Craft beers in Benissa
When I first started teaching, September 1975, I hit it off immediately with my boss, Head of PE, Arthur Roberts, now, sadly no longer with us. An educated rough diamond, was Arthur – Front Row at Rugby, liked to win, and liked a pint too. Well, often more than two!
Whenever it was his round and he asked me what I wanted, I soon learned that it made no difference, he’d always come back with a Guinness for both of us, saying, “You don’t want to drink that rubbish, this is what you need!” Eventually, I realised he was largely right – in those days at least. Therefore, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for a drop of the black stuff.
Well, I wish Arthur was here to try the Stout, pictured above – he’d had loved it, and its baby brother, the same stout but without the barrel ageing that this one has clearly enjoyed. In fact, I’m pretty sure that Arthur would enjoy the whole range of beers from a new Dutch owned brewery, in Benissa (https:// brouwhoeve.es). I certainly did, and I learned my beer from Arthur!
In fact, Brouwhoeve has two homes: the showrooms, just off the N332 in Benissa, and the brewery on the industrial estate on the N332, between Benissa and Teulada. I’ve visited the former, and will do the latter as soon as it’s fully open. I understand there will be tastings and tours there, so I’m definitely in!
In the meantime, you can taste in Benissa, either as you chat with Marian, as she tells you the history of the business, started in Holland, but moved very recently to Spain, where there is a growing craft beer culture; or in the attractive tasting room, replete with what looks like a copy of a painting by, well, a Dutch Master, I guess. And it’s clear to me that there has been a Master Brewer (or Mistress?) at work in fashioning the beers in the range, which go from a, relatively, light hoppy, fruit driven IPA, to the award winning bruiser pictured above.
If you like big beers (most are 6.5 abv) with an attractive bitterness, then these are for you.
I’m pretty sure that if you ask any of my wine judging colleagues, male and female, what they most look forward to, after a heavy 70+ wines judging session, with one voice they’ll say, a cold beer! After a wine battering like that, the palate needs a refresher – you’re in the mood for some alcohol, but you want it cold, and different. Wine folk, almost invariably like beer! So, it’s not at all out of place that in Cork Talk, the dedicated Costa News wine column, I occasionally go off piste, and write about beer!
I picked up five different beers from Marian, chilled them down nicely – and got to work!
Brouwhoeve IPA comes in a charming 33cl bottle. Its presentation is a fine start – it looks good, and this, plus the fact that I have a soft spot for UK IPA (sorry Arthur!) made me think I was probably going to enjoy it. I did, though it’s a touch removed from the milder IPA’s I’d been drinking a couple of weeks ago in Dorset. This IPA is quite bitter, not for the faint hearted, but also with citrus notes and a hoppy aroma. On the website above you’ll see that there are various foods recommended to pair with this beer. I’m often told that wine shouldn’t be paired with curry – I don’t go a long with this at all, but I do agree that beer is also good with spicy food. This is the beer for your next Indian Curry!
The Saison beer comes as it is, but also as a barrel aged version. It’s from an old Belgian recipe, where it was made on farms in the winter, for drinking the next year, so a beer that spans the seasons was called, naturally, Saison! There’s quite a difference between the two, though the common denominator is a spicy bitterness found in both, though toned down a little in the oaked version, which was the one I enjoyed most, as it happens.
The unoaked Saison has citrus notes to the extent of having an aroma and a first hit taste of lemon zest from a not quite ripe lemon, perhaps with a touch of lime too. It has a marked bitterness, something of a Brouwhoeve theme, it seems. The oaked version has the above, though toned down by the its 7 months in medium toasted American oak. And, talking of wood, this robust beer’s aroma took me back to the woodwork shop at my old secondary school. Big beer, again!
The final two beers of my tasting (though there are others, for which I’ll be going back to the shop) were the Stouts, referred to at the start of this article, and when you taste them, you can toast Arthur, as I did!
When I mentioned Guinness to Marian, she exclaimed that I’d find these stouts very different to the Irish black stuff, in flavour, if not in colour. She’s right, and even the colour is different, with an attractive bronze shade to the froth sitting on the blackness! On both the unoaked and the oaked stouts there is a noticeable liquorice aroma and particularly flavour, with bitter dark chocolate notes and a little well roasted coffee too. The oaked version has all the above, though the coffee note overtakes the dark chocolate a little. This beer has won international recognition, picking up plaudits and medals.
Finally, in praise of Brouwhoeve – their website is excellent with lots of information, written in an easy read style. Bravo!