Brown has been championing Catalan craft beers for some time now and as such I’d decided to take him into this unchartered territory as my guide. Hops I learn come from the same family as cannabis, though without the psychoactive properties. And beer, if the enthusiasts are to be believed, is the new wine. And believe me, the enthusiasts are many.
In front of me is a copy of America’s Bon Appetit, and Britain’s Olive magazine, both of which feature lengthy articles on artisan beers this month. Olive is covering the multitude of English microbreweries that have sprung up across the country, particularly in the North, these past years. Bon Appetit’s journalists have been dispatched to the Trappist monks of Belgium. Both herald a new dawn of beer that is versatile, varied and as food friendly as any wine.
And so here I am, on a drizzly spring day in Catalunya, driving through dazzlingly green, rolling countryside in search of a new breed of master brewer. First stop, Ca l’Arenys, who make a brand called Guineu under the loving gaze of Guzman Fernandez, the rising star of modern Catalan beer-making who says simply of his technique: “maximum taste, minimum alcohol.”
It’s music to my ears, for while high alcohol wines have their place, the density of flavours can murder a plate of food. Fernandez’s Riner low-alcohol ale amazed judges and onlookers alike at the Great British Beer Festival in 2009 for its smooth, bitter taste and creamy texture.
Like wine, the beer-making process is pretty much the same wherever you go although there is one key factor it’s worth looking out for: brown glass indicates quality, green, mass production of the kind that doesn’t care. Thereafter it’s down to individual skill at divining the four elements of flavour: malt, hops, the type of yeast and water.
Fernandez, like most of the brewers I met that day, learned his craft at home with buddies. Their passion for the craft grew, and the seeds of a culture were simultaneously sown. It wasn’t long before he started experimenting, approaching beer in the same way as boutique winemakers, and, together with several partners, Ca l’Arenys was established as a legitimate business seven years ago with the launch of a lager called Rosa.
Latest Comments
Catalan microbreweries
Posted by jura zymantas July 19, 2010 18:08:42