It has been a few weeks since I last posted on this blog. That is because I have spent the last week and a half in and around Barcelona. Barcelona is an amazing city in an even more amazing nation (Catalonia, currently the northwestern-most province of Spain). The lifestyle, culture, and people of this area are all very near and dear to my heart. I hope to live in Barcelona sometime in the near future (hopefully at the culmination of my current mental/emotional journey in the strange world of Ph.D.'s and academics). This place has become precious to me, and that is without even mentioning the culture unto itself that is Catalan gastronomy.
I have had many of the best meals of my life in Catalonia. The beauty of Catalan cuisine is not just the intense flavor and freshness of the paella, fideua, fish, shrimp, calamari, clams, muscles, sepia, not to mention metric tons of pork available in every imaginable form (look up jabugo, chorizo, salchichon, and fuet to see just a bit of what I am talking about). No, no! The true beauty of Catalan cuisine is the culture behind it, the pride taken in preparing and serving it. I have been extremely lucky to have the opportunity to experience these wonders in the company of good Catalan friends.
Having said all that, the beer selection available in Catalonia, even in Barcelona (one of the world's major cities by anyone's estimation) can be summed up in two words: limited and unimpressive. Beer is simply not good in this part of the world. The only selection is between a few different brands of pilsners. The entire status of beer over there can be captured with one observation - you can go into a restaurant in Barcelona and simply order "una cerveza" (a beer for those who don't know any Spanish). You don't need to specify anything beyond that and you will be brought a beer. While this certainly makes things easier for those among us who are not adept at speaking Spanish (me), I think it is a travesty that a place boasting some of the best food in the world is so lacking when it comes to the masterpiece of gastronomy that is beer. I don't know if the problem is that people in Catalonia do not like beer or that they have just not been introduced to the proper types of beers in the proper setting to understand how wonderful beer can be (I would like to hope the latter is true).
One more short story to vent my frustration before I close this post. I went to the Moritz brewery in Barcelona, one of the major breweries of the area. It is located in the center of Barcelona and appears to be a working brewery, with stainless steel vats scattered about and all the other familiar symptoms of a brewery. "Great!" I thought. Surely I would be offered some variety whilst drinking beer at a brewery. In a way this was true. There are three options at the Moritz brewery: pilsner, amber, and "mestiza". I have had plenty of pilsners and ambers in my time, but what is this third variety offered, this mestiza. Those who speak Spanish know that mestiza means mixed, and that's exactly what this option is - a 50:50 mix of the other two varieties.
Ok, moaning is now out of the way.
Voy a volver pronto! Visca Catalonia!!!
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