Birraire - Beer Blog

Photo by Dani Ruiz (CerveTV) As a part of the X Barcelona Beer Festival , held on October 14, 15 and 16 at La Farga de l'Hospitalet, a new Round Table session was organised to continue with the time-honoured tradition of - almost - every edition of the festival. A very topical topic: wild fermentation . For this, the invited speakers were some of the bestexponents of our local scene: Montse Virgili and Carlos Rodríguez - Ales Agullons -, Guillem de Lorenzo - Santa Pau Ales -, Quiònia Pujol - Lo Vilot -, Marc Baulida - La Calavera -, Dani Ruiz - La Salvatge - and Aleix Puig - Màger -. For the understanding of all those present at the session, it was held in Spanish.

The first week of April had two dates circled with a red marker on the beer calendar, due to the celebration of the second edition of the trade fair Innbrew , and the first edition of a very promising event, Rustic & Wild. For today, let's focus on the former. In its second year, this B2B event had the challenge of consolidating itself as a recurring professional meetpoint, after a first edition that proved the potential for a fair of these characteristics, but that, in the midst of a pandemic, it became more of a reunion than a fully functional trade fair. In this sense, I summarise below a series of quick thoughts and reflections after following the event both remotely and in person:

  In spite of my pessimism about the state of the local beer blogosphere , I still firmly believe in the role that blogs can play as a fundamental piece for the dissemination and quality discussion in an environment open to all audiences. To avoid settling into perpetual criticism and start leading by example, I hope to resume blog activity a bit this year, also as part of a return to good habits that I have definitely lost due to the pandemic and excess work, the combination of which has led me to a terribly monotonous kind-of-monastic life. To begin with, I would like to recover a decade-long initiative that started in the international blogosphere: the Golden Pints awards , which every blogger assigns to beers, establishments or projects that they feel deserve to be praised.

It feels good to hit the 'publish' button again after an uneventful period. Despite a remarkably active start this year, I suppose that I was finally caught up in the depression and standstill inherent in the sector given the current social and economic situation, as well as the burden associated with my own work and family commitments, which have also undergone notable changes in this fateful year 2020. The thing is that despite the fact that my main job is pure dynamism and adaptation to constant change, I have a high sensitivity to routine changes, the effects of which I do not transfer to my professional field, but which do affect me personally in the organisation of my free time. In this sense, the huge change that COVID-19 has meant has been painful for me to process. But by resorting to self-observation I have finally been able to unblock body and mind to be able to concentrate on carrying out certain pending projects, such as the book that I am working on, and that I h...

So here's the summary post of the Back of the Closet Weekend - BotCW -, which as you know from the previous entries is a collective virtual event consisting of taking out beers that, for one reason or another, be it accidental or voluntary, have been waiting for their moment in the depths of our closets or cellars for some time. After its celebration, I would like to highlight the satisfaction for the good reception that the event has had, with a very remarkable number of participants and beers. Although the most positive thing, in my opinion, is the generation of content and reflections around beer that it has triggered, sharing impressions and experiences, recalling past times when the local community online was a powerful source of disclosure, constructive discussion and thought leadership. Many of us miss it. It is clear that this is a merely periodical amusement, although in the sense of the above there are reasons in my opinion to propose a new call within a few months . But...

In line with what was commented in the previous post , the #BotCW is a collective virtual event consisting of taking out beers that, for one reason or another, be it accidental or voluntary, have been waiting for their moment in the depths of our closets or cellars for some time. Happy to have recovered this tradition born in the blogosphere, but with an increasing weight in social networks, last Friday I set out to review my inventory of aged beers to choose several candidates and put them in the fridge. Of those chosen, I finally took four: all of them national, being my choice absolutely deliberate so as to highlight our breweries during these difficult times. In all cases, the aging was voluntary and not by mistake. Let's go see them. 'Satisfaction with the results of this prolonged aging, with an average of 76 months, and for the great reception of the event'