The Best Craft Beers to Try in Barcelona

Edge Brewing was started in 2013 by two American craft beer aficionados who decided to open their own brewery in Barcelona’s hip Poblenou neighbourhood. A year later they were voted top new brewery in the world by RateBeer, and their brew Hoptimista – a play on ‘hops’ and the Spanish for ‘optimistic’ – was voted in the top 50 new beers. An American-style IPA which is hop-forward with a proud bitterness and citrus aromas, Hoptimista is no amateur’s beer.

This Indian pale ale is made by the Barcelona Beer Company which brews all its beers in Barcelona with water from the local Montseny natural park. The Cerdos Voladores or ‘Flying Pigs’ is one of the brewery’s most iconic beers and you’ll soon recognise its eye-catching design in bars across the city. Think big hoppy flavours but a nice freshness and 6º ABV which make it relatively easy drinking.

Mikkeller is a Copenhagen-born microbrewery which operates by collaborating with other breweries to brew their own recipes and now has outposts in cities across the world. The Barcelona Mikkeller is located in the Eixample neighbourhood and serves a number of locally inspired beers such as the Eixample Wit, a witbier with subtle aromas of citrus peel and coriander.

Barna-Brew is a cozy brew-pub located on Sant Antoni’s ever trendy Parlament Street, on the edge of El Raval. Their Moreneta Bruna is a Belgian style beer which won Gold Medal in the 2016 Brussels Beer Challenge in the Dark Abbey/Trappist category. The beer is in fact inspired by a local drink called rom cremat or ‘burnt rum’ which involves macerating rum with lemon peel, coffee, sugar and spices, before then setting it alight.

Launched in 2015, Garage Beer Co have become one of the staples of the Barcelona brewing scene and RIBA is the name of the first beer they brewed – although it was originally a pale ale and changed to a lager some time in 2015. This is a great drink for lager fans who tire of watery mass-produced beers and want something which packs more of a punch in terms of flavours and taste.

This easy drinking blonde ale is named after one of the most popular beaches in Barcelona, the Bogatell beach near Poblenou. Unlike some blonde beers, there has been no fruit or spice infusions with this brew, so the wheat – and the specially imported German yeasts – are where all the flavour comes from. Barcino Brewers was founded in 2011 by three friends who were desperate for some better beer in their adopted city and launched a series of beers inspired by Barcelona’s most iconic neighbourhoods.

Named after the mountain which guards the city of Barcelona, Tibidabo Brewing brew a number of eye-catchingly packaged beers in their brewery on the outskirts of the city. Strongly influenced by the American craft beer scene, Tibidabo Brewing have released three imperial stouts all aged in wooden barrels from American distilleries. The first in the series is the Woodford reserve edition, which offers aromas of cherry, toasted nuts, vanilla and dark chocolate.