Maltese Style

I have just spent the last 5 days in Malta. As a country Malta has been of strategic military importance to the British Empire for a long time. It's proximity to both Europe and Africa make it a great jumping point for invasions of many countries. Malta is also an underdeveloped shithole with hobbies such as picking up dog shit (as illustrated by the instructional sign in the pic to the left). It is an odd place, but they do have good beer.

The first exposure I had to Maltese beer was not a good one. Surely a beer called Hopleaf Pale Ale is going to be good right? Well no. It was tasteless and dull and I refuse to talk about it further. On the other hand I did find some excellent brews. The most common and widely available beer is Cisk (4.9% abv). This is an excellent continental lager in the pilsner style and actually tastes pretty good from a can and is also available in proper real keg form. It is insanely cheap and can be had for about €1.50 a pint in most establishments or for 65 euro cents a can in supermarkets.

Other noteworthy Maltese beers are Farsons Lacto Milk Stout (3.8% abv) which is a thick treacle like milk stout which is really nice. It doesn't have that thinly veiled roast with chemical aftertaste that other milk stouts seem to have. It's a wonderful beast and is balanced just right - I wish I had picked some up to bring back to the UK! 1565 is another Maltese lager in the style of Cisk, but is brewed to celebrate St Johns victory in the year of it's namesake. This beer is OK, but not as clean and crisp as Cisk. I only ever came across cans of the stuff so it may be rare or just brewed for the public holiday (which happens to be the 28th June, while I was there). You can get most of the usual euroswill suspects there such as Heineken, Carlsberg etc but you can also get German and Czech beers such as Lowenbrau and Budvar insanely cheap at under 50 euro cents a bottle. Anyhow in terms of beer this pretty much sums up my experiences in Malta. I only went there for some guaranteed sun, and upon my return I find out that I missed a heatwave in London and it was actually warmer here! Plenty of good boozing coming up this week though with a session in the Gunmakers locked in tomorrow and The White Horse and Ealing beer fests coming up, I am staring down a boozy weekend. It will certainly make packing interesting!