a work of art

It's not the scariest thing or the most beerfest traditional, but you can't say no to a good Czech beer.  There are good memories in Sibeeria, too.  Although Candinskij looks like it should be some kind of sour or fruity ale, but it is actually a stout.  A sweetened stout, along the lines of pastry, with maple syrup and coffee.  Interestingly, this is a collaboration with Candycane Coffee, so an explanation for the name I guess.  This is a beer to look forward to on a rainy, rainy weekend, something to give you a little warmth as you sit around at home watching horror shorts and online marathons.

While only dark brown and not soulless black, it looks rich and heavy, like a real stomach filler of a stout.  There is definitely coffee in the aroma, although not much sweetness.  There is a touch of stouty earth, perhaps.  The taste starts with a little bitterness, easily linked to the coffee, with a bit of sweetness to balance.  At the end of the swallow, there's a high note of maple, a lot like maple candies.  The name works out after all.  Something in the mix of flavors brings out some licorice, which isn't what I would look for in a stout, but it's not too much so it's bearable.  The beer is quite thick and a luscious mouthful, yet not leaving a lot of sticky aftertaste.  Despite being such a weighty drink, it doesn't really overload the stomach.  It's not a beer you would down without realizing it, but it's no difficulty to take in either.

Supplier: Labirratorium

Price: €8.55

not the black forest, but ok

Más Que Cevezas had a shipment of Sibeeria a while ago, a brewery I haven't had the pleasure of coming across for quite some time.  Since the Sweet Baby Jesus incident, in fact.  It's exciting to see new beers come in, but an old friend is also nice to see.  I thought they would fly off the shelves, but there were a few left, of a couple of styles.  A couple of IPAs and a porter.  Ohhh, we all know which one I went with.  It's a vanilla and coconut porter, at a very mild 4.7%, and I was told a very easy drinking brew. 

It has a fairly thin appearance when poured, although the beige head is pretty frothy to start.  It does diminish quickly.  The strongest part of the aroma is definitely the coconut, it's almost like a piña colada.  Even the underlying scents are slightly sour and tangy, giving the beer a tropical feel in the nose.  The flavor is less tropical with the vanilla coming on strong, but the coconut still has a dominating presence.  It's smooth although it feels almost...oily?  Like coco butter I guess.  It remains constant in flavor balance all the way through, a nice light but filling drink, at home under a beach umbrella or shabby chic bar chair.

Supplier: Más Que Cervezas

Price: €5.07

sweet baby jesus is right

Ahhhhh, an unintentional hiatus due to technological difficulties.  But, now we can get back to it and, oh dear, it’s the end of my Czech beers that I dragged back with me!  Guess I’ll have to revisit in the near future.  I saved the best for last, at least according to my tastes, Sibeeria’s Sweet Baby Jesus.  A milk stout, appropriately.  Sibeeria was one of the more prolific breweries that I encountered, being represented in all the little craft bars.  At Beer Geek they had a good five or six on tap.  They weren’t the only ones, but I think Maly Velky is the only place I didn’t see any Sibeeria, and I could very well be misremembering.  Anyway, on to the grand finale.

Not pure black, but a nice dark chocolate brown and a very slight sweetish aroma.  The flavor is also very lightly sweet, no smoke at all in this stout.  It has kind of a caramel to it, but lighter than actual candy would be, and a touch of salt balances things out.  As it starts out sweet, I'm apprehensive that it will get sticky, but that remains under control to the end.  Although it does thicken up a little bit I wouldn't go so far as to say syrupy.  Also, an undercurrent of something not quite bitter develops and rumbles through on the way to the bottom of the bottle.  Still, the flavor and texture are even and calm with no big changes in the bitter/sweet balance from start to finish, which isn't really a miracle, but it's a damn fine job.

Dear Baby Jesus, send me more stouts for X-mas?

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?