Tres cordillas, Medellin, Colombia

[neal32]

Hey guys,

I got the chance to do the tour of Tres Cordillas brewery in Medellin last night which was 23,000 pesos ($12) for 5 beers, a tour and a glass which you can keep or return at the end for 3000 pesos.

The beers were as followed -

Rosada - a 3.8% rose coloured beer that tasted like a strawberry and lime Rekordelig Cider. About as good as it sounds.
Blonde - An American style wheat, decent enough but really nothing special.
Meztiza - An APA with smooth bitterness, a good malt backbone and good flavour (Think cascade), lacking aroma though which was a shame. Probably the pick of the bunch, would have been an excellent beer with a healthy dose of dry hopping and maybe using CTZ for the first bittering charge, the bitterness was probably too smooth for my liking.
Mulata - A red beer, unsure of the style but tasted like roasted peanuts, I really don't know how they got that flavour in it, very bad beer.
Negra - A good stout, smooth and alot of chocolate, coffee and roast flavours. A good beer and equal favourite.

The tour was all in Spanish so I missed a lot of it and being 5 beers down didn't really help, interesting things to note is that they use all briess malt and ferment at 20 degrees.

It's good to see craft beer taking off in places that you wouldn't think, definitely a trend rather than a fad I think.

 

[bowie in space]

Nice one Neal.

I got back from Colombia four weeks ago and too found the craft beer industry blooming. I discovered the Bogota Beer Company (BBC) and loved their little chain of boutique pubs throughout the city. Their slogan "bienvenidos al 1%" (welcome to the one percent) struck a chord with me as a craft beer lover. I like that. Clever marketing. They offered a Pale Ale, IPA, Blonde, Porter, Stout, Golden Lager and other seasonal varietals like honey ales, kolsch, Weiss, Belgian Strong Ales, etc.. The beers were named after landmarks throughout the city.

Apart from their beers, I found that even the mainstream beers like Club Colombia had varieties such as dorado (gold), roja (red) and negra (black) were ok. Most of these mainstream beers were lagers, but tasty nonetheless and the locals love it! Some less desirable beers include Aguila and Poker, but still better than any CUB product !!!

I encourage those who have a chance to go and experience Colombia. The country has turned its image around since the bad old days. The locals hate the fact that they have tags like "druglord" and "cocaine" attached to them, when most of them are honest, hardworking and educated people. It's as safe as a third world country can be. I was in heaven when I found myself sipping on an IPA on my first night in the country!