Monsieur le Capitaine has been hard at it, sampling brews for your edification:
Cergal
Same people who brew Sagres in all its permutations. Cheap Dutch style pale lager.
Nice cold
Cruzcampo
This is a great beer, and a source of great pride to
Andalusians and other Spanish to a lesser extent. Cold it is superb and in a big glass goes
down well. Always opt for ‘Grande’ when
asked as a ‘Pequeño’
is way too little to do anyone any good.
From Wiki:-
Cruzcampo Brewery
Cruzcampo is considered to be the biggest beer producer in Spain.
Founded in 1904 by Roberto Osborne and Agustín Osborne in
Seville,
takes the name of
La Cruz del Campo (The Cross of the Field), which used
to be a cross in the middle of the field, which still stands today next to the
brewery in Seville.
[22]
Nowadays it is part of the
Heineken corporation
who bought it from
Guinness, however Spanish
people, especially Southerners, regard Cruzcampo as the national pride and is
the most consumed. Cruzcampo can be found anywhere in Spain, but it is in
Andalusia
where it is most consumed. It has breweries in
Seville,
Madrid,
Valencia,
Jaén
and
Arano.
The actual logo is the figure of
Gambrinus,
who is the legendary creator of beer, since 1926. Before it was the original
cross in the field.
[23]
Beers
also made:
- Cruzcampo:
Pilsen
type
- Cruzcampo
Shandy: beer with lemonade
(similar to the German Radler)
- Cruzcampo
Export
- Cruzcampo
Alcohol Free
- Big Cruzcampo
- El León
- Krone
Lager
- Spieler
Pils
Mahou / San Miguel
Mahou is OK stuff. Perhaps a little like Bintang but not quite as
sweet, just headed in the same direction. I didn’t try the San Miguel, as I wrongly
assumed it was simply the Philippines beer I already knew. However, I now know it is not, it is a
Spanish beer – it came out of the Manila Agreement signed between the two
breweries in the early 50s.
San Miguel
I have now tried San Miguel.
It is the same as San Miguel in Asia.
Which I like no matter which side of the world I’m on.
Flag Speciale
This is a Moroccan beer and is brewed in Fes, where all
great Moroccan craftsmen come from.
Comes in small bottles where we are (240ml). 5.2%. Not
bad stuff at all. I don’t know how much
it cost because it was tied up in our supermarket purchase/s of 2 cartons of
long life milk, 3 packets of potato chips and 4 bottles of Flag. All up it was $11.99 so I don’t think they
cost that much.
Stork
This is supposedly Morocco’s premier beer. It’s not bad but a little sweet for me and
for mine Flag is better. Nowhere near as
crap as VB but not something I’d chase down.
Pity, I’ve got a carton to get through.
John Smith Extra
Smooth
On tap here in Gib.
Nice but not a lot of flavor – more a publican’s beer, as you could down
three or four and they still wouldn’t be in danger of serving an intoxicated person.
Old Speckled Hen
This is an old favourite of mine – Carey Park Liquor Store always has it in
cans but at Australian prices. Here in
Gibraltar, even with their more-than-Spanish prices it was only about a £ for a half or about $2.00.
Lancaster Bomber
Well, I just had to get this one and toast Dad’s weapon of
choice. Perhaps he didn’t quite choose
it and just got assigned to it. Great
stuff. You should read the wiki on the
Thwaites family. Genuine brewers for a
couple of hundred years and fighting back against the giants. They have a strong presence in hotels and
supermarkets too.
The ale itself is rich and nutty. I let it warm a tiny bit as it got a bit too
cold in the fridge and it was excellent.
Theakston’s Old
Peculier.
Like Speckled Hen, one of my favourite British ales. Could drink this stuff on and on and wouldn’t
get bored. Genuine class act, with
richness, caramels and some bitterness.
Good with pies, casseroles and roasts.
Good on its own, too, with bar snacks.
Fuller’s London
Pride.
We had an electrician on the boat yesterday dealing with all
that Dark Arts stuff from Hogwarts.
Comes on the boat as 240, goes through a magic yellow box, turns into
115 but if you turn it off it still
comes in as 55 because it’s a something-something-middle-something. Worked out well because he got a boot part
way through and said that despite it hurting he wasn’t dead. No idea.
Anyway, Jim fixed whatever was ailing the box and told us that as he’s a
north Londoner his favourite tipple is London Pride. Wandered into a restaurant in Casemates
Square that very night after seeing Steak and Ale pie on the menu and blow me
down there’s London Pride on tap no less.
Had a couple with dinner. Very
nice drop. Easy to drink with a bit of
kick.
The Cannon Bar
We had a very tiring day climbing all over this Rock
visiting St Michael’s Cave, Jew’s Gate, the Botanical Gardens, the Siege
Tunnels and finally the Moroccan Castle.
Damn we walked a passel of miles for sure.
Coming down the back lanes and winding roads of Upper
Gibraltar we came across “The Cannon” bar.
I was reluctant to stop at first as it is a Fosters branded pub and I
thought if someone found out I was Australian I’d be blamed for launching that
crap on the English speaking world (someone actually came in while we were
there and ordered one!!)
Anyway, I had a John Smith Extra Smooth again and Carol had
a Kronenburg. I’ve had that before,
years ago, and found it a bit light.
After our walking, that’s exactly what Carol wanted and she pronounced
it suitable for a leg-weary lady on a hot day.
A bit on the flat side but nonetheless refreshing. From memory it’s about the only French beer I
know but I don’t have wiffy so I can’t check it online.
I also had a Graymer’s
“Olde English” cider, made by people who’ve been making Cider since
1770, or before Australia was found by Cook.
Nice and crisp and very sharp.
The bar manager, Matt, was from Northern Ireland and he
wrote down somewhere for me to visit when I get there. Bushmill’s Distillery! Had to tell him it was already high up on the
list as I’ve been a Black Bush drinker for years. Very nice chappie. He passed me a bottle of something made in
Mexico with no label, only a label around the throat of the bottle. Says Cerveza, made in Mexico, lists the usual
beer ingredients and advises that it’s imported to Spain by Colebrook S.L. into
Madrid. He said he doesn’t know how they
get it, it just sort of “appears” and they give it to friends and friends of
friends. I’ll cool it down and drink it
after we finish the next leg of the voyage.
Then I had another John Smith Extra Smooth just for fun.
Estrella Galicia
What a find this was on a warm and lazy Sunday afternoon in
Adra. This is heading for my new
favourite-most beer in the world. I had
two Grande and Carol had two pequeno.
For tapas, I had a potato with herbs and sour cream (magnificent!!) and
then a potato salad with tuna mixed through the mayonnaise and a fried pork and
chips dish. Carol had a tapas of a small
piece of fried fish with the same sour cream to dip in. I went to ask the chappy how much and he said
€10. Seriously, for 4 beers, (two large,
two small) and 4 tapas dishes - $12 or so.
In the middle of all this we had an interlude with the Guardia Civil,
our first brush with the law to date (see the blog for Adra)
Back to the beer – this is excellent on a warm day. Strong and full of flavor – like a well
rounded version of Corona which can be a bit on the weak side depending on the
shipment. Enough almost to make you want
to move to Spain. Apart from the food,
the wine, the beaches, the price of apartments, the price of cars.. I could go on. (note:- Corona in Spain is known as Coronita – same beer,
though)
Alhambra Premium Lager
Made in Granada. I
thought this would be a supermarket beer, brewed to a price not a recipe but
it’s actually quite good. As usual,
cheap by the dozen, and a nice drop indeed.
Steinburg “Classica”
This one is brewed to order for a supermarket, Mercadona to
be precise. It’s brewed in
Valencia. It’s supposed to look German,
with Lions Rampant in the background and Teutonic lettering. It’s as German as I am. Don’t know why they can’t call it Valencia
and be done with it – the Spanish make decent beer and have nothing to be
tipping their hats to the Germans for, even though the Allemagnes do make some
of the world’s finest brews.
The company is one of Spain’s biggest brewers and gets most
of its business from “Private Labels”.
This sounds cool, like you have your own wine pressing but all it means
is that if you are Coles or Woolworths you get to have Coles or Woolworths or
anything else you want on the label.
Despite the cool-trendy escapees from the wine appreciation
sites who now monopolise the beer sites criticizing it for being mass-market
stuff, it’s actually quite good. I
bought a carton, luckily, because we are no longer in Spain and I can’t get it
again for a while.
Celtia
Société de fabrication des boissons de Tunisie
(that’s just French for “the mob that makes the drinks for
Tunisia”)
Tunisian beer. When I
first had one I found it very yeasty and because of that a bit amateurish. However, our local “wifi” restaurant ran out
of Becks and only had Heineken and Celtia.
I refuse to drink Heineken with the preservative in it so I had
Celtia. It was actually quite good so I
must have had a fresh batch first up.
Had it a few times since then (still no Becks) and don’t mind it at all.
“33”
Société de fabrication des boissons de Tunisie
A French beer.
Blonde. I assumed 33 meant
3.3%. Silly me – I should have guessed
that there is no word in French for Low Alcohol, not a word for Low Fat and no
word for Low Carb. This stuff is 7% and
packs a wallop. Here in the supermarket
it’s 1.290TD or 80c for a 210ml can (most of their beers here are in these
skinny cans). Surprise #2 – it’s
actually brewed here in Tunisia. They
also brew Becks under licence so they know what they are doing.
SIDE RANT.
The ratings for Celtia include one by one wanker (you’re
allowed to use wanker because the WA Supreme Court said so many years ago) who
complained that it was the worst beer in the world, then proceeded to qualify
this with high-falutin terms that made it sound like he knew shit from clay.
The Beer Review sites are full of these tossers. They are very similar to the tossers you all
know from Wine Appreciation sites – all “floral tones” and “notes of plum” and
crap like that, only they don’t know the big words so they just bag
everything. They are the worst put-down
sites I’ve ever come across. If it’s not
something from out-there that nobody else has found yet, it’s garbage. I’d love to meet some of them in a bar one
day. Arnold (the Governator) had a term
for them that I won’t repeat here but essentially even at 60 I’d be on the
front foot with the insults with little fear of any consequences.
