Cervesa tyris, valencia´s authentic english style micro-brewery!
rikiwigley
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All those years ago when I was North London Organiser for CAMRA ( The Campaign for Real Ale ) I never dreamed for one moment that today I would be writing about a real ale brewery in Valencia...or Riba Roja to be more precise. Yet that is precisely what is happening and those who tasted the beers at the recent Valencia Wine and Food Fair ( see previous post ) all seemed to be very enthusiastic.
[caption id="attachment_831" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Three beers from Cervesa Tyris."]
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It would be fair to say that the only beers available in Valencia until now have been from the conglomerate brewers, notably Heineken/ Amstel, Estrella and Mahou and of course San Miguel . Yes you can find Murphy´s Red and Guinness in some of the tourist pubs in Valencia and occasionally Paulaner but these are not real beers!
The Germans, ( organised as ever ) have their own legislation on beer which only allows four ingredients in the mix....water, malt, hops and yeast. CAMRA adopted the same norms in it´s campaign stipulating also that the beer should not be pasteurised or pressurised ( remember those horrible bland fizzy brands Watney´s Red Barrel and Double Diamond? ) To this they added a preference for the beer to be served either by hand pump from the barrel in the cellars below or better still from a cask with a tap and spile on the bar ( itself a specific demand of the more radical SPBW, the Society for Beer from the Wood).
The Brewers at Tyris have created their home-made beer project along many of these lines. Only using natural malt and hops and using just water and yeast they produce beers which are neither filtered nor pasteurised and which have a very English taste!
Actually the brewery is in a modern warehouse near the ITV station on the huge Industrial Estate near the A3 motorway to Madrid. Forget anything about this being an industrial scale project though. The aim behind it is to bring back to Valencia a real , natural and quality beer, and to improve the choice for consumers. They have embraced a tradition going back centuries and best carried out by small local traditional breweries and monks of course!
[caption id="attachment_832" align="alignright" width="225" caption="Gonzalo Abia."]
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Inside there are interlinked containers, hermetically sealed to keep out pesky fruit flies and other nuisances such as the wild yeasts ever-present in the atmosphere. Gonzalo Abia starts the tour of the facility with a draft version of the wheat beer, a cloudy bitter full of hops and malt with a slightly sweet aftertaste and which is very smooth with a nice citrus bite. Inside the clean facility he starts by explaining that the water is purified on entry to give it a neutral taste and pure nature before the process commences. Whilst I would never claim to be an expert on water I can at least assert it tasted of nothing!
Once sufficient water is available to brew a batch it is added to malt and hops from the store inside the facility. There are several different types of malt, some white, some dark and toasted and each having its own characteristics which will come out in the mash. They use three types of hops one of which was Goldings, much used in traditional beer-making in the UK but not my favourite, Fuggles. When you try these dry in the mouth you can immediately understand where beer gets its bitterness from. The malts are nibbed before boiling in the mash ( which is to say they are lightly crushed allowing more of the aromatics to emerge.) Once the assembly is complete the mash is heated up under temperature control....each blend of malt and different type of hops needs a different amount of heat and time to create a final mash ready for transfer to a fermenting vessel where the yeasts are added.
Each transfer is accompanied by great attention to cleanliness and the brewery uses industrial alcohol sprays to clean taps and hoses etc. No chemicals are used in brewing.
Once the beer has completed its alcoholic fermentation the batch is bottled and labeled and then allowed to rest for around six weeks by which time the contact with the yeasts has added depth and flavour to the beer in question. It is then put out into the market place.
[caption id="attachment_833" align="alignleft" width="281" caption="Tasting the Natural Malts. "]
[/caption]
Currently the brewery is producing three different real beers, which are neither filtered nor pasteurised which means they all have a deposit of yeast at the bottom of the bottle. In the old days this was common and Charringtons, Whitbread ( White Lable) Guinness ( bottled ) and Eldridge Pope´s Hardy´s ale all had these characteristics. Customers can choose whether to serve the beer with the deposit or leave this in the bottom by pouring slowly and carefully. Traditionally the yeasts were added to the bottom of the glass and drunk at the end, having an alimentary benefit.
The three beers are Tyris, a wheat beer ( sometimes called a white beer) VIPA, which is an homage to the bottled English beers sent to the troops serving in the Indian mutiny and Riu Rau produced for an exclusivity in Benissa.
All are very English in style with fabulous hoppy and bitter notes, satisfying and a brilliant alternative to the lager style beers available here! My fridge is now well stocked!
Talking of availability the beers can be tried in several bars in central Valencia ( Sorbito Divino behind the central market, Balconcillo, Ginger Loft which are between Ajuntamiento and Reina Squares and Palpitó and Cava Siglos on Caballeros all stock it ) and bought in specialist outlets or direct from the brewery ( www.cervesatyris.com) .
And once you have tried them and liked them ask your local bar to stock it....there is room in the market for a bit more competition!
[/caption]
It would be fair to say that the only beers available in Valencia until now have been from the conglomerate brewers, notably Heineken/ Amstel, Estrella and Mahou and of course San Miguel . Yes you can find Murphy´s Red and Guinness in some of the tourist pubs in Valencia and occasionally Paulaner but these are not real beers!
The Germans, ( organised as ever ) have their own legislation on beer which only allows four ingredients in the mix....water, malt, hops and yeast. CAMRA adopted the same norms in it´s campaign stipulating also that the beer should not be pasteurised or pressurised ( remember those horrible bland fizzy brands Watney´s Red Barrel and Double Diamond? ) To this they added a preference for the beer to be served either by hand pump from the barrel in the cellars below or better still from a cask with a tap and spile on the bar ( itself a specific demand of the more radical SPBW, the Society for Beer from the Wood).
The Brewers at Tyris have created their home-made beer project along many of these lines. Only using natural malt and hops and using just water and yeast they produce beers which are neither filtered nor pasteurised and which have a very English taste!
Actually the brewery is in a modern warehouse near the ITV station on the huge Industrial Estate near the A3 motorway to Madrid. Forget anything about this being an industrial scale project though. The aim behind it is to bring back to Valencia a real , natural and quality beer, and to improve the choice for consumers. They have embraced a tradition going back centuries and best carried out by small local traditional breweries and monks of course!
[caption id="attachment_832" align="alignright" width="225" caption="Gonzalo Abia."]
[/caption]
Inside there are interlinked containers, hermetically sealed to keep out pesky fruit flies and other nuisances such as the wild yeasts ever-present in the atmosphere. Gonzalo Abia starts the tour of the facility with a draft version of the wheat beer, a cloudy bitter full of hops and malt with a slightly sweet aftertaste and which is very smooth with a nice citrus bite. Inside the clean facility he starts by explaining that the water is purified on entry to give it a neutral taste and pure nature before the process commences. Whilst I would never claim to be an expert on water I can at least assert it tasted of nothing!
Once sufficient water is available to brew a batch it is added to malt and hops from the store inside the facility. There are several different types of malt, some white, some dark and toasted and each having its own characteristics which will come out in the mash. They use three types of hops one of which was Goldings, much used in traditional beer-making in the UK but not my favourite, Fuggles. When you try these dry in the mouth you can immediately understand where beer gets its bitterness from. The malts are nibbed before boiling in the mash ( which is to say they are lightly crushed allowing more of the aromatics to emerge.) Once the assembly is complete the mash is heated up under temperature control....each blend of malt and different type of hops needs a different amount of heat and time to create a final mash ready for transfer to a fermenting vessel where the yeasts are added.
Each transfer is accompanied by great attention to cleanliness and the brewery uses industrial alcohol sprays to clean taps and hoses etc. No chemicals are used in brewing.
Once the beer has completed its alcoholic fermentation the batch is bottled and labeled and then allowed to rest for around six weeks by which time the contact with the yeasts has added depth and flavour to the beer in question. It is then put out into the market place.
[caption id="attachment_833" align="alignleft" width="281" caption="Tasting the Natural Malts. "]
[/caption]
Currently the brewery is producing three different real beers, which are neither filtered nor pasteurised which means they all have a deposit of yeast at the bottom of the bottle. In the old days this was common and Charringtons, Whitbread ( White Lable) Guinness ( bottled ) and Eldridge Pope´s Hardy´s ale all had these characteristics. Customers can choose whether to serve the beer with the deposit or leave this in the bottom by pouring slowly and carefully. Traditionally the yeasts were added to the bottom of the glass and drunk at the end, having an alimentary benefit.
The three beers are Tyris, a wheat beer ( sometimes called a white beer) VIPA, which is an homage to the bottled English beers sent to the troops serving in the Indian mutiny and Riu Rau produced for an exclusivity in Benissa.
All are very English in style with fabulous hoppy and bitter notes, satisfying and a brilliant alternative to the lager style beers available here! My fridge is now well stocked!
Talking of availability the beers can be tried in several bars in central Valencia ( Sorbito Divino behind the central market, Balconcillo, Ginger Loft which are between Ajuntamiento and Reina Squares and Palpitó and Cava Siglos on Caballeros all stock it ) and bought in specialist outlets or direct from the brewery ( www.cervesatyris.com) .
And once you have tried them and liked them ask your local bar to stock it....there is room in the market for a bit more competition!