This is the Craft Tabeerna which was well reviewed online and it appeared to be stocking some interesting craft beers. It looked promising from the outside, I like things that look on-trend and have the words “craft beer” visible.
It wasn’t the busiest, but there was a friendly welcome and it was clean and comfortable, although maybe slightly warmer than I would have ideally liked. Still, it was a pleasant place to sit and recover from Bilbao’s decision to be quite so enthusiastic about heat.
There were ten keg lines available and there was an interesting choice of beers to pick from. I decided I’d have two small beers, which was the sort of sensible and controlled plan that lasted for several minutes.
The first beer was the Peloton from Meta Edabeak, a small local brewery. The taste was lemony and it was slightly tart, but I thought that the flavours could have been a little more intense.
My second beer was the Malandarian from Malandar Brewing who are based in Cádi and this was punchy, hazy and full bodied for its 8% ABV.
I then realised that I had missed a collab with Funky Fluid, so I had to order the Suburbia which was a rather lovely hazy number that was refreshing, hay and decent.
The beer fridge was full of decadent delights and I was very pleased to see beers from Azvex, Funky Fluid and Nepo. But, I have had plenty of those beers in their native countries, namely the UK and Poland, so I wanted to try a beer from Malandar as they had several smoothie sours.
This is one of those beers where the can needs to be rolled and inverted, so here it is being prepared on the bar for me. I appreciate some people dislike smoothie sours, but those people are entitled to be wrong quietly elsewhere.
And this was worth the wait, it was creamy and thick, slightly sweet, had a flavour of blueberries and biscuits, with the whole arrangement being really rather decadent.
The food menu.
And some food items on the bar.
This bar did surprise and delight me, the range of beers was excellent and the can fridge was particularly well curated. The service was friendly, the surroundings were comfortable and the prices weren’t unreasonable for the beers, many of which had been imported. Definitely recommended and I’d pop in here again if I return to Bilbao.