Beer, Food & Liquor Reviews
#10th Instalment of the Beer Tour of the World
The food section
I was wandering along the main drag in Lampedusa on our last
day, provisioning. Mostly, I needed a
sausage. They come in lengths of about
2’ in Italy so I went to the Macelleria to get one. He had a nice pork one and I bought it all
for about €3.
Carol rates this as the best fresh Mozarella she’s ever
had. Especially on toast with Cherry
Jam.
He was absolutely convinced I could speak Italian because as
much as I tried to tell him I spoke English, he just raised his voice a little
bit and repeated the sales spiel – I guess he thought if he said it often
enough I would eventually get it in Italian.
Beer
Dreher.
Seems to be made in Milano.
4.7%. A lager, so there’s not
really much chance to be different from other lagers. Quite nice – a little bit of sourness to wake
you up. ½ litre can for €1.8. Originally a Czech brewer, and still made
there, but this one was from the Italian production line.
Castello
From the brewery that made Moretti before Heineken bought it
out and sold the brewery and the stream it’s on to these people. What is it with modern corporations who think
they are so smart that they can buy a successful product, dump what made it
successful in the first place and just market the name? When Heineken bought Moretti, they didn’t
want the brewery or the stream / river it sat on so they disposed of it. In effect, what is now Moretti is Heineken
rubbish and what is now Castello is what Moretti used to be when it was
good. Just so y’all know.
Farson Simons
Breweries of Malta
Cisk Lager - Lovely.
Strong hint of sourness from the hop leaf.
Hopleaf –
nice. Light bitter aftertaste. Probably my pick of all the Farson brews.
Extra Strong (XS)
9% abv. Didn’t like at all, nor did my
friend Olivier. All alcohol taste and
nothing else.
Amber Ale. I don’t normally like anything that tastes
like fruit but this is nicely underdone in that area, although it does have a
smidgin of fruit. Nutty and perhaps a
little on the sweet edge but not so that I don’t like it. Only saw it at one pub, the Jubilee and
nowhere else at all.
Blue Label. An ale and perhaps a little weak but not bad
if you intend having more than one. I’ve
had quite a few, in different restaurants here, and it’s easy to drink.
There is a bar here called the Jubilee Bar. It is attempting to franchise itself and
there are offers in the bar for people interested to discuss. They already sell their in-house food in
supermarkets. We had beer and free
snacks there in a lengthy session with Olivier and Lauren before they departed
for Gozo and Syracuse. Then Carol and I
returned for dinner and had more beer and some food, too. I had a steak-and-ale pie and chips. Carol had an in-house made ravioli of fish
and a white sauce which was very nice.
My pie was OK but could have done with more gravy inside. We both had desserts, me apple pie and ice
cream and Cal a lemon sorbet. Cost for 2
x 600ml Amber Ale bottles, 1 half pint of Cisk Lager for Cal, two mains and two
desserts? €22.95. Including VAT. Third time there I asked for gravy and lo and
behold, out came a gravy boat for my pie.
Wuhrer
It is a little bit sweet for mine, but OK if it’s cold
enough to mask that a bit. Brewed by one
of my favourite brewers in the whole world but not a beer I’d go back to
Hermann Muller
Made in Poland by a brewery called Gamintojas as near as I
can tell. Found this in a discount store
in Sliema, Malta. 4 x 500ml cans for
€3.5. Good deal. Nice beer.
Crisp, low head and not gassy at all.
Reasonable amount of hop flavor as much as a lager can have. Like it very much. Put it on the purchase list.
Cynar
Italian Artichoke liquer.
Very much like tea. Can’t
recommend it with any conviction.
Trivia: someone posed a question
recently on Carol’s FB that you couldn’t think of a drink without an “e” in the
name. Bet I can.
Limuncell of Gozo
Very nice, much more of a tart flavor. We had a bottle recently (among a few of us,
not just us) that was from Sorrento and one would assume was “autentico” but it
was very syrupy and ultra sweet. This
one from Gozo was lighter on the sugar and stronger on the lemon. Very nice. Which is good because I just
bought one of their Tangerine liquers and haven’t started it yet.
Disaronno
Amaretto to the older ones among us, but it’s been sold as
Disaronno for over ten years now. It was
Amaretto di Saronno, then Originale di Saronno and now just Disaronno. It is the best selling Italian liquer in the
world. It deserves to be – I remember
having this in a coffee in the Sheraton in Singapore back in the middle 1980s,
with a side shot to go with it. It was
nice then and I still find it smooth and warming. All class.
And no “e” either.
Had this on draft in Gibraltar and thought it was a publican’s
beer (see Reviews #8). Just bought 4
cans to see if there’s any difference.
Tastes the same, i.e. not much taste at all. Smooth and creamy like a Kilkenny – cans come
with those little widgets in them that go off when you rip the top. Nice head, very smooth but only 3.8% and not
much to recommend it.
Clausthaler Classic
I bought it because on the label is a medal “World Beer
Awards”. Silly me, they must have been
in a category all their own. I took one
swig and realized I’d been had. It’s
NON-ALCOHOLIC! It tastes like that South
Australian stuff Southwark with no alcohol.
Thank the lucky stars I only bought two small bottles to try it. I’ll pass on the reaction of the unlucky soul
I foist the remaining one on.
Bavaria.
One of the ‘bespoke’ beers that are made for supermarket
sale. 5.0% Nice – large cans, quite sharp and a big
seller here in Malta. Not surprised,
would hold its own in most company.
86.
This is Bavaria’s “Special Blond Beer”. Most Australian “blond’ beers are a euphemism
for “lo-carb” i.e. low alcohol. This is
7.9% so it’s no way low alcohol. Made in
Holland, even though it’s called Bavaria.
Very nice indeed but it will set you back on your pins if you have too
many.
Skol
Brought to you by Carlsberg/Tetley Brewing. Tetley make good stuff. This variety is brewed in Malta under licence
by Farsons, who bring you Cisk, Blue Label etc above. And good stuff it is too. It’s “By Appointment To Her Majesty The
Queen” and she sure knows her beers. I
think that’s courtesy of the Tetley’s link.
Comes in large 500ml cans and you can usually get it around the islands
for around €3.50 for a four-pack.
Cody’s
Brewed in Bremen Germany, so it is made where they know
beer. 5.4%. Not bad but a little sweetish. Price? .49c for a 500ml can.
Carl Theodor Lager
Another generic. Says
“produced in Germany” but with marketing language designed to mislead, the term
is probably meaningless. Seems to be a
Romanian company. Nothing to recommend
it but equally it is not to be avoided.
Again only .49c for a 500ml can so if you see it at that price, put it
in the fridge. Not as sweet as the
Cody’s so it goes up in my listing.
Note:- Arrived in
Sicily last night. Into the Koala Bar in
Porto Paolo (yes, there is a Koala Bar in Porto Paolo, Sicily) and had two Nastro
Azzura’s. It’s nice to be back with
one of the world’s best beers in every fridge!
€2 each.
Norbertus Heller
Bock
Strong Lager, 7.5%
In Don Carmelo’s, Syracusa.
Had the house beer first and didn’t like it and opted for this from
their “Special Beers” section.
Very nice, double malted.
Tasted a little smoky or peaty.
Complex, but not a lot of fruit thank goodness. There is some there from the double malt but
it is by no means a turnoff. Big bottle,
with one of those wire flip tops on it.
Comes cold but not icy which was nice as it let the taste through. It is one of the brands made by Allgauer
Brauhaus
Hacker-Pschorr
This brewery has gone full circle, from Hacker, to being
bought out by the son-in-law Pschorr, to the next two sons going their separate
ways and re-merging in the 1970s. It is
one of the famous “six” located inside Munich and therefore one of the six
allowed to sell at the Oktoberfest. They
also own Paulaner (very nice).
I had this on tap in the Camel Bar in Le Castella in
Calabria. I thought it a bit sweet for
me but I very quickly add that these guys make many different beers (King Ludwig
had Pschorr create some for his wedding) and they’ve got 580 years of
experience so there’s more than just this one.
Overall, crisp and nice with a frothy head (barman had to
sweep it with his stick) and at 5.5% not to be drunk carelessly. If it was the tap beer in a bar I went into
I’d buy it again.
Hacker-Pschorr Sternweisse
Later, in Piraeus, I was in a chandlery. We’d bought some stuff there and the chandler
gave me a bottle of this – they look after the yacht of one of the two owners
of the brewery, and he gives them heaps of beer as a perk. Not usually a wheat-beer drinker but this
wasn’t too bad. Very large head, which
dropped away after a while. Sour and
sharp. Pours dark and almost brown. Nice stuff.
Willianbrau Pils
The beer by this name on RateBeer is a Belgian of 4.2%
alcohol. The one I have is 4.6% and is
brewed in Slovenia for an Italian company.
I have no idea how you can have two beers with identical names being sold
when they are completely different beers?
Anyway, this one, the Slovenian one, is a bit on the
ordinary side. Not much froth, but nice
and crisp. When faced with a tap with
this on it I’d buy one but I wouldn’t go lookies for it. 500ml can, .69c. Can’t complain about the price.
Sicilian beer. Double
malted. 7%. Starting to get a bit on the citrusy
side. Each bottle is individually
numbered. It’s twice to three times the
price of whatever else is in the pub and it’s probably not worth that
much. Good to support a boutique brewery
and all – maybe with more acceptance and volume the price will come down?
I'm about 10 beers behind, or maybe 12, from Albania and Greece. Some good brews to come.
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