"The hop plant: in Latin humulus lupulus. Lovely, aromatic hops are what this aromatic ale is all about.Just two years ago, Pablo Vijande and friends founded Spain's first commercial craft brewery in the small town of Seva, north of Barcelona at the foot of the Montseny mountains. For years Pablo has been the odd man out in wine-drinking Spain, where no hops or barley for malting are grown. He sold home-brewing materials, ran an instructional brewer's festival, and even worked as a volunteer in an English ale brewery for a spell -- all the time saving up money to start up CCM.
So far, the brewery has focused primarily on three year-round beers, and these three are the first to arrive in the U.S. They are all in English styles, naturally, all made with great care and the best ingredients, and all brewed to the sound of Flamenco music reverberating through the small, spartan brewhouse in Seva. The hops they throw into the kettle at CCM are mostly Nugget, not the noblest of varieties, but the one most widely used by the larger more established Spanish breweries. Pablo feels that they give the beer a particularly Spanish character. The yeast is a complex English strain, which, like so many British tourists, is really flourishing in the hospitable climate around Barcelona.The province of Catalonia is the epicenter of true beer appreciation in Spain, and that's where all of Pablo's beers have been sold -- until now, of course. For the U.S., the CCM beers have been outfitted with new labels based on the painting of Joan Miró, whose rich, quirky, mysterious work is emblematic of Barcelona and Catalonia. (We at Shelton Brothers just love the simple things in life: art and beer.)" -- Importer
Montseny Lupulus Iberian Ale....$4.49 / 330ml
Beer style: IBER ALE – top-fermented lager style of our country. With this top-fermented beer we rediscover the traditional beers of our Iberian ancestors (Archaeological sites: The village of Geno (Lleida) dates to 1,000 BC Bronze Age; Can Sadurni Begues (Barcelona) dates to 3000 BC Neolithic Age). The recipe includes malts and hops used in current high-consumption domestic beers of the Pilsen style (bottom-fermented) or Lager family. Tasting notes: All the intensity of hops in combination with Pilsen malt, to quench the thirst.
Ingredients:
Malt: Pilsen, wheat and caramel
Hops: Cascade, Fuggles, Nugget, Target and Styrian Golding. Yeast.
Monteseny Negra Stout...$4.49 /330ml
Beer style: STOUT ALE – Top-fermented dark Irish stout with 4 cereal grains (barley, wheat, oats and rye). It is a style known worldwide for the Guinness brand, but in its more natural state (without filtering or pasteurising) it is known as Real Ale.
Tasting notes: Combines the complexity of toasted flavours with the mellowness of the cereals to give rise to a nutritious and regenerative beer.
Ingredients:
Malts: Pale Ale, crystal, chocolate, coffee, caramel and black malt; Cereals: toasted barley, flakes of barley, wheat, oats and rye.
Hops: Hallertau Hersbruck, Northern Brewer and Styrian Golding. Yeast.
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