familiar

While lots of beer stores in Madrid have taps, not all of them have separate stores and bars.  Well, none of them really.  That is, they don't share names.  Beer Geek, however, has its bar on one street and the beer store just a couple blocks away, and the store has taps too.  It's the familiar set-up, with all the shelves rattling full of bottles of many lands, including Edge Brewing, the lone representative of Spain that I saw.  I'm not quite in a position to be hauling bottles around at the moment, so I have to settle for a drink in situ.

Both taps were Czech beers, number one being Matuška pale lager.  It has a classic color and good white head, with a slightly grainy smell.  There is a strong grain taste, a bit sweet at first, then bitter oozes up from the bottom.  It's a also a tad sting-y, and sticks around at the back of the mouth and the top of the throat.  It's a robust kind of lager, deeper bitter than the standard varieties, and despite developing some tolerance for the bitterness, I find it never goes away entirely.  The graininess descends into a mild sour after a few minutes, although the level of sourness remains pleasant to the end.

Skol!

With time on my hands I went ahead and had a little of the other beer on tap too.  The Norwegian dude sitting at the counter seemed to think it should be taken off the menu to be enjoyed privately.  This was a Sibeeria creation, so a good brewery, and a session IPA, so not too much on top of the lager.  Léto (so appropriate) is a cloudy, lemony color, very thick headed, foam slow to dissipate.  It has a zippy light citrus scent, not overly orangey.  There is a stab of orange at first sip, but it quickly scatters into a rolling and very mild bitter.  It's an unassuming and fleeting flavor, clean drinking, very nice for a steaming summer day.  Probably on the light side for less oppressive weather, though.  Léto looks more like a NEIPA to me than Join, or Die did. It develops just a hint of identifiably lemony aroma, but actually gets less flavorful as time goes on.  Now, it could be due to some overloading of the taste buds, but this particular beer goes more watery than most I'm used to.  It was a damn good start, though.