Pilsner Urquell

The last beer from my recent trip to Barcelona, Spain was Pilsner Urquell. Urquell is the original pilsner and the first pale lager to exist. It simply is the defining beer for the Pilsner beer style and the most imitated beer on the planet – Period. The unfortunate part of this particular pint (ok, few pints :P) was the pretentious café/beer restaurant it was served in. The name of the place slips my mind at the moment, but the service sucked and the décor had been set out to make it a pseudo brewpub with industrial brewery type pipes and copper etc. The beer was excellent though and in interest of having another few thousand pints over the future I will leave it there. The website is pretty impressive as well. You can check it out here: http://www.pilsner-urquell.com

San Miguel

Again another Barcelona beer! I did try and get through a few…
San Miguel is the Spanish mega swill and is often sold on the international market as a premium beer. The beer is ok, if not a little unremarkable and as a lot of lagers tend to be: Very Bland!
This one did the trick though and got me a little bit more lubricated so I could get stuck into things a bit more why eating my Paela!
I haven’t really got a lot to say about this one – it doesn’t even have an offensive name! Anyhow what kind of trip to Spain would it have been if I didn't sample this beer (even though it is Spains answer to Carling and Fosters).

Mahou Clasica

Again another obscure Spanish beer from the red light district!
Mahou Clasica (5.4% abv) is a Spanish lager that was pretty bland and I haven’t been able to find much in the way of information about the beer. I think the packaging and lack of appeal in the details fo the can are what stands out most about the beer! It has a low resolution printed label that really doesn’t do much to sell the beer.
The beer itself is a pretty bland euro lager and is certainly nothing special and I probably will never drink it again. That being said there s some cool advertising stuff about for the beer. The official English website is here: http://www.mahou-usa.com/ and as per usual for these Spanish beers asks for your age before letting you enter. It then gives a brief history of the beer, which actually reflects the brand more than the beer! I also found this very funny video which is an actual ad for the beer!

Moritz

Ok, again this is from my Barcelona jaunt and again I bought it from the Spar Express in the red light district! I bought this beer expecting it to be a pretty ordinary beer, just a lawnmower like all the other mass produced swill that you get, well pretty much everywhere these days but I was pleasantly mistaken.
The beer: Moritz (5.4% abv) is an exceptional lager. The bottle claims that it is a locally brewed lager and is Barcelona’s favourite. It is extremely malty with a mild bitterness and a good hit of hop aroma as it’s going down. There is a reasonable amount of diacetyl as well which really suits this style of beer well. My only concern was that I didn’t buy more than one bottle! The beer has a Spanish website: http://www.moritz.es/ so I can’t really tell you much about that. This beer is good, even better than the Estrella Damm and will be my pick next time I’m in the Catalan capital.

Estrella Damm

Another fine Spanish beer from my recent trip to Barcelona, and again from the Catalan Damm Brewery comes Estrella Damm (4.6% abv). I really enjoyed this beer whilst sitting in the sun eating a magnificent tapas meal. I hadn’t even heard of this beer which I would describe as a light bodied, full flavoured pilsner but I was thoroughly impressed, and the beer is an official sponsor of various sailing races! Bonus. Once again as with Bock Damm Negro Munich, the beer has its own iconic website. This one provides a timeline which claims the beer has survived for three centuries? You can have a look at the website here. I recommend people to look up and give this beer a try; it’s a great summer lager.

Bock Damm

Bock Damm Negra Munich (5.4% abv) is a dark lager from Spain’s Damm Brewery. I picked up this can from a Spar Express just off Le Parle’l in the red light district of Barcelona! The beer leans more towards an American dark lager than the Munich lager it aspires to be, and the initial taste is of roast flavours although this passes through to mild bitterness and a really thin body. It also has a slight carbonic bite to it and is quite gassy. The website for this beer is slightly comical, and claims that you must drink the beer in a ceramic stein etc, and has pictures of Munich circa 1888. Overall this is a very peculiar beer and my first Spanish beer experience…. Lets hope that the rest are as unusual and interesting.
Oh yeah, the official website is: http://www.bockdamm.com/

Abbot Ale

I had this one last Friday afternoon whilst at the Lloyds bar at Gatwick Airport en route to Barcelona, Spain. Abbot Ale (5% abv) falls into the Special/Premium Bitter category and is brewed by Greene King. The beer looks quite impressive in the glass being a nice deep amber colour and has a nice initial caramel sweetness but then not much else. I tend to find this a trait with all Greene King beers though as I suspect that they are pretty much mass brewed. If this beer was more exciting I would have more to write about but as its kind of boring I may just leave it there!