What is a brewpub?
One of the main assets of Cierzo Brewing Co. is our brewpub in the center of Zaragoza. A business model that is still very little known in Spain, but that has been dazzling brewers half the world for decades, or even centuries, as we will see in this article.
We will begin by describing a brewpub, for those who have not yet had the luck to visit one. It is a catering business, generally a restaurant, which, in addition to other products, serves beer made by themselves, within the same facilities.
Ideally in a brewpub is that the manufacturing process is in view of customers, separated by a glass or similar for security reasons. In this way, the consumer can observe where and how the beer he is drinking is made. But even more important than this visual appeal is the fact of having beers with the maximum possible freshness, which do not suffer the damages associated with transport and storage: inadequate temperatures and humidity conditions, sudden movements, loss of aromas and flavors, etc. None of this occurs in a brewpub, since beer is consumed directly from the ripener itself, where it rests after its manufacture at a controlled temperature.
Image from www.brewersassociation.org
Someone might think that brewpubs are a modern invention, but in reality they are as old as beer or breweries, at least in the way we know them today. While modern beer was born in monasteries, at the dawn of the last millennium, knowledge was soon transmitted to the people, and it is logical to think that it was the taverns themselves who began to create their recipes in their businesses. The oldest brewpub in the United Kingdom, called Blue Anchor, dates from 1400 and was in the Cornish region. For its part, Germany and other Central European countries are plagued with brauhauses still in operation, but centuries old.
An invention not so modern, but that had its resurgence in the last decade of the 70s, along with the craft beer. First in the United Kingdom, in the heat of the defense of the Real Ale, and later in North America, where the boom of the craft beer took place. Interestingly, the first brewpub (post-ban) on the other side of the pond did not open in the United States, but in Canada. It was the Troller Pub, in the province of British Columbia. In 1982, the Grant’s Brewery Pub was inaugurated in Yakima, Washington.
The beginnings were slow and expensive, but time proved right to the advocates of good beer. At the end of 2017, the United States had 2,252 brewpubs and the number continues to increase.
Naturbier, the first brewpub in Spain, opened in Madrid in 1989.
As with craft beer, the brewpub concept in Spain is still in its infancy, but growing in good health. We already have about 30 establishments of this type, located mainly in Catalonia and Madrid. Finally, Aragon joins this list with the help of Cierzo Brewing Co. A space of 600 m² in the center of Zaragoza, a few meters from the Plaza de España, where in addition to taste quality craft beer and made there, the clients have a wide gastronomic offer, both for snacks and daily meals, as well as for their most exclusive dinners.
Citra