An archive of ramblings from an Aussie who once lived in London
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Sagres
Sagres (5% abv) seems to be the beer of choice for most on the Algarve. Its bland, tastless and everywhere! Its the local megaswill and is to the Algarve, what Carling is to the UK and what XXXX is to Queensland. I won't carry on too much about theh beer as I think you get the picture!
This also bring along the end of the Algarve, special on the beers of Portugal. From here hopefully things will be looking up!
Tagus (5.4% abv) is probably Portugal's only all malt beer! Fortunately for me, I happened to find plenty of it on my holiday and made it my regular session beer. The beer pours a very nice gold/amber with a good white head. It smells ok: clean, caramelly malt, fruity and nice perky fresh hop zest. On the palate it is fresh and hoppy, with a real bittering bite in the finish and obviously well-hopped character. Similar to Beck's, but upp-ing the level once again to make it somewhat 'offensive' to the great unwashed. Quite a full, powerful beer, that elevates it above the easy drinking, and a really very good strong lager style beer. Tick Tick!
A while ago, (ok a long whole ago) I found some Super Bock, a high gravity corn laden lager which is one step below tramp juice. Low and behold the stuff is rampant throughout the Algarve and my mission was to avoid it at all costs! (something which I failed to do...). Rather than bore you with tales about a beer which makes Carling seem like a complex and interesting beer, I am going to talk about Super Bock Stout (4.8% abv), the 'dark side' . Contrary to the regular Super Bock, the stout version is actually half decent. The beer is chocolate roasty and robust, but has a little residual caramel sweetness which works rather well. As far as stouts go, it's more interesting than any of the usual Irish mega-swills as it has a dominant chocolate flavour whilst still being stout. Ok, not strictly to style but still a very nice beer. I suspect that the beer is actually brewed with a lager yeast - so its like a roasty Schwartzbier if you get my drift.
Tagus Dark (4.8% abv) is an all malt Bock style lager by Mare Nostrum Brasseur du Sud. The beer is dark with strong malty melanoiden flavours throughout and was probably the best beer I had whilst on holiday. Strangely enough, I can't find very much information about the beer. Help me fill in the blanks!
My first beer upon arriving in Portugal was Cristal Pilsner (5.1% abv). The beer is dry, but a Pilsner it ain't! It's pretty terrible and reminded me of Super Bock which I have had from Tesco's. I don't think I am going to find anything really decent in Portugal, but at least its warm!
Hunting through the international selection at my local Tesco on the weekend i stumbled across Super Bock (5.6% abv). I really should have paid closer attention to the packaging! I was expecting a German style bock, but instead I received pale chemically tasting tramp juice! The beer is actually Portuguese, and I suppose anybody who has been there before would have heard of it. Im just the fool who has not been there! from Wikipedia;
"Super Bock is a Portuguese brand of strong pale lager from the Unicer brewery which produces a range of beers under the same name. Established in 1927, Unicer is based in Leça do Balio, just outside the city of Porto, Portugal. Its Super Bock brand is the most popular beer in Portugal (42% market share/Sept. 1998), especially in the north of the country, and competes well against Sagres and Coral (Madeira) in the rest of Portugal. It is the only beer to have won 15 consecutive gold medals in the "Monde Selection de la Qualite". It is sold in 90% of restaurants and markets in Portugal, and in 21 countries including Angola, Bermuda, Canada, Mozambique, Spain and the UK"
Sounds interesting enough, its just a pity that its euro-mega swill of the worst variety!
Sagres (5% abv) seems to be the beer of choice for most on the Algarve. Its bland, tastless and everywhere! Its the local megaswill and is to the Algarve, what Carling is to the UK and what XXXX is to Queensland. I won't carry on too much about theh beer as I think you get the picture!
