somebody's memories

It isn't a beerliday yet, so just a random pick today...something a little more subdued, with less excitement about it.  Well, it's kind of exciting to see a historical beer on the shelf, although you always have to wonder just how close an industrial remake really is.  They have sanitation and health requirements to fill, you know.  At least it's my favorite industrial Spanish beer, Estrella Galicia.  This is their Primera Generación, supposedly a recipe developed by the first generation of beer-making Riveras, but right on the bottle they say the most important thing is the tradition of technique, not so much ingredients.  Of course technique is often a big part of recipes too.  Another reason I like this brewery is their campaign of making themselves look like the underdog beer, the one you need a special sense to really appreciate.  Like I said, it's my favorite industrial beer, but it seems just as silly to emphasize how smallness of your clientele as it is to sniff at drinkers of smaller beers that are just like products your own larger company produces.  No, scratch that, the latter is definitely sillier.  Estrella Galicia's Resistencia and Cerveza para la Inmensa Minoría seem more like gentle jokes in comparison.

It opens with a poof of barroom air, very typical industrial lager smell.  The beer is very light colored, translucent, good looking head.  It's like a super hoppy German lager, it's even a little peppery, which I don't think was particularly desirable at the beginning of the last century, but who knows?  It's flavorsome, malty, a little spicy in the taste too.  The flavor makes you think it's going to be a much heavier feeling beer than it actually is.  Like the color, it's light and fluttery.  The strong taste disappears quickly after the swallow, leaving no aftertaste or feel.  It's very drinkable once it's drunk, since you can easily forget that you just had a sip.  Pretty clever for getting people to keep consuming.  The strong flavor and aroma might give the drinker the impression of a product that was thoroughly worked over and developed, but it's the right kind of feel for the Spanish climate.  Even in Galicia, there's a little sun, sometimes.

minority winner

It's been a week that promotes lazy at-home-stayingness, so the most fantastic and imaginative of crafts is not in the fridge at the moment.  Seeing as how production has fallen off enormously in Spain in the last two years, it makes sense to keep an eye on more mundane beers.  Not all of them are awful.  They are popular for a reason.  I'm not quite up for the very basic of basic beers, I still have some standards.  Estrella Galicia doesn't seem to disappoint anybody, from snobs like me to average drinkers.  This is not the normal pilsner either, it's 1906 helles bock.

It's a dark colored beer for an industrial offering, coppery colored and topped with quite the fluffy cloud.  It's not exceptionally aromatic, with only a hint of grain wafting up, but the taste is much bigger.  It's a punch of bitter and malty, feeling full and rounded in the mouth.  It works up a little salty kick and even a little smoke.  It has a smooth, easy drinking feel that you'd expect from an industrial beer, but it also has a complexity you don't expect.  There's a swirl of woodiness in the aftertaste, and perhaps a touch of apple.  It feels like a bridge spanning decades of tastes, somehow a product that really lives up to its motto: for the immense minority.