Ales Agullons Runa

Ales Agullons, Mediona, Alt Penedés, Spain

Runa

Brown Ale

5% ABV

?? oz. bottle into pint glass

When offered a guided tour of Barcelona at a recent math conference, I went off by myself instead. I wandered aimlessly through the Barrio Gótico for close to three hours, and in the process I discovered little bits of the Spanish microbrewery scene.

A large-windowed storefront caught my eye because instead of  ,,Cervezeria,” which is the denotation of any standard bar selling Estrella Damm Lager, it was called  ,,Cervezeteca”.

The store sold beer for drinking on premise and to take-away. Besides a very small bar with four rotating (German) beers on tap, they had standing room around four large beer barrels, and one table with chairs in a cubby-like room towards the back. Two Spanish women stood at the bar getting just a little more trashed than they realized on beers from the Scottish brewery Brewdog. A middle-aged painter just off work ordered a large Dunkel from the tap. Two scruffy young men speaking English occupied one of the barrels, while another scruffy guy lounged alone in a window nook.

I started browsing the shelves of their bottle collection. The large selection of German and Belgian beers was not surprising for a high-end beer store on the continent, but the random assortment of American microbrews certainly was. I’ve never been able to convince a European that the US actually has good beer, since the face of American beer in Europe is primarily Bud and Miller. This Cerevezeteca had an interesting sample of American microbrews, influenced mostly by what is available for export: the whole line of Flying Dog, three beers by Anchor, and a large selection of Great Divide. I don’t have anything against these beers, but they were clearly not the beers I wanted to try in Spain.

I asked in extremely limited, halting Spanish if they had any Spanish beers available. In full, flowing, florid Spanish, the bartender described four or five beers to me. I understood not a word except the style of the last beer, Brown Ale, so that is what I ordered.

The beer had almost a stout-like dryness, and more carbacious burntness than I’d expected judging its color alone. It had great body, no head, and was forwardly hoppy. Overall, quite enjoyable, but not the undiscovered pearl I’d hoped for. It would pair well with another odd find of my afternoon’s wanderings: a bitter, biting, almost beer-like, very soft, unpasteurized Spanish sheeps cheese.

It was a good thing I downed the whole large bottle by myself. It gave me the buzz I needed to face a banquet full of mathematicians and learn about string theory over tapas.

~ by nininja on July 20, 2010.