If you are a beer lover, this blog may be your interest to discover Lanzarote breweries and traditional beers that the island offers: Malpeis in Tinajo, Los Aljibes in Tahiche, and Nao in Arrecife: Malpeis in Tinajo, Los Aljibes in Tahiche, and Nao in Arrecife.
Malpeis
Malpeis produces three varieties: the Jable ( a 5.3% ABV golden ale, represents sand and is an easy drinking blond coloured brews). The Bermeja (The 6.7% ABV Bermeja is a more challenging and complex pale ale, named after the colour of local soil and brewed using double malt, creating a more bitter aftertaste) and the Rofe (is a dark triple malt brew, representing the black volcanic picon which covers local fields, packing rich, sweet, toasted flavours and an ABV of 7%.).
They want to make a beer «with Lanzarote cereal», but at the moment they can only use 20% of local cereal, because the rest needs to be malted and in Lanzarote there are no malting plants that can do this. They bring it from Belgium.
Malting is a process that moistens the grain until it germinates. It is then roasted to facilitate the extraction of the sugars from the grain and the resulting malt determines the taste of the beer.
The beer is brewed with tap water, which is pH-corrected and filtered in four stages and the grain is infused in the first cauldron, «the temperature and cooking time, which are key to the extraction of sugar from the grain, must be carefully controlled. Then, the grain is separated from the broth and brought to a boil. «In this way we sterilize, clean the wort of impurities and remove yeasts that do not interest us». This is the moment to add the hops, the flower responsible for flavouring the beer and making the final bitterness concrete. The moment does matter: the beer changes if the hops are added before or after.
It is open on Thursdays and Fridays, from 10:00 to 15:00 and Saturday from 11:00 to 15:00. They offer a 5 euro tasting (3 beers paired with chips and olives, cold meats, and artisan cheeses from Tinajo That there are new artisan breweries on the island does not scare them, on the contrary: «It’s great that there are different beers, trying other people’s beers… There is no competition, I think we should support each other».
More info https://www.malpeis.com/
Los Aljibes
The Agüita produced in Los Aljibes de Tahiche was the first craft beer on the island. It is only sold in barrels and in the two establishments managed by the owners in Tahiche and Puerto del Carmen.
Aguita is a darker, more complex beer – a recreation of an American Pale Ale – packing the same ABV of 4.8%. Whilst TEA is an Indian Pale ale – a darker malted beer, very red in appearance with a bitter aggressively dry hoppy flavour, also 4.8% ABV. Oktoberfest completes this highly quaffable quartet and is a slightly cloudy, rich, smooth brew with a bitter kick – based on a traditional Bavarian Marzen beer recipe, with a 4.6% alcohol content.
A couple of years ago, they started growing barley, but it didn’t go down well. «We need to invest in irrigation», so, for the time being, they have imported the grain from Germany again.
More info https://www.facebook.com/Los-Aljibes-de-Tahiche-440273386020984
Nao Brewery
In the neighbourhood of Naos the circuit of the artisan beer made on Lanzarote ends for the moment. Behind a sky-blue door, which used to be a fishing net workshop, hardware store and rehearsal room of Cumbia Ebria, are the beautiful casings of the artisan brewery Nao, which sells its ‘creatures’ from Monday to Friday, from 9:00 to 16:00, in Calle Foque, 5.
They have created two references: La Gloria (3.5% alcohol), a Berliner weis with a touch of acidity that the most beer-drinking people agree is as risky as it is delicious. This beer, with hops flavoured with passion fruit, is presented as «artisan, independent and free». So says the label, which tells its story in a few words, with a design full of marine references. Its companion is called Capitán and is a pale ale with 3 malts.
Here in Nao, they insist on incorporating as many local ingredients as possible, to give their beers their identity. For the moment, most of the grain is brought in from Germany. The hops come from the United States, Belgium and the United Kingdom.
More info https://naobeer.com/
Further information is available at https://www.lanzaroteexperiencetours.com/en/ , by whatsaap +34 646080585 or by sending an email to info@lanzaroteexperiencetours.com
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