Friday 14 October 2016

Get some pork on your tenedor

Work recently took me to Segovia in Spain. It's a pretty town full of historic whatnots.

La única iglesia que ilumina es la que arde


Acueducto not aguaducto. Perhaps a Welsh style mutation from the Spanish?
There's a fortress as well but I didn't get that far.

But what about the beer I hear you ask? Well there was a promisingly named shop:


But sadly it was a clothes shop. We did find a bar that actually had a beer list. The beers all seemed to be from Heineken but it was good to see some interest being taken in beer.

This was a Belgian style beer from Southern Spain
After that we wandered on to a tapas bar to be greeted by a keg font and small glasses. Did this mean we'd stumbled upon a craft beer establishment where awesome ales could be had at enormous expense?

Nah, it was just industrial lager. Dirt cheap mind.


The thing that most impressed me with Segovia though was the fine selection of pork products they had on offer, and the tapas bar didn't let us down. I was delighted to discover the Spanish even have their own version of pork scratchings.  

Chicharrónes
They were somewhat marred by actually having meat on them, which makes them lose the lardy lack of redeeming features of the British variety. I consoled myself by shovelling vast quantities into my mouth.



12 comments:

  1. My philosophy when I'm in a town with proper tapas is that I'm actually paying for the food, which is usually really good, and the beer, which is usually crap, is complimentary, and it's not polite to complain about something you're getting for free. It helps me enjoy the experienie a lot more

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  2. You're spot on there. I enjoyed myself immensely and the food was great but the beer was just something to wash it down with.

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  3. Any update on this?
    https://edsbeer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-truth-about-nottingham-ale-yeast.html

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    1. I'm afraid not. Is there anything you're particularly interested in?

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    2. Thanks, I was just wondering how the two phenotypes you isolated were different and if you did any other tests with the other yeasts, like US-05. I'm also wondering if the surebrew claims were substantiated.

      Cheers

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    3. I didn't look any further as I'd reached the point where further investigation would cost money!

      As far as I can see the Surebrew bloke had based his claim about lager yeast on presumptive identification of the yeast based on colony colour which was not backed up by the more definitive incubation temperature test. So his claims about lager yeast in Nottingham were not substantiated, but the different colony colours does make it look like it's multiple strains.

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    4. Thanks for the fast responses!

      I'm going to be isolating some dried strains for storage (I'm making a small yeast bank) so this has helped me greatly. If I see different yeast morphology when I plate them out do you think there's any point in doing mini fermentation tests (weight loss, ph change and plato change, +POF by smell)?

      I wonder if it's intentional or cross contamination?

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    5. It's 'cos I'm sat in front of the computer when I should be doing something more worthwhile!

      Yes, I think it would be interesting to try that if you see colonies with different morphologies. It's something I should have done with the Nottingham. I have started investigating some wild yeasts I've cultures from berries I picked for this year's sloe gin though!

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    6. Haha, perfect me too (computer and wild yeast).

      I'm looking forward to your wild yeast posts. I haven't tested mine yet but I have a feeling a blackberry which was overripe and I left to macerate in it's own juices before putting it into some wort has fermented the strongest.

      One thing I'm interested in is that I heard someone write that they encountered a dominant yeast strain in a local area where he was trying to find some yeast.

      You're a lucky guy gettings sloes, I couldn't find any trees.

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  4. Lots of sloes grow near my work, but the crop was very thin this year. The yeast/bacteria on the berries have fermented wort but attenuation seems low so not looking very promising at the moment.

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    1. I don't know if this applies but I hear if you don't prune fruiting trees that they'll alternate between bumper/thin years so that might be something to look forward to.

      That's annoying; I hope it ferments out. Hopefully it at least smells good!

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    2. Smells fruity so something might come of it.

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