It’s Halloween night in Madrid and I’ve wandered back into the home bar for a nomadic brewery in town called Oso Brew Co. It’s the second day in a row that I’ve ended up at La Osita, as it’s called. The beer, mostly hazy IPAs and pastry stouts, was tasty, but the company was even better. A steady stream of regulars keep coming in, joking with the staff, and making me feel at home at a foreign bar. Some are American ex-pats in search of the beers they had back home, some are Australian and take more interest in the gin and Japanese whiskey they sell. One regular is celebrating the end of his Sober October a few hours early, and the bartender looked after him to make sure he didn’t dive into the 12% stout too early in the night. That same polyglot bartender is proud of his attempt to speak Dutch to a couple visiting from Amsterdam, and I’ve stumbled into a conversation with another American visiting here for work, and we quickly realize we have a mutual friend in the beer industry.
Sometimes, when I travel alone as I did to Madrid this week, it can be incredibly isolating, especially when you realize your four years of high school Spanish don’t get you as far as they used to as they fade from memory. But La Osita was one of those places that went out of its way to be welcoming, making me feel like less of a stranger in a strange land. Thanks to everyone there for making me feel at home in a city I had spent less than two hours in.
Anyway, apologies for the limited scope of the email this week. I’ve dealt with a broken plane that diverted back to Madrid, then had to wait out a 25-hour delay, so I’ll unpack the festival I attended in Barcelona in next week’s edition. My only beer during this delay was a San Miguel at the hotel sports bar while I watched Real Madrid trounce Celtic in Champions League, but the more significant takeaway here was seeing how the two hundred or so people on this flight commiserated in a generic airport hotel while enduring the delay. We were total strangers stranded in a windowless hotel ballroom with mediocre food but plenty of rioja, and it led to plenty of interesting conversations with people from all walks of life. Travel can unite, even in the most stressful of situations.
Brewery Tracker
Total brewery count: 2,834
Total breweries visited in 2022: 305
Total breweries visited in Spain: 12
Brewery Visit of the Week
Brewery #1760, Cyclic Beer Farm, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain (Visited 9-Nov-2019)
While I could write about some of the new breweries I hit on my trip to Spain, I really wanted to feature Cyclic Beer Farm, which I visited for the second time last weekend after the Saturday session of Mash Beer Fest and has really come into its own. The brewery specializes in mixed fermentation beers, with additions of fruit that are sourced locally, and the beers on this second visit were absolutely stunning.
I started with a Keller Pils, zigging while others zagged, and it was delightfully true to style. The same goes for the Marzen (clearly, I was in a lager mood after a day of drinking IPAs, sours, and stouts). At the festival, I had already delved into their sour and farmhouse ales, enjoying the Fresita, a cuvée saison with organic strawberries, and The One, a slightly tart mixed-ferm saison with rye aged one year. And if beer wasn’t enough, they make their own ciders and wine, too.
The taproom itself is very industrial, tucked away among a block of warehouses, but it is welcoming nonetheless, with nice wooden finishes at the bar, their whole lineup of bottles on display, and a small kitchen area serving lovely tapas to pair with the beers. But it’s a relatively simple space that puts function over form. It lets the beverages speak for themselves.
Long Read of the Week
I’ve long planned to visit Cologne to drink all the Kölsch I can, but in the meantime, this Boak and Bailey piece about a visit to the city transported me there. Just a great read that captures the beer traditions really well.
One Last Thing
Often times I mark milestones of breweries in this section of the newsletter, and this week I’m wishing a congrats to Queens’ Bridge and Tunnel Brewery on ten years in business. From its humble beginnings in a garage in Maspeth to its DIY, “bombproof” Ridgewood taproom today, it’s been a fun journey to watch brewer/owner Rich Castagna take. They’re celebrating this Saturday at the brewery with a pig roast at 6pm.
And if you want to start your Saturday earlier, friend and beer journalist Josh Bernstein is hosting Let’s Chaat Dog, a mashup of Endless Life beer and Desi-inspired hot dogs in Brooklyn on Saturday afternoon starting at noon.
Happy eating and drinking!
Cheers,
Chris