There has been a massive expansion in craft breweries in Spain over the last few years. Cerveza Artisana is a small family run craft brewery in Lanjaron, producing a range of very interesting bottle conditioned beers, from dark chocolate beers to golden floral ones.
From the outside it just looks like one of the large houses lining the min road out of the town. It produces around 28000 bottles of beer a month, flavoured with the local honey, marjoram or hibiscus flowers.
The local Lanjaron water is used for brewing, but malts are bought in from Belgium, Germany or England. Hops come from America, England or Germany. The bulk of the malt is just dried and has a very ovaltine flavour. A small percentage of dark, roasted malt is added to produce the dark, bitter beers.
Behind the shop is the brewery with two maceration tanks. Malt and water are heated to 60˚C to extract the sugars. Hops and other flavourings are added. The liquid is called ‘sweet beer’ and is cooled and placed in the fermenting tanks with yeast. Fermentation takes from 10-15 days.
The beer is then bottled and stored for at least a month for secondary fermentation and to allow the flavours to develop. The bottles are labelled and are then ready for dispatch.
Brewery tours cost €5 and include tasting at least three different beers. We went in a group and a ham roll was provided. It was an interesting although the brewer only spoke Spanish and we needed someone to translate.
I visited here as part of a “‘Flavours of Spain'”:http://www.solosholidays.co.uk/spain/discovery-tours/flavours-of-spain holiday arranged with “Solos Holidays.”:http://www.silvertraveladvisor.com/review/travel-service/168048-review-solos-holidays
My detailed trip report with all my pictures is
“here.”:http://wasleys.org.uk/eleanor/otherholidays/spain/index.html
