roads long untraveled

As we wake up again to life outside, both thanks to spring and to the idea that we don't have to worry about certain viruses anymore, celebrations that we remember fondly also reappear.  Beermad did shake off its sleep last fall (and will be up again shortly), but Artesana Week was nowhere to be found for a couple of years.  Happily, it has been awakened.  A few places I remember from other years aren't on the list, but some familiar names are, and there's no reason to shun new opportunities anyway.  As a grumpy introvert, I went down in the afternoon, hoping there would be relatively few people.  There might have been, but there were still more than enough for me.

Good to know we are well watched over

We begin at Casa Zoilo, one of the old standards.  They had four Península brews on tap, and I considered the sour at first, just for something different, but ended up with Sendero Hazy IPA.  For whatever reason I felt like starting off slow and the sour was a fairly strong 7%.  Sendero has a cloudy look, thick head, what I tend to like in a NEIPA.  It's bitter-juicy, a natural, fresh squeezed kind of tasting beer, not super citrusy, like a mild grapefruit.  The chorizo tapa is ok, a little grease to balance the bitter, almost tart, of the beer.  Despite appearances it's not a super thick hazy, feeling very light and easily drinkable.  Also not exceptionally strong, at just over 5%.  It's a good starter, just a little push-off for a beer march.  Crawl is not the word I want, especially early Saturday afternoon.

 

Now on to a new name, Beer Joint.  They offer Oso's Dignity IPA for the Week.  It's similar to Sendero, down to the cloudy color, but much lighter head.  It has a somewhat flatter taste, a little bit planty, less overt hops, tingles a bit more.  In fact it's weirdly tickly for such a mild flavor.  Again, nice afternoon starter drink, good to talk with since it doesn't demand the limelight.

I think Taberna Filomena used to operate under a different name; I might have to dig through some old posts to see if I can track it down.  Their sponsorship goes to Groovie, with a session IPA and an amber ale.  I've already had two IPAs, so Gabba Gabba Hey it is.  Nice caramel color, low aroma, kind of salty sweet to the taste at first.  Maybe like a candy you forgot in your pocket.  Still, it has a certain charisma, an allure with a touch of bitter that maybe, just maybe, hints at something more.  Eventually it mellows out into a malty sort of refresher, a little bit heavier after the IPAs, feels like a good step on the path.

 

Chinaski has shown some good times in the past, and they've done a little redecorating.  Gone is the board on the wall with the scribbled names of brews, up is the shiny new screen behind the bar with names, prices, percentages etc.  The menu is long and varied, but I'm dedicated to Artesana Week, and what they have for that is La Quince Roots Red Ale.  La Quince is good and red ale is normally good.  I dive in.  Also good color, much like Groovie's, but there's something in the aroma a little like when you first open a freezer.  The flavor is a ball of surprises - grainy, sour, bitter - all strangely pleasant.  There's a slight cucumber/melon with a touch of salt in the aftertaste.  I'd say this is a more grown up beer than the previous ones, a beer that isn't afraid to stand alone.  That little bit of saltiness even makes it seem like its own snack.

Wandering down Argumosa, I remember how much I didn't like going out before the pandemic.  It's good to see people patronizing their local watering holes, but the crowd is a little too much.  I sit down in La Buga del Lobo anyway, after asking for Speranto's Blanka Trigo at the bar.  I wait quite a while before a waitress takes pity on me and brings out my beer within a minute.  We're back to a cloudy beer, with that sweet, light wheat aroma.  It's just a little sour in flavor, but mostly sweet and summery.  It's a nice wheat beer in that it doesn't have that weird aftertaste a lot of the German ones have.  It's a step back from Roots, into lighter territory, but it's a solid step in a series of afternoon beers.

Old El Pedal was taken over by the more traditional cafe next door, I guess.  Maybe to have a space to appeal to hipsters, and take advantage of all kinds of promotions.  Of course, the offer isn't what it once was; La Virgen is on tap.  I risk a Jamonera for old time's sake.  It's what it has been for years - vaguely beer tasting with a nice color.  The more bitter note is nice after the sweet wheat beer, and is in fact more impressive than Jamonera has been in the last 5 years or so.  It's an ok mid-romp beer, a little thick and sticky, something that doesn't flow past you perfectly unnoticed.  I still might keep badmouthing the beer, at least in comparison to what else La Virgen puts out these days.

I've been traipsing around for a few hours now.  One more to call it a day, and another new place: La Caníbal.  I'm hoping for something dark and substantial, but it's just a pilsner.  With a little raspberry though, so that's something.  Dessert?  The brewery is San Frutos, so I can trust that it's at least pleasant.  It looks very normal, nice little head, really no aroma at all.  The taste is certainly different from what I've been having today, a lot of woodiness, a very bitter and stimulating kind of pilsner.  The aftertaste does have some fruit in it, but unprompted I don't think I would identify it as raspberry.  It's sharp and driving, the kind of beer you don't fall asleep to, not the most obviously pleasing however.  After a bit of time a sweeter, softer, more desserty flavor comes out, but also only in the aftertaste and it vanishes quickly.  It's an interesting beer, I'll give it that, stout and built up in sensation, delicate and easily crumbled in flavor.

Artesana Week comes to an end in Lavapiés, but Beermad is just around the corner!

Dec. 13 - Der Jäger aus Kurpfalz

Well, doesn't this can look busy?  Now we have another wheat beer, although not my favorite, it's a welcome break from the blandness of the pilsners.  This is another Eichbaum beer, so I guess this calendar was an agreement among just a few friends.  I'm already calculating how to get one from Beer Geek another year.

Not much for head, this one, but a more mouth-filling appearance than the recent beers.  It's a dusty opaque, dark gold, looks like a nice wheat.  Slightly tangy aroma, goes with the territory.  Not a bad mouthful.  Starts somewhat sweet but rolls down into a sour that one expects from the wheat beers.  It hangs around a little, not quite as clean as those blah pilsners, but inoffensive aftertaste.  On the whole, not bad at all, and a bright spot in a field of mediocrity.

Dec. 5 - Sankt Bartholomäus wheat

Finally, something that isn't a pilsner!  Maybe we're taking the next step, here.  It's another from Eichbaum, Sankt Bartholomäus Hefeweizen.  Like the rest, it insists that it is a premium quality beer, even though it has one side of ingredients printed in Chinese.  I guess that would be expected for export.

A pleasant wheaty smell comes off the opened can immediately, and the beer certainly has more character than the previous ones in appearance - dirty orange and opaque.  A good looking wheat.  The head dies back to a thin foam on top, but manages to hang on there.  The taste is quite mild, and without that snappy aftertaste that many have.  It's kind of a sweet-and-sour flavor, like a little sour gummy.  After a while beery bitterness has a chance to develop a little and add some texture.  Kind of a soft kitten of a beer; while it has a clear flavor and nothing to sharp around it, it also adds bit of backbone in the aftertaste and the look.  I'm still awaiting better, though, spoiled craft drinker that I am.

almost missed it!

Even though it's fantastic to have a constant stream of new beer and stores and celebrations, it also means some of them can sneak up on you.  Or even past you.  I knew about Beermad already in September, but for some reason thought it was going to be the last weekend of October.  Fortunately, I thought to check the flyer - and realized it was the last day!  So, had to hustle down there.  Unlike the beer fairs of old, this one took place in sports facility, the Caja Mágica tennis arena.

Barely open gate, for some reason

First Monasterio caught my eye.  There was a bar nearby that had the beer, but I almost never saw it open, and finally it appears to be closed for good.  This looks like a chance to see what I've been missing.  I wanted to start light, so I got a Rubia to start with.  It isn't very aromatic, but the taste is quite strong, very bitter in fact.  It's also very "natural", harkening back to German helles.  There is an interesting sweet aftertaste.  There were some mostly dried hops at the stand for smell sampling - very pungent.  I was told these were a variety developed by the brewery itself.  As I hadn't had breakfast that day, I thought it would be wise to not drink on a completely empty stomach, and got myself a bratwurst.  As expected, the German style similarities made it a good pairing.

Obviously sipping while waiting on the brat

Next, touching on the Halloween theme, La Calatrava.  Again, backing off from the heavier beers for the time being, I picked up Rossa, an American Wheat.  In spite of the description, it's not a strongly wheaty beer, having a sweet smell, and with that touch of citrus so common in IPAs.  The taste is very standard lager, only mildly bitter, lacking the wheat tang.  It's a little sweet going down, and very easy to get down.  Very refreshing and clean flavor, possibly on the delicate side to go with more sausages.

Finally, I visited an old friend, Sagra.  Again, for the season, I chose their Calabaza y Canela, expecting a smooth and mildly sweet ale type.  It's a lovely orange color, with a bit of a cinnamon aroma.  I was surprised to find it more of a pumpkin pie in a glass than a mere pumpkin smoothed ale or märzen.  The cinnamon really has a kick to it.  While I enjoyed it, I heard another day that it's not at all a favorite for many.  But that day was another day.

A street band entertained us for a couple of hours

Then a DJ set up

I think there was a concert in the evening

fields of summer

It's summer again, and time to be thinking about how nice it would be to be in a more reasonable country, temperature-wise.  Shades of those countries are welcome in beers, like Primátor.  I've had a few of their selection over the years, but not the Weizenbier, which sounds like just the thing for sunny, bright summer evenings.  It actually hasn't been so sunny or even warm these past couple of days, going so far as to rain inside the metro, but little details like those never stop me from tasting a new beer.

It's frothy, well-headed, and a rich golden colored beer.  It's also a little cloudy, like a tasty wheat beer might be.  The aroma is sharp and sweet, just what you expect from wheats.  The flavor is oddly sour, with a little sweet at first.  It's kind of like those sour candies we used to eat as kids, a little sweet in the beginning, but suddenly turning on your tastebuds with a much sharper taste.  It mellows after a couple of sips, going a little fruity, maybe banana-y.  It reminds me of Hoegaarden in that respect.  There's a lingering sourness kind of in the middle of my tongue, though, again like a sourball or something might leave.  The beer stays fizzy, but if you don't get a nice big mug for it, later pours lose their head pretty quickly.  Something to keep in mind later, for the sake of aesthetics.

No, I don't make up those prices myself

Supplier: Birra y Paz
Price: €2.70

movie four

When I was browsing for my beer, I thought something festive should be hung on to for the end of the film festival.  Even though it's sad when festivals end, there's always joy that is started.  Schneider Weisse Meine Festweisse has the name for what I'm looking for.  Lemonadey yellow, but resistant white head are the first impressions.  It has an aroma like many German wheat beers, a little sugary but tangy.  There is something special in the taste, though, first it seems a little gingery, but then I get something more like a rauchbier.  Something smoky or bacony.  There's an orangey start before it gets spicy and the meatiness comes out mostly in the aftertaste.  That little carnivorous touch actually fits perfectly with the last movie.

Supplier: La Birratorium
Price: €2.35


spoilers ahead 

The last movie for me was 5 Frauen/5 mujeres/5 Women, which was described as "Hitchcockian".  There are a lot of psychological things going on, and questions that remain unanswered, but I don't think Hitchcock would have mixed up so many questions into a single story.  Well, maybe he would today.  Gotta keep up with the times and all.  The movie starts with four of the women going to meet their friend in her country house, and one of them kicks her man out of the car angrily.  We don't see her very much during the movie.  The other four arrive with their significant others and one woman almost immediately ends up sleeping with the man who got kicked out of the car.  The others realize there's an affair going on and admonish her mildly.  The boys go off to sail for the weekend leaving the girls to their own devices.  One of them goes out to the fields and runs around screaming like a child, which the others observe wistfully, saying they would like to still do whatever they want.  She also picks mushrooms from the ground and mixes them into the salad for dinner perfectly aware that they are hallucinogenic.  She even offers one to the dog in jest, but doesn't give him any in the end.  The women start a kind of wobbly, giggling trip and end up watching an art film while a storm builds outside.  The owner of the house has been depressed and we don't quite know why; it seems like maybe somebody has died, or her relationship has failed, but she has a flashback to a rape during the trip, and that seems to be the reason for her mental state.  She starts wandering around the house, thinking she heard noises and comes across a man in her painting studio.  He attacks her, she screams for help, her friends come, and two of them beat the man to death with their faces painted in the vision she has of the scene.  Once the man is dead they can't decide what to do.  The owner of the house calls the police, but when they arrive one of her friends takes control of the situation and tells the officers it was a mistake, and they leave.  She tells her friends that they are still under the influence and that will look bad if they testify.  The next day a man shows up at the house and wanders onto the property.  He comes across the lake and starts a naked swim.  The fifth woman finally shows up, drunk, and cajoles him out of the water.  Then they have spontaneous sex on the dock.  She brings him to the house to meet her friends, who are understandably suspicious of a stranger just showing up out of nowhere.  Her behavior seems frivolous and stupid, knowing what we know happened, but the day before they all probably would have behaved the same way.  The man says he's looking for his brother and after some back and forth between the friends, the owner offers him the caretaker's cottage for a night or two.  The fifth friends lets it be known that she knows about the affair between her man and her friend, and in the end she just leaves after finding out about the killing.  The four remaining friends think about how to get rid of the body and how to entertain the brother.  Two of the friends take the corpse off to a reservoir to sink it and the owner decides to sleep with the man on her property.  The corpse won't sink and the woman can't allow herself to sleep with the man, because she thinks she sees the tattoo of her rapist on his back.  He actually has no tattoos, but her belief in his guilt for her situation gives her strength.  The next morning she tells him to leave, threatening him with a knife.  He goes back to his car, stuck in the mountain.  The women who can't get rid of the corpse come back to the house and on the way come across a police roadblock.  They police say they are looking for two troublemakers.  The women find the stranger's bag with rope and some kind of projectile weapon in the caretaker's house after he leaves.  They go up to his car and insist he leave immediately, but end up shooting him in the head with the projectile.  At the end of the weekend, the women leave the house, probably for the last time.  The police are very happy to find the two criminals, since the body has been left in the back of the stranger's car.  The owner of the house burns all her paintings, gets in her truck, and drives off, possibly without the dog.  And that's the end.

At one point, one of the women says they all met in an art class for children with problems, but the problems they had are never elaborated on.  The woman having an affair and the woman who shoos off the police seem to be pretty cold-blooded and end the weekend with a stronger relationship than before.  The woman who collected the mushrooms has a scene where she sings about burning everything and killing everybody.  The fifth woman seems to have a problem with alcohol, and the owner of the house is unsociable and possibly paranoid.  It is implied that the two men are criminals, since the police are happy to find their bodies, but we never find out what crime they are accused of.  They might not even have been violent.  The man who gets killed seems to attack the woman, but she might have attacked him first, out of fear.  Then he would only be trying to subdue her and defend himself.  The "brother" (we don't know for sure if they are) swims naked in the lake and we can see that he has no tattoos anywhere on his torso, so the image the owner of the house sees must be a hallucination.  It's a movie that raises questions about the limits of friendship, the obligations to our loved ones, and our connection to reality.  I found it interesting, even without resolution of most of the questions raised.

movie three

 Somehow a German wheat beer feels appropriate for a classic German movie.  You find Weihenstephaner around, in bars and stores, but it's not one I pick up habitually.  Now that it's all summery and gross at night, it's a good time for a tangy wheat.  Vitus is glowy yellow-gold, cloudy like wheat beers tend to be.  It's a bit sour in smell, but with a little sweet hiding under it.  The taste is classic wheat beer, sweet at first and developing a little tang as the swallow happens.

Supplier: Cervecissimus
Price: €2.80

spoilers ahead!

I don't know if it matters to warm people about spoilers for a movie that's over 90 years old.  Varieté from 1925 is one of those show people movies that seem to have been pretty popular in the early 20th century.  Maybe because live spectacle was so much more important for entertainment then.  It starts in a prison with the warden calling up a prisoner and guilting him into discussing his crime with a letter from his wife.  It seems he was a carnival worker with a piano playing wife and a young baby he adores, but one night a friend of his brings a young woman to him to dance in the carnival.  She and her mother were picked up in an unnamed country and the mother died off of South Africa, so the young woman has nobody and nothing.  The wife doesn't want to hire her but the carnival man says she stays.  She dances for the audience and an attraction develops between her and the man, and he starts to feel like he should return to performing himself.  He had been a trapeze artist until he broke his leg, and when he mentions this to his wife she says if he goes back into performing it will be without her.  He takes her at her word, apparently, because soon he decides to run away with the dancer and start a new trapeze act.  Later, in Berlin, they are seen in a carnival by the agent of the Wintergarten, who has just lost his trapeze artists because one was injured in their last performance.  He convinces the remaining Artinelli to hire the pair for a new act and they begin a successful career with him at the Wintergarten.  Artinelli is interested in the woman, the man's "wife", from the start, but she shows no interest in him until he corners her in his room and probably rapes her.  Bizarrely, but a trope for old movies and stories, she falls in love with him after that episode, but doesn't want to leave her "husband", so as not to break up the act, possibly.  Eventually, the man finds out and lays a trap for the lovers.  He tells Artinelli that he'll be out late and then he waits in Artinelli's room for him to come back from his date with the woman.  He confronts Artinelli, pulls out two knives and demands he defend himself, and finally stabs him.  It was a foregone conclusion, since Artinelli was practically falling down drunk.  The man goes to his room, where his "wife" is pretending to sleep and she greets him happily when he comes in.  He looks at her strangely and she gets nervous, then when he goes to wash his hands, blood flows into the water and she screams.  He leaves the room and she follows him, begging him to stay and possibly explain what happened, but then they pass Artinelli's room and she sees the body.  She runs after her "husband" shouting for help, but then she falls down the stairs and breaks her neck or something.  At the end she's lying immobile on the stairs anyway.  The man turns himself in to the police, and we return to the beginning, to the scene with the warden.  The prisoner feels that God is punishing him for his bad decisions, but the warden assures him that God's mercy is greater than his justice, and the last scene is the prison gates opening.

The carnival man is Emil Jannings, a staple of these old German films.  When he goes in for the kill, he looks like an incredibly dangerous man.  His eyes seem to glow with the fires of Mephistopheles.  He's a jerk for abandoning his wife and the baby he seems to love dearly, but he's also a good partner to the young woman while they're together.  She seems to be following the policy of ingratiating herself to the most important man around.  Probably, this is just a survival strategy learned in a life of hardship.  Still, she doesn't seem to be disgusted by either of the men we see her with in the film.  Artinelli is the villain for sure, deliberately trying to destroy a relationship for his personal enjoyment, even if it might hurt him professionally.  In the end, of course, it hurts him both professionally and personally, since he's dead.  There are a couple of scenes where signs are in English, a reminder that the images for this restored version were taken from a copy in Library of Congress.  Like most 1920s films that are still available, the cinematography is excellent and the framing of the scenes is fantastic.  The story barely needs the intertitles, since the images practically speak for themselves.  The people next to me even commented that it was truly impressive how well they filmed different angles and movement with the technology of the time.  I'm only minorly irritated by the piousness at the end, but again, it's a common theme in those early films.

I think Stephan looks a little disapproving...

Beermas Day 5

On the fifth day of Beermas I poured out for me
Five golden caps
Four calling birds
Three speckled hens
Two flightless non-doves
And a pear cider fresh from the tree 



Well, this one is pretty close. Bottles caps are round, rings are round. Right? Anyway!

Yep, gold and round all right!

La Sagra is one of the standards these days, being found (in the bottle) in supermarkets and bars all over the place. It's well worth trying, whatever's available. My personal favorites were presented at fairs, and one was a special run, but the other is at my local Carrefour. It'll get here someday. Tonight, though, it has to be something gold, and the cap is good enough for me. Also, this is a wheat beer, which tends to be a little sunnier yellow than others.

It's a nice wheaty color, with an enticing sweet and citrus smell. The head is a bit thin, but what's there doesn't dissipate too quickly. The taste is pleasant, sweet but delicately so, very light and refreshing. It is, perhaps, not the beer for this time, being dark and chilly evenings and an atmosphere that calls for something darker and heavier, but there are tastes that will long for a rather uncomplicated flavor and satisfying beer at any time. On the other hand, there is a subtle candied aftertaste, so maybe fans of preserved or candied fruit would find this Sagra a fitting Christmas/New Year's beer.

Tee-hee, flip cap!

Supplier: Carrefour
Price: €2 

take two

It's time to try a Brabante again.  If they've so helpfully put it in the supermarket, I might as well take advantage of that.  I picked up the wheat beer this time, which is probably what I've had in bars, since I remember Brabante being on the sour side.

There is noticeable sediment at the bottom, so careful pouring is necessary.  It's also very foamy, but once the head dies back it's an appetizing light lemon color.  Not too strong in the smell department, just a little bit of olfactory sourness.  The wheat is pretty powerful at first, with a strong grain and grass flavor.  Just underneath, the sourness waits to come out and coat the mouth.  It's an interesting sweet and sour combination, like a candy.  The wheatiness gets less pronounced sip after sip, leaving a tangy brew that feels just right on a summer evening.

Supplier: Carrefour
Price: €1.99

prayer in a bottle

Benediktiner, sitting on the shelf, like a sign from some god.  It's another classic, with the golden straw color and foamy head.  The smell is very light, but hints at the sweetness in the taste, without the sour that comes in the aftertaste of some other wheat beers.  It's a shame it's all rainy right now, since this really seems like a relaxing after-work beer, but the rain on the windows is a little distracting.