time over it, and not just because it was only the second beer of the day.

L: Camarillo, R: Trigo Hoppy

Once business was concluded, it was down to the bar to work through the rest of the range. In a display cabinet they had a string of awards for their Camarillo oatmeal IPA and I went straight for that. I can see why it has been so lauded. Though 6.1% ABV it's actively light and refreshing. One wouldn't normally pick IPA for a palate reset but this does that job. And not that it's bland or anything: I found a plethora of juicy tropical fruit including fresh pineapple and passionfruit. A resinous bitterness swings in at the end to provide balance. This is really beautiful stuff and the best Mad beer I tried, by some margin.

To the right of it is a wheat IPA called Trigo Hoppy. It's very pale and slightly hazy, looking wan and sickly, not like it's all of 5.2% ABV, which it is. They probably don't want it described as resembling a witbier, though with its gentle citrus spritz and easy-going refreshment power, that's what it resembles. It's pleasant, if unexciting.

Something with a bit more welly to follow: the macho Jim West, an 8% ABV dark hazy orange US-style IPA. It's an absolute beast of a thing, out of the traps with a burning hot pith flavour, accompanying bags of heavy resins. This is a beer that stays with you. Even when the heat has subsided, an intense orange-skin bitterness remains, fading to a metallic tang. I'm sure it's lovely if you're in the mood for it: it certainly doesn't skimp on flavour; everything is dialled up to the max and beyond. I found it just too much hard work to enjoy. Better examples of this kind of beer show more balance.

L: Mad City, R: True England

Mad City, ironically, is a much saner beer. This is quite a plain pale ale, 5.1% ABV and a limpid shade of yellow. Sherbet lemon sits up front; a heavier resinous dank effect brings up the rear. All is measured and calm. The texture is a little on the thick side for it to be a quaffer -- surprising since it's a whole percentage point weaker than Camarillo -- but it's a good beer with no drama.

With its mod stylings on the artwork and jingoistic name I was expecting True England to be a bitter, but they mean it as a pun on "New England". The real surprise is that I got seven beers in before a fully cloudy IPA showed up. It's orange rather than yellow, though properly opaque. Peach is the principal flavour, juicy and a little sticky though stopping short of cloying. I get a cheeky pinch of garlic, but more in a complementary way than an off-note. Overall this is a good, understated and pubby take on the style. Maybe it has more connection to old England than I realised.

I was staying around the corner so Mad was no trouble to get to. Nevertheless, I would recommend setting aside the time for it if you're beering in Madrid.

There is a small handful of brewpubs operating in Madrid city centre and we made it along to just one: Fábrica Maravillas, based in a grand terraced villa in one of the main shopping areas. The layout is impressively compact, squeezing a full size brewhouse and fermenters into a corridor and backroom, fronting on to a short bar and a scattering of high tables and ledges. I doubt the place holds more than twenty people comfortably, and it's a little weird that so much of it is dedicated to beer production. Still, getting the gear out of there would be a nightmare so why not stick with it?

L: FM Mosaic, R: To The South

I began the Sunday afternoon session here on FM Mosaic Lager which is a hazy pale yellow and a modest 4.8% ABV. I don't know why I expected it to be hoppier, maybe because it looks like Mosaic classic Little Fawn, but this is lager to its core. There's the full and fluffy body of a helles, and the same soft white bread flavour. Mosaic is limited to a non-speaking role, offering little more than a wisp of spring onion. I wasn't concerned about the hop situation: if there's good helles I'll drink and enjoy it, and this is good helles.

Beside it is the session IPA called To The South. Chinook, Ekuanot and Simcoe are the hops and they do a great job together, making this a complex symphony of flavour at just 4% ABV. The aroma is an enticing mix of mandarins and gunpowder, and it tastes both juicy and spicy too: peach nectar and satsuma first, backed by black peppercorns and frankincense. All of this is done without it turning busy or cloying, nor watery and thin. All session IPAs should be this well thought-out.

L: FL(IPA), R: Compris

We get to the New England-style IPA quicker this time. Maravillas's is called Compris and is another dark one, with a thick foam dome above the opaque amber body. A happy flood of orange juice comes first, then savoury onion. As in True England, the two sides are well balanced though it's not as strongly flavoured, despite being all of 6% ABV. The double dry-hopping wasn't as effective as it could have been.

That leaves the other (west coast?) American-style IPA FL(IPA). I don't know what the FL stands for. Citra gets an outing here, alongside Chinook and Simcoe, and there's a lovely bright lemon-and-lime aroma. It's sharply bitter at first but that tails off quickly leaving no aftertaste. At 6.2% ABV there's plenty of substance, and the mix of chewy malt and spiky resins give it a classic feel. Props to an old-school US IPA elegantly executed.

To complete the offer for the day, FM Rye Red. Again 6.2% ABV and brewed with Cascade, Citra and Columbus hops though they don't tell us anything about the malt. It pours the opaque red colour of tomato soup, which doesn't bode well, and there's a slight twang of disinfectant from it. Aside from that it's wholesome and warming, going big on dark caramel though with a strong bitter finish too. It's very much malt-driven, the hops reduced to a secondary role. I deemed it just about passable and not quite as pleasingly bright and clean as the others.

For an unassuming broom-cupboard brewpub, Maravillas impressed. But with the menu completed there was nothing for it but but seek beery thrills elsewhere...