Saturday, June 29, 2019

fun stuff

I went on down to the center of town, where there are places that have flights and bottles and other things.  One place is Cervecissimus, which is a store with a small bar attached.  I thought I would go have a small beer and maybe take one away, but there is a beer lottery on, and I can't resist that kind of temptation.  Three beer comparisons, who could turn that down?
First was a Double IPA, turns out to be Domus, and quite a dark color too.  There IPA aroma is there, clearly citrusy, but not very strong.  It's surprisingly not very bitter, even a little malty, but very clean, goes right down without much aftertaste at all.  It starts off as heavy for a summer drink, but the lightness could make it undeniably pleasant for the season.
Then there was an Imperial IPA, about the same color and aroma as the first, maybe a little more orange in color.  The flavor is more bitter but also more tropical, with the typical notes of mango and mandarin.  It's also a little lighter in feel than the first one, more summery, and a couple of sips opens a peppery flavor, just the lightest touch of hot spice.
Finally was the NEIPA, which was a surprise on sight.  I expected something much lighter, but it could still fit the bill.  It's a little cloudy and the scent is...undiscribible.  I think I might detect some grain in that aroma.  It's actually very close to standard NEIPA taste, maybe a little smokey, but overall it has that good and fruitful bitter than NEIPAs normally have.

The set of tastings was €8, perhaps a little high for three small beers, but not so much when you remember that they are craft and commanding of attention and respect.  I don't feel disappointed at all.

Sunday, June 23, 2019

out and about

Well, I planned to have my beer blog yesterday as usual, but I went out for the evening and had a beer that knocked me out.  It was a very good beer, but at 17% you have to expect sleeping it off will be necessary.  I went down to Chinaski Lavapiés for a little variety and they had a collaboration on the menu - Yria Seven Island Nicta.  It's a Spanish-Greek Russian Imperial Stout, barrel aged.  Pretty unassuming in the glass, not a lot of head, but good color.  I got a glass of cherries to go with it, which was a surprise, but the waiter said the acidity would tame the sweetness of the beer.  At first I was afraid the cherries were served in vodka, but it was really just water.
The aroma has a touch of cherry to it, chocolate cherry liquor that is.  It's definitely sweet.  There's supposed to be some maple involved, but that doesn't come out in the scent, or even the taste.  It's sugary, with a strong presence or alcohol, not a beer to just suck down.  It's pretty heavy, even for a winter drink.  Most certainly a beer just for sipping!  The cherries actually do cut right down on the sugared edge, and I guess they're kept in the water to keep from drying out and getting more concentrated themselves.  Careful parsing out got me to the bottom of the glass with one last cherry to wash it down.  About two and a half hours after I started!  Whoo!

Saturday, June 15, 2019

just what we need

So film festival over, and now it's back to more local beers.  At first I thought Sticky Storm might be a stout, but it's a double dry hopped IPA, with a sort of modern hippy family family taking their hops, kegs and bottles wherever they go.
Aromatic and cloudy, a little heavy on the citrus notes.  The head is white and fluffy, doesn't go down with any hurry either.  It's about the color of a lager, and the cloudiness might fool you into expecting a wheat beer, but the scent will disabuse you of that right away.  Bitterness is right up front, more than I expected judging by the aroma, but there's a tail-end of sweetness.  There's an odd sensation in the mouth, a slight buzz without much of an aftertaste.  The beer itself goes down cleanly, but it kind of feels like a small swarm of bees might be chasing it.  It's a snappy, peppy beer, good for summer evenings.  It's not too thick, though there is a good weight behind it.  Probably fine for year-round imbibing.

Supplier: Birra y Paz
Price: €3.90

Monday, June 10, 2019

no beer (sob)

spoilers ahead!!

And there had to be a last movie, since everything comes to an end.  It was Das Ende der Wahrheit/El final de la verdad/Blame Game (who's doing crazy title translations now?).  This is a political thriller, in which a journalist is murdered for asking questions that are hitting too close to home for the German secret service, and her boyfriend decides to do some digging himself.  Her boyfriend is, in fact, a secret service agent, which she knew, although she didn't know his real name, apparently.  There are some power shifts in the agency and the boyfriend finds himself blocked out of important decisions and missions, because he favors keeping sanctions on a Middle Eastern leader who has connections to a "legitimate" mafia organization, which has connections to the German secret service.  This organization is involved in "security" and "stability", providing logistic support for humanitarian organizations as well as shipping arms and components that can be used to manufacture them.  The boyfriend pulls some strings and gets information on the links between members of the secret service and the leader and his lackies, despite being run off a lonesome highway, injected with alcohol and left as a drink driver in the police station.  The underling to the mafia-secret service agent has a change of heart when he realizes that nothing in the whole situation is about the safety of the nation or peace anywhere on earth, and he decides to tell the agency director what he knows along with the boyfriend.  They manage to catch the director at the airport about to fly to the small country in question, bordering Pakistan in this movie universe.  Their convoy is attacked and almost everyone dies - except the boyfriend.  He returns to Germany to recover from his injuries and try to build a relationship with his daughter.  While she is staying at his house for the weekend, he realizes that a matryoshka doll was missing from his girlfriend's house the last time he was there.  He had been given her belongings from the hospital since nobody else claimed them, and the doll is in the box.  It contains a tiny digital camera with a film of a meeting between the logistics company and members of the German secret service, plotting to end trade restrictions and make all the money selling weapons in the Middle East.  With this recording, the boyfriend finally gets the higher-ups to take notice and take action against this agent.  What he doesn't show is that his friend in the agency, who is now going to take over as director, was also at the meeting.  He says now she'll have an obligation to cut ties with the logistics company, and take out the assassin who orchestrated the murder of the journalist, which she does.  The boyfriend goes back to the journalist's lakeside cabin and slides into the water off the pier, maybe trying to show her that he is involved in things (in the first scene she is swimming and he tells her he prefers the view to the experience).

I think I did alright this year, being a little limited in my schedule.  The films I saw were all enjoyable and not such big surprises as there have been other years.  Little surprises I guess, but pleasant ones.  They were varied in genre too, which is nice.  The only thing I miss is a good classic, black-and-white.

Sunday, June 9, 2019

smoke and clocks

I still need something suitable for German films, but German craft beers are like Czech ones in that they do not travel.  There are German beers, mind you.  Just not a whole great many.  Schlenkerla is pretty much limited to the beer stores, and it's not a great wonder.  After the tastelessness of industrial Spanish beer, a rauch would really put you off.  But, there's also Schlenkerla Helles Lager, which is maybe another thing.  The label does warn that it's a little smoky, but that just makes it a unique specimen.  
It certainly looks like most typical lagers, with its light color and near transparency.  It's mostly fields of grain in the aroma, but yes, there is a touch of smoke there too.  At first the taste is like a watered down version of the rauchbier, not with less flavor, just with less robust substance, but a little sourness also seeps out at the end.  The smoke is upfront and tough, but that sort of bacony flavor that rauchbiers have makes you want to go back and make sure it's really what you were tasting.  It's a beer that definitely calls out for a little snack to go with it, preferably something a little salty, maybe greasy.  Actually, fried cheese sounds really good right now...
Supplier: La Birratorium
Price: €2.60
 
spoilers ahead!!

 
The second film for me this year was Cleo - If I Could Turn Back Time, which purported to be an exploration of urban legends in the city of Berlin while the characters looked for treasure with an old map.  Cleo is another woman with bright red hair who dresses in bright colors through most of the movie, and is also surrounded by blue in a number of scenes.  She is born in front of the Berlin Wall, about to come down, where the crowds prevent her parents from getting to a hospital and her mother dies during her birth.  Her father does his best to maintain a joyful life with her, taking her on magical adventures in the city, but when they are digging for a time machine they hit an old WWII bomb, which explodes, killing her father and leaving her alone in the world.  From then on she makes a rule for herself never to get close to anyone because it will kill them.  She ends up working as a tour guide, and when a man comes in asking for somebody to guide him through a treasure map, she can't help herself and dives back into the world of secrets and hidden fun that she had with her father.  Her elderly neighbor, who is always asking her to visit, authenticates the map, and Cleo promises to visit her.  She also starts to get closer to the man with the map and his exuberant spirit for adventure.  They pick up a couple of strange thieves/misfits he knows to break open an old safe, and later to break into an abandoned spy station that was built over the burial site of the treasure.  Before they know where exactly the treasure is, Cleo has a vision of the makers of the map, a pair of bank robbing brothers from the 1920s, and they give her the code to reading the map after she promises to make sure everyone remembers them.  When they finally read the map and finalize the plan to break into the mountain, Cleo goes home and finds her neighbor has died, and she realizes she never visited her, even though she meant to.  Her feelings have killed another person in her life, and she starts pushing the map man away.  In the depths of the mountain they separate and she finds the treasure, but the space it's buried in starts collapsing.  She manages to drag the trunk up the tunnels to the map man, but the tunnel collapses on him, killing him.  Cleo frantically goes back to save her mother even if it means she herself will die, which apparently happens because everything stops and disappears.  She is in a void, alone, except for a version of her younger self, which tells her if she isn't born nobody can find the time machine to save her mother, therefore nothing can happen.  If she chooses to save herself pain, nothing will ever happen, but if she chooses to feel, the world and all the joys and pains of everyone will exist.  She returns to the moment of finding the treasure, but when the collapse begins this time she leaves it behind.  Without the trunk, she and the map man get out alive, but he is so hurt by her past rejections that he disappears with plans to leave the city.  Cleo realizes she wants to risk pain in order to feel love and finds the map man at his houseboat, and projects a video onto the bridge to admit her feelings.  The end of the movie is a little too heartstring-tuggy for my taste, but I guess it's fine for people who really want that happy ending.  Cleo is giving tours still, but to children, who are doing treasure hunts all over the city, learning about the people who made each part famous or interesting, including the bank robbing brothers.  Then, the map man shows up with his daughter, and it's clear that he and Cleo are together.  The ghosts of past residents of the city look on approvingly, including her parents, together in the afterlife.

The main actress and the director were in town for the showing, but the actress had to leave before the film was over to catch a plane.  She told us before the showing that she was very proud of the film and it was a project that was close to her heart, and we all applauded and settled in to watch.  Then, as she left she waved and said, "Adios!" to the audience, and we automatically replied and waved too.  Some people next to me said she seemed so nice, what a shame she had to leave.  The director did have time to talk a little at the end, although he also had a plane to catch, and he even spoke Spanish.  Not perfectly, but quite well, although he said he had forgotten a lot of words.  Asked about the genre of the film, he proudly said it wasn't easy for anyone to classify, although he would settle for it being a romantic comedy.  German audiences found it a style suitable for children's film, which occurred to me as well at several points in the film.  I also thought there was a touch of Amelie, with the colors, the fantasies from Cleo, and some of the quick cuts.  It turns out the director's wife is French, so maybe that's where that came from.  Although I was hoping for an adventure or fantasy movie over a romance, it's an enjoyable film, with a sort of quirky indie feel to it.  And if there's anything to take away, it must be have no regrets.

Saturday, June 8, 2019

no zombies here

I'm a little whistful, thinking of those packed shelves in Hamburg, laden with German craft beers.  Oh sure, there are German beers available in Madrid, but they all have that solid Teutonic calm about them, knowing they're just fine and not being too interested in taking risks with flavors and ingredients.  Oh, that's not a reference to anybody's film industry, is it?  In any case, there are some seasonal offerings, like Ayinger Frühlingsbier.  I haven't actually checked, it might be available all year, but it has a suitable name.
A little spluttery to open, but not too foamy when poured.  Light straw color, almost rosy gold, clear and with a moderate snowy white head.  The scent is a little off-putting actually, a sort of sour graininess that you get with a number of German blond beers, but the taste is quite different from the smell.  Not sour at all, mostly sweet in a clean and "natural" sort of way, just a hint of bitter underneath.  It's very light and practically evaporates in the mouth, a real spring-like beer.  Warmed up there is a little perfume poof, but it's pretty subtle and doesn't distract from the overall cleanness of flavor.

Supplier: La Birratorium
Price: €2.90

spoilers ahead!!


There is no classic film this year, which grieves my heart a little, but there have been past years without it and it's come back.  I'll try to be patient and optimistic.  There does seem to be a theme of apocalypse though.   Lots of last people on earth and stuff.  The first film did have zombies, although they aren't a super huge part of the story.  Endzeit involves two women who sneak out of one of the last cities on Earth to get to another one, where the zombie disease is being treated instead of having everybody infected killed immediately.  They're the typical tough girl and not-so-tough girl, and do not appear to be getting to be good friends through most of their interactions, even though the tough girl saves the soft girl from a zombie or two and the soft girl fixes the tough girl's camera.  Both of them are haunted by the people they let die in the initial outbreak, although the tough girl is haunted by a crowd of strangers she locked out of a building while the soft girl is haunted by her own little sister.  The soft girl actually wants to find her sister and have some closure, while the tough girl was scratched by a zombie at some point and is going to see if she can be cured.  They irritate each other and separate, and we see the soft girl get stalked by a zombie they had run into before, but she is saved by a sort of Mother Earth.  This woman, whose face is half vegetation, tells her that the disease was always with us but we made the conditions right and the loss of most of humanity is simply natural.  The tough girl ends up buried in Mother Earth's garden and the soft girl pleads for her remaining life, which Mother Earth grants, although she says there's no hope.  The tough girl leads the soft girl off, even though she had promised to stay with Mother Earth, and eventually they get attacked by a huge herd of zombies.  The tough girl sacrifices herself after closing a fence behind the soft girl, who runs off and ends up in a seemingly abandoned mansion.  She wanders around looking for food and comes across some candy and a book in braille.  Then the zombified owner of the house shows up, blind as he was in life.  He tracks her to the attic and they fight because she isn't graceful enough to sneak away and not strong enough to fight him off - at first.  One of her eyes gets gouged out by a rack of antlers she tried to defend herself with and that gives her enough adrenaline to push the zombie off her and smash his head in with a shovel.  She bandages her eye and leaves the house, leaving a sad dog loyal to his owner even beyond the grave behind.  She ends up in a wild place where she finds the body of a young girl in a red swimming suit, like she remembers her sister wearing.  The body is long dead and she lies down beside it to die herself, perhaps, but grass and other plant life begin to grow on her and she "wakes up".  She leaves her sweater with the body and goes on to find the other city.  As she looks at the fence and the city behind it, she realizes somebody is watching her, and she turns to find the tough girl, who is probably a fresh zombie, but certainly not alive.  The soft girl says the people in the city won't accept her and the two walk off hand in hand.

The movie is based on a graphic novel and it does have that typical color scheme for graphic novel-zombie movies, with everything kind of washed out.  The soft girl has red-dyed hair and in some scenes it's a very bright red, almost like her sister's swimming suit, and her clothes are a dark, bright blue in some early scenes.  The synopsis implied that there was some kind of ideological reason for the women leaving, some anti-patriarchy sentiment, but the movie doesn't show that explicitly.  At first the tough girl clutching her abdomen in private makes it seem like she's hiding a pregnancy instead of a zombie wound, which is a normal symbol of women escaping The Man's control by taking control of their own bodies, but it's also pretty normal in a zombie movie for somebody to be secretly infected and only slowly transform for dramatic effect.  The soft girl tries to kill herself in the bathtub and is cured by a shadowy figure who says, "You'll be needed again tomorrow," which is pretty creepy, but not quite Gilead-like.  It's not a bad zombie movie, although the typical fan of such things would probably be disappointed by the sweetness of the ending.

Saturday, June 1, 2019

june's rocky start

Oh there was a surprise waiting for me at La Buena Cerveza!  A Czech beer I haven't tried before!  I've been told the Czech beers don't travel well, especially the craft ones, due to their naturalness and lack of preservatives.  So, what we get are more industrial types, which aren't even the same as the are in Czechia.  I would guess Novopacké Granát isn't the same here as it is in its homeland either.  I was kind of excited to pick up a red ale now that summer is closing in, but it is actually a dark lager.  Maybe the name is for the rocky strength of the beer.
I was expecting a ruddier brew in spite of knowing it was a lager, but it's a healthy dark brown color, rather like a watered down porter.  Head just off-white, doesn't hang around too long.  It has a slightly tangy scent, but with a helping of central European lager smell.  Not a lot of taste at first, just a little bit of roundish bittersweet, but the sweetness grows in the aftertaste.  It also develops a tang after actually leaving the mouth.  There are the odd high notes, almost citrusy, but for the most part it's a standard sweetish lager beer.  It has a pretty light feel, so in spite of the heaviness implied by the hue, it really isn't bad for a summer evening.

Supplier: La Buena Cerveza
Price: €2.40