Cruzcampo craft beers.
Water, malted cereal, hops and yeast. There's no more. Okay, yes. Just as important are the invisible ingredients: huge doses of creativity and passion for beer. We are talking about products that reach the heart: Malagueta (Andalusian pale ale with a citrus and herbaceous touch), IPA (a high-bitter, unfiltered Belgian-style beer), Session IPA (with less alcohol and bitterness than an IPA), Wheat ( a hoppy German wheat beer), Strong Ale (a toast with notes of caramel, but which maintains its strength given its high alcohol content)... These are some of the most desired at La Fábrica de Cruzcampo, a microbrewery and establishment where gastronomy and good beer come together.
And it is that the master brewers of this space located in La Fábrica – Jorge Varela and Juan Jimenez –, surrounded as they are by so much positive and creative energy, in the most alternative Malaga neighborhood of the city, SoHo , have made it possible for the Cruzcampo microbrewery to become a a true oasis for lovers of craft beer, foodie snacks and the authentic.
A vibrant space where life happens every day. Here you can enjoy your artisan varieties in constant evolution, well drawn and very fresh while watching a concert. or while snack on some tex mex nachos and chili con carne , a crispy kentucky chicken or one of his salads . Heaven on earth? Yes, exactly.
But let's get to the point –never better said–. Who has never dreamed of making their own beer? What is the secret so that these four ingredients are capable of becoming an experience for the senses?
Cruzcampo Andalusian IPA emerged in the Cruzcampo microbrewery in Malaga. Today it is manufactured in Seville so it is available throughout Spain.
KEYS TO PRODUCE A CRAFT BEER
Jorge Varela says that “the nice thing about making craft beer is that it can be made 100% personalized, adding or enhancing what we like the most: fruit, bitterness, more or less alcohol…”.
It is about turning your hobby into a craft and today these master brewers are national benchmarks. “Just as an artist needs freedom to carry out his works, the Cruzcampo Factory in Malaga is the dream of any master brewer: to be able to work daily and before the eyes of the people on new Cruzcampo craft beers. It is life live and without cuts”, jokes Varela.
A personal contact that Juan Jiménez, another of the two brewmasters, also highly values, since it allows them to have direct feedback from consumers about their creations, as well as **capture in situ the trends, tastes and preferences of the people, **in a neighborhood, SoHo, that is pure creativity.
Jorge Varela, brewmaster at the Cruzcampo microbrewery.
A TYPE OF WATER FOR EVERY BEER
to get started the water used is essential, which marks certain nuances and represents between 84% and 94% of the beer, depending on the recipe you are going to make. In the past, the different compositions of water, in the different cities, made some beers differ from others. "That's why many said they knew each other by their origin: Pilsen beers, Munich beers…", Varela reminds us. Today, these compositions can be corrected using natural water from anywhere in the world thanks to technology.
**MALTED CEREAL, RESPONSIBLE FOR TASTE, COLOR AND PROTEINS **
Cereal is the second essential ingredient. But wasn't beer made with malt? As they say, “Malta is just a country”, notes one of the brewmasters. What happens is that we subject the cereal to a malting process , obtaining malt of said cereal , being the most common barley malt . The malted , in a simple way, consists of tricking the grain: when it thinks it is going to germinate, giving it conditions of temperature and humidity similar to when it germinates underground, the process is interrupted immediately starting the drying . Hops and other ingredients (fruit, spices, etc...) also give flavor, color and protein to the beer, among many other things.
**YEAST, THAT MICROSCOPIC LIVING ORGANISM...**
Let's not forget the yeast, because this microscopic being is responsible for eating the sugar that the cereal provides, generating alcohol, carbon dioxide and aromas. And what else? Well, from here on you can add all those ingredients that will give personality to your beer, from seasonal mangoes from the Axarquia region of Malaga, as Cruzcampo did for its variety Cruzcampo Session IPA with Mangoes from Malaga, to tomatoes for the surprising Cruzcampo Gazpacho Beer. Would you dare to try beers as amazing as these? Note: The Cruzcampo Factory, a microbrewery in which to enjoy a wide gastronomic offer in SoHo Malaga.
The malted grain is responsible for the flavor, color, and protein in the beer.
STEPS IN THE ELABORATION
It's time to roll up. Let's go by steps. For brewing a beer, First you have to get the must. To do this, "we mix the malted cereal together with the water in a pot to extract all the sugars and proteins from the grain and achieve, thanks to the temperature, that these sugars are suitable for the yeasts that we will incorporate later," explains brewmaster Varela. . Heard kitchen.
“From the maceration we obtain something very similar to a cornstarch porridge”, jokes Jorge. We filter and keep only the liquid, the must, which we boil between 60 and 120 minutes to eliminate impurities. Hops are added during the boil – at the beginning for bitterness, in the middle for flavor and at the end for aroma. **The cooking time will be key to achieving these three nuances. **
Once the wort cools, yeast is added. During fermentation, the microorganism will transform all the sugars in the must into alcohol, carbon dioxide and aromas.
The latest trends in the search for more intense aromas put into practice what is known as dry hopping, which consists of adding hops at the end of fermentation and/or maturation.
"To achieve the fruity and herbaceous aromas, along with subtle citrus notes, that characterize the Cruzcampo Andalusian IPA, we have used this technique," explains the brewmaster about this India Pale Ale with citrus aromas that emerged in the La Fábrica de Cruzcampo microbrewery. in Malaga and that today is manufactured in the Seville Factory and is distributed throughout Spain.
Cruzcampo recommends responsible consumption
A hamburger tastes much better with a Cruzcampo Andalusian IPA.
Address: Trinidad Grund 29, Malaga See map
Schedule: La Fábrica: Sun-Wed 12:30pm - 1:00am, Thu 12:30pm - 2:00am, Fri-Sat 12:30pm - 2:00am / Restaurant: Sun-Thu 1:00pm-11:30pm, Fri-Sat 1:00 p.m. - 12:00 a.m.