Brutal winter, cruel summer

A raft of new beers from the ever so industrious Sierra Nevada today.

It was still winter, just about, when I opened the Winter Warmer lager. This is a  potentially warming 6.7% ABV and a very dark red-brown colour. Not much head formed on pouring, and that dissolved to nothing in a couple of minutes, leaving it millpond flat. The flavour is typical of mid-European dark lager, big on liquorice and caramel, with lots of burntness too. There's a surprising lighter fruit side as well, bringing a squeeze of sweet cherry and blueberry. What it lacks is warmth. Though it has the same sticky dark malt of any dunkels or tmavý, the alcohol doesn't really push through. It's fine but unexciting.

"Spring seasonal" it says on the label of Sierra Nevada Brut IPA. Also that it was packaged on 17th December. Go figure. From the bottle it's a pure and clear pale gold. The aroma is quite sickly: a gastric acidity that made me slightly apprehensive. Thankfully there's none of that on tasting, just a lemon sherbet flavour, and not much else, really. It's surprisingly sweet for something that's apparently had all the sugar fermented out of it, a definite hard-candy effect. There's a certain tongue-shrivelling dry smack, but nothing dramatic. It feels a bit efforty, overall: an attempt to get down with what the kids are drinking that doesn't bring the Sierra Nevada finesse in the same way Hazy Little Thing did.

Back to lager again for the next one. Sierraveza is Mexican-style, tapping into that craft market for macro clones. It looks more like a Corona than a Negra Modelo: a pale limpid yellow with poor head retention. It also somehow tasted skunked, and given the brewery's attention to detail I can't help thinking that might be deliberate. There's a touch of Germanic heritage next -- some slightly harsh ryegrass noble hops and soft, sticky, candyfloss malt. It doesn't taste like a quality beer, and yes I know that's probably the point, but I also don't know why Sierra Nevada is elbowing in on Corona's territory. Their brand is cheapened by it and the drinker gets nothing worthwhile out of the arrangement.

Beer four is for charidee: Resilience, an open source IPA produced by multiple American breweries to aid relief from the 2018 Butte County wildfires. It's a dark orange job, the aroma redolent with toffee and caramel. The texture is smooth and the flavour dry at first, with a strong-tea astringency. Behind that are the fresh and fruity hops, bringing mouthwatering orange peel and spiky, earthy resins. It's another of those '90s style IPAs that I keep calling out when I see them but there's a new one every week or so. It won't be for everyone, tastewise, but I liked the complete eschewing of fashion in aid of a good cause.

Overall, not the brewery's best work, this lot. At least we can be assured there'll be something else from them along soon.

Siesta cerveza

The rhythm of Madrid takes a bit of getting used to. The city sleeps late and parties all night. Those bars that do open during the day tend to run a lunch shift until 4 and then close until 8. This meant that just around the time when the thirsty tourist is looking for his first beer of the day he's met with closed shutters. Thankfully El Corte Inglés came to the rescue and I filled the dead hours of the early evening with beers from its shelves, cooled in the hotel minibar fridge.

The first ones that attracted me were the dark lagers on offer, though they're a mixed bag to say the least. Alhambra Negra pours a promising deep brown colour but has very little by way of flavour -- just a carbonic sort of dryness -- and basically no body. I had higher hopes for Mexico's iconic Negra Modelo, in its stubby gold-top bottle, but unfortunately it's a bit rubbish too. A surprisingly light shade of ruby, it tastes a little of caramel and banana, but otherwise is close to typical pale lager in the flavourlessness stakes. Ambar Negra was much better: definitely black and with strong molasses notes on the nose. The flavour is appropriately sweet -- lots of treacle and brown sugar. It's a simple beer, but very drinkable. Best of the blacks, though, came from the ubiquitous house of Mahou. Mahou Negra is a lovely shade of dark red and smells oddly woody. The flavour puts dry ahead of sweetness, the caramel notes infused with smoke. There's a full body which makes it very satisfying to drink and almost akin to a stout.

When the bars did open, however, it was Mahou that was normally on tap: an unpleasantly dull and slightly cabbagey pale lager. The pub market seems largely shared between it and Cruzcampo, with very little of the Estrella Damm or San Miguel, so common in Barcelona, to be seen. I did pick up one bottle from the former brewery, though -- AK Damm was on sale in Corte Inglés and I liked the look of the fancy bottle. It's a smooth Munich-esque lager with soft candyfloss sweetness and a light sparkle. A definite cut above bog-standard Spanish fizz, but ultimately not very interesting. I entertained higher hopes for Ambar 1900, a self-described "pale ale". But it's just more fizz, really, with the vague sugariness and distant hops of a cheap lager.

Madrid has two brewpubs, and I tried to follow Boak's advice here to hit Magister first then settle in Naturbier after. But my timing was out, as usual, and only Naturbier was open. It's a large pub by Madrid standards, with the German-made copper brew kit down the back. The beer is unadventurous fare: Naturbier Rubia is a slightly hazy blonde with no nose but quite an interesting mild flavour of grapes and peaches, followed by a dry and grainy finish. I found it quaffable; Mrs Beer Nut deemed it musty and declared it undrinkable. The Tostada is a light red-brown colour, caramelly with a refreshing tannic character. There's definitely some nitro in the gas mix here, giving Irish-red-like attributes, though with much more toffee on the nose and a pronounced hop spice. Decent beers, this pair, if unexciting.

Across the square from Naturbier is Magister, and of course we visited when it finally opened. Boak had a nasty experience with the staff here, as did Gazza Prescott, so I was on full alert when we went in. They make much of their free tapas, but rather than the more fun approach of other bars where they just throw you a plate of whatever's handy, in Magister you order from a blackboard listing ten available freebies. Tapas for the picky eater: it just doesn't sit well with me.

Once again there's a Rubia -- clearer than Naturbier's offering though with a worrying vinegar aroma. None of that in the flavour, thankfully. It's smooth and full-bodied, a bit like a Märzen with a touch of juicy fruit sweetness. The Tostada is also quite hefty, with warming butterscotch notes and a dry finish. The third beer on the menu was Autor, a red-gold beer where the vinegar smell comes back and this time follows through to the taste. It's sharply bitter in a classy way, like a fine balsamic, but it's a failure as a beer.

There are of course plenty of quality drinking options in Madrid away from the beer. No trip is complete without a visit to La Venencia -- a living fossil of a bar with no taps, no brands, nothing except six types of sherry stored in casks, bottled in-house, cooled in a tub of water behind the counter and served at daftly low prices. There's also the cider, from Asturia, available in specialist cider bars dotted around town, with the best being Casa Mingo -- halfway between Principe Pio station and Goya's grave -- where it accompanies their magnificent cider-basted chicken. Cheers to Derek for the recommendation on that one.

And thankfully the Spanish don't limit their beer-drinking to native brews. Many of the bars show a connection to other, more beery, countries like Germany and Belgium. The latter has even inspired a locally-made abbey beer: Heineken's Legado de Yuste, named for the Spanish monastery where Emperor Charles V spent his retirement (this, if my history serves me, was after many years of squabbling with Jonathan Rhys-Meyers). Yuste is an attractive dark red hue and is packed with huge slabs of toffee flavours. It's rather one-dimensional though, offering nothing past that initial caramel sweetness. A bit sickly perhaps, but nice for the one, and rather better than a lot of what's served in the pubs of Madrid.

More on the genuine stuff in the next post.