Door #17

Oh boy, more Schlenkerla!  This one fooled me for a minute, since it is the Rauchbier but blended with a pale lager.  According to the back of the bottle, the lager is aged and livened up (kräusened) with the rauchbier just before bottling.  The effect is supposed to be one of effervescence and happy little bubbles in the rejuvenated beer, besides giving it a darker color and more complex flavor profile.  We shall see just how well it works in this case.

The overwhelming sense of the aroma is rauchbier, with that distinctive bacony scent.  I struggle to identify anything else, any kind of lager graininess or hoppy bitter/fruit.  The fruit would be a surprise, since that's not traditional at all.  The flavor is also pretty much all rauchbier.  Although the color is lightened somewhat, the lager doesn't seem to have much effect on the taste.  It's the kind of beer that I don't like much on its own, but is a very good match for food, especially meaty food.  I might have to warm up some chili.

New thoughts on future presentations, will be checking things out in a couple of days.

Dec. 17 - Eichbaum Premium

Next up in Eichbaum Presents Advent, Premium!  Not Premium lager, pilsner, ale or anything specific, just Premium Bier.  Okay, then.  It's a fairly festive can, with that nice shiny red and the horse drawn sleigh.  I wonder if premium is better than luxurious?

Well, it looks pretty much the same as yesterday's, maybe a fluffier head.  But, same color, same transparency.  Just a little more aroma.  Sort of sweet, a little malty.  Also honey right up front with this one, reminds me more of mead than of beer.  I think it's more cloying than yesterday, a little stickier.  It sours a bit as it gets warmed up, but it's still a really sweet beer.  And not like a chocolate stout or porter, or any of those fruity ales, it's pretty much sugar water.  Okay, fermented sugar water, since it does give you a little of that alcohol heat in the cold of the evening.  Still, I would rather have had a stout.

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.

geeking out

One of the most promising names on the list of potential beer places was Beer Geek.  How could you not love that?  It's a little bit of a journey, but simple enough to get there, and it's right across the street from the metro exit.  30 taps!  A good number of them are national craft beers too.  Ah, familiar ground!  I went for a flight, thinking that would be the best way to get a range of flavors without loading up too much on the alcohol before a long trip back.  I mostly managed to get different breweries too.

The H11 was still calming down.  Each beer got a photo on Beer In One Word

First up was Antoš Chocholáč pineapple gose.  It's pale, with a slight head, not much pineapple noticeable in the aroma.  The gose sour is there, but a second sniff reveals a little more fruit.  It does not, however, have a great deal of pineapple flavor.  It's dry, with a champagne-like feel, tart with an underlying bitter.  I can't quite pick out the pineapple at first, but it's a nice snappy day drink.  After a few minutes warming up though, there's pineapple to spare.

Next, Hendrych H11 pale lager.  Still starting off light.  It's a more typical beer color, and very foamy out of the tap but the head dies back pretty quickly.  Normal lager aroma, a bit sweet and grainy, with sort of an oaty background to it.  The taste hits with a strong bitter on top but gentle grassiness underneath, very much a Central European beer in that regard.  I find it a bit strong flavored for casual sipping, odd for a lager, but H11 is a strong contender to accompany an evening of brooding.

I was looking forward to seeing the take on NEIPA with Sibeeria's Join, or Die.  Similar in color to the lager, but with a much brighter aroma, citrusy and spicy.  The taste isn't as juicy as previous NEIPA's I've had, but a strong citrus flavor is present, very smooth and sort of creamy.  There's also a touch of bitterness, but it seems to be hiding in the background.  While not as singular as, say, La Quince's Green Mind, it's quite alright, except for the little flowery poof it develops when it warms up.  That's more like Valverde, no NEIPA at all.

Moving on, there was Cobolis Bavorská Pšenice dunkels weissbier.  Now we're getting a little more color.  It's ruddy and a little cloudy, something like a red ale, but the aroma is different altogether.  It strikes me as bacon/hammy.  The first sip is sweet, but then the smoked meat starts to bleed through, and it seems to be a bit oily in the mouth.  There's also a sour flavor that floats up from the sweet and makes a kind of bridge between the "vegetable" and "meat" flavors.  It's not what I expected, and I don't think I'll be in any hurry to try it again.

The last of the flight was another Sibeeria, Polární Noc Imperial Stout.  It'll be good to get that dunkels out of my mouth.  The beer is a good dark color, opaque black, dark beige head, not too strong of an aroma, perhaps a little touch of licorice.  With one sip there's an explosion of smoke and dirt (in the good way!) in the mouth, giving up a rounded sort of bitterness.  Again, there's something kind of hiding behind the main stage flavor, maybe peeking out from behind the scenery.  This time it's that sweetish licorice.  The stout earthiness does its best to upstage it though, and for the most past succeeds, which is perfectly satisfactory to my taste buds.

I couldn't resist one more stout before I left, and All-Stars Pizza Port Night Surfer was something new for me.  It's an oatmeal milk stout, so not too heavy just before hopping into the metro.  This beer is also nice and opaque, with just a little bit of light at the bottom of the glass.  The head is off-white, but not too resistant.  It has a very smoky taste for a milk stout, perhaps a bit of coffee mixed in, but I find it a bit clingy to in the throat.  Doesn't go down quite as cleanly as that Polární Noc.  Still, it's a flavorful and tasty stout, balanced in its bitterness, and goes to the bottom of the glass with no surprises.  What else do you want, really?

new beer in the old town

Think global, act local, isn't that the saying?  Buying local is part of that, I guess.  Fortunately, when it comes to beer, the choices are numerous.  One of those choices is Cibeles, not only quality, but also quantity beers, having produced a number of varieties over the past few years.  Viejo Madrid is one I had not seen before, so I couldn't resist.  I notice the label is also in English, and not really a translation.  They have been exporting to the US for a couple of years, so they're either prepared or have gotten used to a bilingual theme.  And the English part is much more...commercial.

"Madrid excellent water", as opposed to, say, London excellent water?

For some reason I expected a darker beer than I got in my glass, maybe because of the brownish label, or because of the slightly sweet smell.  It reminds me a little of a bock in aroma.  The color is golden and standard beer, though.  The taste is apple-y and just a little tart, although I feel like it could become syrupy if left to warm up too much.  This "traditionally" crafted beer is a fine drink, flavorful, bright and happy, and a pick-me-up on a rainy evening.  Much better than certain other beers that claim seniority around here.

Supplier: La Buena Cerveza
Price: €2.66