Today we are spending our day in Barcelona visiting craft breweries in the St. Antoni and Raval areas. We’ve been around this area before, but we’ve not actually visited any of the breweries – to be honest – it never even crossed our minds. But as Ed loves his beer (and I won’t say no to a good porter or stout either), we figure a beer tour would be a good itinerary for 2nd day here. It is another lovely morning, and we head out around 9. This time we know the drill – forget the shuttle, head for the blue bus. It’s 1 Euro cheaper and it leaves right away! So we’re off in a jiffy, with the down side being we have to hit all the piers and there is a huge MSC in port, but when we get to the MSC pier, our bus driver takes us off his bus and puts us on the first bus to leave (thank you!). So, no harm done there.
We are in the city and walking up Avenue del Parallel in no time. We are way too early to start in at the breweries – for beer or for lunch – so we do what we always do: stop at a street cafe for a cappuccino. Cafe Port Bello turns out to be a great little respite for us on our walk. We get to waste time drinking excellent cappuccino and watching the world go by, oh, and using the restroom. We finally get back on our way, looking for the main market. This is the local’s market and not the crazy, crowded ever touristy Boqueria. As it turns out, the actual historical market is undergoing reconstruction – and the regular market is held in this big, temporary, almost container type, structure located in the middle of the road. We were here last trip, and I guess I just didn’t realize the major market hall was still under construction. Ah well – it’s still a good diversion, walking through the food stalls, then entering into the clothing hall. They have everything here. And totally cheap! If I was in a shopping mood, this would be dangerous. Fortunately for me, and Ed, I’m not in the mood and we move on.
Even with our diversions, we arrive at Moritz Brewery really early – as in before 11am early. Too early for lunch and for beer. We wander around through the gift shop (these guys know how to make money!), and actually find a great shirt for Ed. They have the neatest cooler: looks like old Fiat 500 that has had its engine compartment replaced with a beer cooler.
Creative! When we ask for directions to the restroom, we end up taking a little tour through the brewery. The toilets are downstairs, and in order to get there, you pass the working brewery tanks, the tasting room (where they are having a special event of some sort) and this cool cellar like area that has a clear plexiglass floor where you can see the excavation underneath. Pretty impressive.
Upstairs the restaurant and garden area rival Sierra Nevada. It’s the Disneyland of breweries! Not unexpected, that’s what all the reviews have said, but as this is the oldest brewery in town (circa 1856) we had to see it.
Even the exterior is gorgeous, with some interesting column facades and golden pigs’ hooves hung in the window wells.
Since we’re still really early, we decide to walk around before coming back for lunch. They have an extensive food menu, and we do want to try their beers. So we venture off and around the corner to find Barcelona Beer Company – another on my list of breweries. They of course aren’t even open yet, but we take a look at their menu too, just in case.
Next up on our list of breweries is Garage Beer – even though they aren’t open until 5pm, we’re in the neighborhood, so we walk up to the address and find nothing but….yes….a garage door. Not even a sign. I know it is still open because they have a live Facebook page – but hey – it’s a garage, so what do you expect when they are closed? As we are wandering we do find another cool place called the Grizzly – they are closed too, but at least they have cool artwork in their doorway.
We finally head back to Moritz, where it is still too early for lunch. They don’t switch menus for another 15 minutes. But we can still have a beer. So beer it is – I try their Negra, which is a really good porter, and Ed has their name brand lager, which he enjoys as well.
We sort of look at the menu – which is huge – and by the time the waitress comes back to ask for lunch orders, we’ve decided we’ll go to Barcelona Beer Company. That way we’ll get to try their beers as well.
We had the place virtually to ourselves, and an adorable waitress who took great care of us. We did the tourist thing and ordered a flight of beers – 2 browns and 2 lagers. Ed liked them all, I was so so on them. But the lunch was another story. Ed ordered Albondigas bocata (meatball sandwich) and I wrestled between a pulled chicken sandwich and the goat cheese salad – only because the salad came with levadura de cerveza which was unhelpfully translated as “yeast salad.” What? The waitress helped out and explained it was yeast crumbles on top and said it was her favorite, so I decided to continue the goat cheese diet trend I’ve started on this journey and order it. Turns out it was an overall good decision.
The food was excellent, and Ed enjoyed the beer so much, he had another Piquenbauer. Works all the way around!
Deciding to walk off all the food and beer in our bellies, we headed off through Raval (the University district really), and down to Las Ramblas. It was a typical crazy, busy, humanity filled day on La Rambla and we quickly headed toward the water, trying to avoid what crowds we could. We wanted to stop for an afternoon drink, but didn’t see anything that bowled us over on La Rambla, so we headed to Placa Reial – where we always seem to end up! This time we hung out at Cafe colon for a lovely glass of wine and beer.
Then it was back to the ship, by way of the Columbus monument. We learned something new the other day – you can actually go up to the top of the monument for a view of the city. We had no idea! As many times as we’ve walked around that darn monument, we’d never seen an entrance, much less people up top – so we just had to explore. And son of a gun, there is a whole basement to the monument, complete with tourist information, a wine shop and bar and, yes, an elevator that will take you to the top – for the price of 7 Euros each (I think 7 – could have been more). What an interesting little surprise.
So, with our curiosity sated, we cross the street to the port side, grab our blue bus and head back to the ship for our sail away from BCN. Of course, we’re not too sad, because we know we’ll be back next year – at least twice, if not more!
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