joearay@gmail.com / +1 206 446 2425


image

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

THREE-STAR BEER IN BARCELONA

BARCELONA - It happens to every host. Your and your guest are well fed*, you don’t need more caffeine, you’ve been walking for a couple hours and going home now would torpedo the afternoon.

There we were, sore of foot and in front of La Cerveteca - the beer place. Not the toss ‘em back and drunk by five style, though. In Barcelona, like in Paris, coffee and beer are always good, but seldom better. La Cerveteca is one of the few wonders that falls into the ‘better’ category - the kind where you walk in and stare in wonder, saying ‘Holy cow - what’s this doing here?’

Case in point, I spy Nøgne Ø beers from Norway - something I recognize from Anders Kissmeyer’s wonderful Norrebro Bryghus brewery in Copenhagen - along with American IPAs, treats from Belgium and Germany and even Anchor Steam from San Francisco!

(Seeing the latter, I instantly pine for my San Francisco days, roaming Potrero Hill when the smell of the hops streaming out of the brewery takes over the neighborhood, with a scent that, inexplicably, will always remind me of Spaghetti-O’s.)

Guillaume and I order an IPA and a Liberty Ale, grab a few papers, find a back table and take a load off for an hour.

Perfect.

La Cerveteca MAP
Gignàs 25
Barcelona
+34 93 315 04 07

*Pinotxo, of course. A Joe Ray three-star
.



Twitter Facebook Delicious Digg | More
image

Thursday, April 02, 2009

Good Beer

Brussels – God bless a good lead.

I dropped Anders Kissmeyer of Copenhagen’s Nørrebro Bryghus a note saying I was en route to Brussels and wanted to know where to go for good beer. Within a day, Kissmeyer and his two brewers, Shaun Hill and Kasper Larsen, had a list of brewers, beer halls and lambic blenders to contact.

Shaun recommended the Poechenellekelder bar, a stone’s throw (a short squirt?) from the city’s bizarre Mannekin Pis statue. This close to the touristic center of most cities, it’s generally good to keep your guard up. Instead we were more than impressed by both the selection and the product knowledge.

The list of choices is extensive – even for a beer enthusiast it can be baffling – yet a lot of selection doesn’t mean much without good guidance – “at that point they’re just a stockist” someone said later. Here, however, our waiter Cedric Jamar - a philosophy student who could easily pass for a sommelier - guided by asking just a couple of questions about what we know and what we like and, without presenting options, simply said, “I’ll be right back.”

He came back with two different beers – one exactly what I asked for, and the other, St. Bernardus wheat beer that – with gentle berry smells and crisp flavors, I’d rank among the top ten beers of my life.

I told Jamar so and, with a bit of clever salesmanship, said, “Ah, that’s nothing – if you like that, come back tomorrow and I’ll give you something that’ll knock your socks off.”

I’m on my way.


Poechenellekelder – MAP
Rue du Chêne, 5
Brussels

P.S. – Hot off the press – I just got word from Copenhagen that Nørrebro Bryghus is going carbon neutral. Cheers, Anders!



Twitter Facebook Delicious Digg | More