During a festival called San Froilán when the good inhabitants of Lugo in Spain go potty for octopus in their thousands over two weeks of October, I was pleased to see a stall belonging to Aloumiña brewery which showcased the three beers in their range, and tried their bitter-style tosta directly from the cask out of a plastic cup. Relieved to get some top-fermented goodness down me, I scraped together whatever euros I had on me and put a bottle away for a rainy day, of which there's no shortage here.
Wondering if I might ever again encounter a beer in Lugo that deviated from the ordinary selection on draught, in a dark corner of a bar one cold and stormy night (we'll say for dramatic effect) I saw one lone customer with a bottle of an Aloumiña beer in his possession, the only indication of this beer's availability behind the bar. I made a curious enquiry and out came a bottle of their blonde beer Loura from the shelf of a hidden fridge, an exbeerience repeatable in many other bars in town. Having opened up a whole new world of possibilities to me I felt like I now belonged to some elite club, one of the select few equipped with the knowledge to access a diverse range of hard-to-get, small-batch craft brews. The secret code phrase was now mine: "What else have you got?"
What I'd saved for a rainy day and was still yet to sample was the darkest in their range, Moura. In a tremendous twist of fate it wasn't raining today, but I wasn't going to let that stop me.
The label boasts the use of quality ingredients even down to the local water (what better use for it?) and adding to the beer's local character all the blurb is in the Galician language. Proudly proclaiming itself a "top-fermented, ale-style" unfiltered, unpasteurised and bottle-conditioned "living" beer, this couldn't be more different from the dead, mass-produced beer more commonly enjoyed here.
As if that wasn't enough, Moura pours the deepest, darkest chestnut brown a beer could be, with a coffee-coloured head that dissipates slowly to leave the odd small patch of lacing.
The aroma is of a smoky, woody quality with distinct hints of roasted chestnuts (another thing Galicians are particularly fond of in the winter months) and fainter hints of licorice. After a glug your mouth is awash with a medium-bodied mouthful of roasted and caramel malts that develop into a delightful dry, toasted, nutty finish.
It becomes clear that what we have here is a 21st century all-Galician porter, a well-established beer style that Aloumiña have picked up and made their own with bags of character that call to mind a Galician winter's day. This is a bittersweet, nutty, Mourish delight.
Appearance 4/5
Aroma 4/5
Flavour 4.5/5
Mouthfeel 4/5
Link to my ramblings on their blonde beer Loura.
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