Good Spanish lager

The presence on the Irish beer market of A Coruña's Hijos de Rivera, via their partial stake in O'Hara's, yields the occasional interesting beer. I picked up two recently, in the 1906 series from the Spanish brewery, packaged in jolly, retro, 33cl bottles.

La Milnueve is described as a pale bock but is a cheery limpid amber colour in the glass. It definitely smells like lager, in a very German way, of crisp dry malt and lightly grass-laden hops. Although it's a bit of a whopper at 6.5% it tastes much lighter, being perfectly clean with lots of refreshing tea-like tannins and more of that fresh leafy herb thing. A certain caramel malt substance builds as it goes, but it never gets difficult, and I say that as someone who often doesn't get along with straight bock. Although I'd be reasonably sure it's a new addition to their range, it does taste classically old-fashioned: beer like it used to be, and still should be. 

The dark companion is called Black Coupage, though I don't think it's an actual coupage, just a black lager, claiming dunkel bock identity. It's a substantial 7.2% ABV but again it's sufficiently lager in nature to hide any less-than-clean attributes. Instead, you get aniseed, cola nut and burnt caramel, all fully in keeping with how the Germans do this sort of thing. The mouthfeel becomes more noticeable as it warms: a little treacly while still retaining the clean lager side. It's bob-on for a brewery trying to recreate the Munich thing, except for the 33cl rather than 50cl package.

Were I resident in this part of northern Spain I would be very glad of a brewery that has nailed German brewing styles quite as well as Rivera has here. As an outsider in both countries, however, I think I'd pick the Bavarian versions first. Regardless, these are a welcome addition to the current beer scene. Buy two of each if you want to go German.