Seems to me that beer, not wine, is the drink of choice in Spain. This country produces and consumes a lot of beer but the craft beer revolution does not seem to have made its way here. We decided to go on a craft beer search and check the situation for ourselves. This is the result.

La Tape, calle San Bernardo, 88, 28015

After scouring the internets for the best craft beer bar I came up with La Tape who was touted as the best craft beer bar in Madrid. This had me intrigued, so we came to see for ourselves. What we found was indeed a craft beer place that had 8 mildly craft beers on tap (beers seemed to be made by bigger, established breweries).

La Tape had two different sizes of pours: a pint or half a pint which I appreciated. Out of 8 beers on the board only two looked mildly interesting, so we picked those. I got half a pint of rye stout called Rye King that is produced by Amager. With the strength of 7.7% half a pint cost me €4.50. Matas ordered a pint of white IPA called The Great Hoo-Dini which is produced by Uiltje. With the strength of 5% the pint cost €7.

Both of these beers were interesting in their own right but I cannot say this place delivered on the promise of craft beer paradise. The staff seemed genuinely proud to have their 8 craft taps but that did not impress us much.

Let us talk about the food some because boy oh boy was it interesting. Matas picked a brioche sandwich of deboned oxtail with foie gras emulsion and caramelised onions (€6.80) and the jury is still out on this one. The bun was delicious if a tad sweet but it was not a brioche at all. It had a very soft scone consistency but was on the dryer side. The filling was tasty but it was also quite dry. Even though it ended up being tasty, I really cannot call this a great success.

Oh jeez, we now turn to this roasted eggplant/tuna tataki/seaweed salad thing (€11.50) and I do not even know where to begin. This was so bad that it was laughable which we did a lot during the eating of the aforementioned piece of ingenuity. Let us start with the grilled eggplant which is the basis for this dish. It was so mushy and tasteless that at first I did not even realise there was supposed to be grilled eggplant in this dish. The tuna was tasteless as well having not seen a lick of seasoning to save its life. We come to the funniest bit of all, the seaweed salad bit. These guys have gone all out on their seaweed. There was not one type of seaweed in the salad. Not two. Not even three. They did not even stop at four. Five different seaweeds is where they drew the line. FIVE. DIFFERENT. SEAWEEDS. Like, what?!

The deep fried seaweed sheet on the top added a nice crunchy texture but it had such a particular seaweed snack taste that it did not seem right to belong to this dish. Another big part of the seaweed journey was the thin seaweed squares that had such a strong taste it overwhelmed everything else on the plate. At first I thought this is it for the seaweed kingdom but I managed to unearth another green leafy seaweed. Then another brownish leafy seaweed. And then another one that, I think, they just added it for the lulz?

When the guy came to clear our plates and ask us how the dish was, I told him very tentatively that it was interesting and then jokingly said “five different seaweeds!”. I think he honestly beamed and proudly nodded his head and said “five”. I almost died at that point. We had a good laugh outside.

Needless to say, this place does not get Ieva’s seal of approval. I have no intention of ever going back to La Tape neither for their grand selection of 8 craft beers nor for their very imaginative yet not entirely successful food.

Mikkeller Bar, calle de la Luna, 22, 28004

We are very familiar with Mikkeller from its worldwide domination of the craft beer scene. You can find it most everywhere you go. Even Singapore had a Mikkeller. It was three times more expensive than the one that we found on our way home from La Tape.

I am no longer hesitant to say that Singapore has an extensive and thriving craft beer scene, and that we were spoilt for choice there. Yes, our craft beer was mightily expensive (upwards of €20 for less than a pint) but we had a choice of multiple places that had 20, 30 or even 40 craft beers on tap. Mikkeller Bar Madrid had a decent 20, so it was already an improvement over “the best craft beer bar in Madrid” with 8 taps.

The beer was not cheap by the local standards but I am more than happy to pay for some actually decent beer once in a while. Mikkeller Bar offers 200 ml and 400 ml pours and for the first round Matas had a small hazy session IPA (€3) and I tried a small bubble gum IPA (€3.60). Both beers were light and refreshing and while neither blew our minds, I was happy to just sip on something that felt like it came out in a small batch (sounds pretentious, I know, and I am sorry but not really sorry).

The second round was very decent as well. Matas had a small triple blueberry sour (€8.40) and I took a small black IPA (€6). Again, both beers met our expectation and then some. On top of that, there were many more beers that sounded interesting to make us want to come back.

The bar was not too busy when we came around 20:30 on a Saturday night but it did fill up pretty quickly afterwards. Although at no point it felt over-crowded and we could enjoy our drinks in relative peace. This truly surprises me but I guess I am just not used to craft beer not being a thing. Maybe this means we can enjoy a quiet craft beer moment more often.

I do not want to say that Mikkeller is boring but Mikkeller IS boring (in general terms if I may). You walk into any of the Mikkeller bars around the globe, you know where you are and you know what you can expect. So, if you feel like a proper craft beer, you will not get disappointed by Mikkeller anywhere. Welcome to the craft beer world of Madrid, Denmark.