8th Chapter - Hidalgo Hidalgo

Friday, 04 December 2015, h 21:00
Dendarikale

Once again, our plan was only to have quiet, normal episode of our project. Once again, Alex swore that he would stop after a couple of drinks to try and defeat his neverending sore throat. 

Once again, our intentions and his promises crashed against the crude alcoholic reality of BBQuest. 

The streets in Casco Viejo can be a real labyrinth when one tries to go home early: they - with the help of a growing number of supporters of our project - won't let go easily of us, once started.

The first stop of this Friday is the restaurant-bar BATZOKI, notable for its strong association with a local political party. Our friends Tiziana and Iván (an homonym of our Ivan, but 100% Basque) join the quest for the first time. The tap beer served here is Mahou Classic; Bea orders a tostada, but is a bit disappointed to be given a mere 0.25 lit. bottle of Voll-Damm instead of the regular 0.33 lit. C'mon people, really?
Fun fact: the whole bar counter is made of a single stone weighing 1227 kg.

At SARKUE our group has already grown, as we are joined by more friends, colleagues and friends of friends (shout out to Hosam for addressing Bea "the Harry Potter of beers"!). It's good for business - the bar looks ok but is empty, probably because bilbaínos have already left town for the long weekend. Ivan makes some introductions, Alex still tries to convince us that he won't sing tonight and both, sticking to their primary purpose, duly empty their glasses of Estrella Damm.

Although it would be nice to find some place indoors to let everyone sit down and enjoy, our current number makes it impossible. Instead, for our next destination we choose the bar LEKERIKA, in calle Somera, and after ordering local Boga beer we stay outside in the street: at least this way it's easier for the various groups to mingle.

Just in front lies the Chinese restaurant JADE, which needs to be included due to the fact that it keeps draft Heineken. Their cerveza is unfortunately not the best we have tried so far; anyway, the owner has a friendly smile and we try not to mind the rest. Bea orders a thick, syrupy "sweet wine" without being able to catch its name.

NEKANE, the next stop, is a place for staunch Basque independentists, as the posters and pictures on the wall clearly show. However, they don't appear too generous with the quantity of beer (Mahou Classic) in each glass. Nonetheless, as the other bars on this side of Somera at this day and time, it is full of customers.

We are happy to find that MADARIAGA has more room inside, and we can sip our Heinekens while conversing indoors. I write conversing to give us a certain dignity; you imagine a less formal and less coherent chit chat, culminating with Ivan passing around Bea's little black notebook and asking for everyone's autographs.

URKIA bar is our last stop in Somera. The real drinkers get cañas of Mahou, Bea a soy decaf macchiato (she's getting ready for the hipster party, clearly). Ivan makes friends with Carmen, a girl full of vitality and charme, also happening to be a pitbull.

Someone's proposal to continue the evening dancing is welcomed warmly by the remaining people. We head to MITOTE, a bar-night club in Belostikale. To our dismay, though, they do not have cañas! We decide to include the place all the same, because the amount of awkward but energetic dancing and raspy choruses happened there is worth of a (dis)honourable mention. The guys order bottled Heinekens; beers are soon accompanied by gin tonics, purple shots and whatnot.
The magic rythm of Latino disco music, Livin' On A Prayer and Hoy No Me Puedo Levantar soon gets everyone hitting the dance floor; the last song mentioned above is worth a Youtube search in case you are not familiar with it: Ivan especially requested it, after being thrilled of discovering this 80's pearl at his language lessons, and from the moment he learnt that all Spanish people know it, he's been using it to scientifically measure the Hispanic quotient of everyone he meets. 
Some pictures follow, for your benefit only.

We would like to conclude this episode with the following wise words dispensed by Iván:

"Hidalgo hidalgo

Hijo de puta

El que deje algo"

7th Chapter - Midweek Somber

Wednesday, 02 December 2015
Askao Kalea

We hadn't planned to go on our quest this night. 
It's movie night: the DOCK bar/cultural centre in Paseo Uribitarte, for its Cine Retro Wednesday, is screening "Honey, I shrunk the kids". Free entrance and free popcorns with one beer!
After the film, we walk together to the Casco Viejo, and decide to have a caña after all. There's some talking to do, some time to spend thinking, the calmness of a midweek evening, and not all bars are closed yet. We enter CAFETERÍA MELCHOR in Calle Askao.

The bar is long and narrow, and the barmaid quite friendly. They offer Estrella Galicia  draft beers, the lager and the 1906 Reserva. On a wall, a blackboard shows two riddles: be the first to solve them and your drink is on the house. Bea has the solution (can you guess it too?), but arrives too late to claim the prize. The barmaid kindly offers to take a photo of us all the same, to award our effort.

This is really a tiny episode, but still worth mentioning: first, the feel of a local bar with its own atmosphere put a smile on our face; secondly, it's our first bar in this part of Casco (I mean during the BBQuest, obviously).
Hasta el próximo fin de semana...

6th Chapter - Fairytale of Bilbao

Saturday, 28 November 2015, h 20:00
Bidebarrieta

We strongly recommend to listen to "Fairytale of New York" by The Pogues while reading this post. The reason for such a soundtrack will be explained later.

Alas, not all nights can be beer nights. Cold weather has finally come, so Friday is spent playing "Articulate!" at Alex's place. Please remember that five out of the six people involved in this fast talking description board game in English are not British: some linguistic misunderstandings of course ensue. Nothing, however, beats Hameed's attempts to:

• describe a rat with the elusive definition of "that land animal";
• define a deer as "a Christmas animal";
• confuse us with the words "that special Asian", until we understood that he meant "special agent" and that the person was James Bond, and not Mao or Confucio.

Anyway, let's stop with the nonsense and move on to Saturday night, for our quest is far from complete!

These times of rains and bar follies have taken their toll on Alex: thanks to his cold, however, tonight he has a deep, husky voice worth of a real Welsh man (by his own admission). 

We start drinking a Mahou Classic at KIOSKO, in Calle Bidebarrieta, with our friends Giedre and Jon. It's a franchise bar, but beer is ok and Bea, the black sheep when it comes to drinking, appreciates the red wine. Our conversation soon turns on the prices of alcohol in foreign countries, and on expensive Finland in particular. When someone wonders how come Finland has such a high suicide rate and at the same time is one of the world's happiest countries, Giedre sensibly remarks "It's because with suicides they get rid of all the sad ones!".
I wrote sensibly, not sensitively.

We move on to KAPIKUA, where Alex is not too happy to drink San Miguel. Ivan and Giedre, on the other hand, show signs of hunger (mouth watering, restlessness, glancing at the bar) and are sent to get pinchos. The choice is hard (can you see the internal struggle captured on Jon's camera?), but they are finally rewarded with very good food.

Next comes the BASTER bar, and an order of Estrella Damm beers. It's a quite hipsterish place, with light bulbs and plants hung from the ceiling and a chalk-on-black-wall decoration on the side. We are organizing a gafapastas party (look it up!), and the irony is not lost on us.
For the record, we say that this is our last beer for tonight.

...So it's completely natural that we find ourselves, a short time later, drinking Heinekens and a sweet Moscatel at 107.SOIZ, in Barrenkale. All that talk about aging and facing the infamous middle life crisis must have shaken our spirits. We do not spend too much time in this bar, since it's pretty cold inside.
Alex says this was his last beer for tonight.

But for some reason or other, the call of the calle is too strong and once again we enter a bar - AKATZ, in the same street - and order our dose of Amstel. While we munch olives and greet the arrival of our friend Hameed, Ivan and Jon's attention is drawn by a set of coloured bottles lined up on the counter. Like nouvelle Alice in Wonderlands, of course, we have to try them! The blue liquid proves to be Curaçao. No strange side effect observed, except for the usual effects of a rhum shot.
Alex says this was his last beer for tonight, but at this point his credibility is quite low and we continue.

Our last stop is the TXOKOMEX Mexican takeaway, a nice option for tacos, burritos and spicy food. Heinekens are ordered and drunk quickly to cool down the guys' mouths, inflamed by a particularly nasty mustard.   
Inebriated by chili, beer and possibly cough syrup, Alex starts singing "Fairytale of New York" in the street, making the best (and using up the last) of his new manly hoarse voice. Are you still playing the song in the background? Good. When our Failed Comedian's singing begins to crack and fade away in high-pitched sounds, we decide to call it a night and slowly crawl back to our homes.

Cheers, readers!

5th Chapter - Do you wanna beer my friend?

Friday, 20 November 2015, h 20:45
Belostikale

It has been a fun Friday. It has been a long Friday, starting with a drink among friends and ending at sometime A.M. under heavy rain... but let us proceed in an orderly fashion. 

*****

First things first: WE GOT AWESOME T-SHIRTS!!! An original design by Alex, featuring Drunk Obama approving the long list of streets in Casco Viejo. There's a long way to go, still... But with these cool clothing, bartenders actually started to take note of us. Read: free beers are a dream getting closer and closer every week. 

We meet outside of ARRIOLA, in Belostikale, and drink Amstel lagers with our friends Jon, Giedre, Patxi and Ester. It's a crew of staunch supporters of our project, and we owe them for the best photos (especially you, Jon, great pics!), laughs and some rounds as well. Thanks guys!
Before the weather betrays us, we can take some chairs out and enjoy our drinks in the open air, like real callejeros. Owner was actually friendly, never mind Bea's unimpressed expression in the pic below.

Next caña is a Mahou Classic ordered next door at ISIPIL. The bar looks like every other bar at a first glance, but then we are surprised to discover a first floor with frescoes of cats adorning the walls, instead of the usual tavern decorations. Why limit yourself to Athletic Bilbao scarves and beer coasters when you can decorate with kittens?

We need to munch something and find shelter from the rain, so we move on to OKAPI. This cafe (notable also for a kids corner and a book-crossing spot) offers several veg-friendly dishes, so we order a plate of falafel and a round of queso frito. While Alex and Ivan, faithful to the caña cause, drink a draft Estrella Damm, Bea and Patxi are happy to find craft bottled beers more to their taste. Patxi's "Patxi" IPA qualifies as the most fitting order of the night. Look at that happy face!

In the meantime, more friends and friends of friends join us: the local Oier, Hameed from Libya, Svea and Judith from Germany, Helen and Mathew from UK, Stéphane and Stéphane from France. It's getting quite crowded and our glasses are empty. Time for the next bar, and we choose TXOMIN BARULLO TABERNA in Barrenkale for another Estrella Damm. See their cool Groucho Marx tribute on the wall?

Chatting with so many people makes one thirsty. We walk to another street and enter BAR SANTA MARÍA, where we order Heinekens and sweet moscatel wine. You can see Giedre on the far right of the photo, holding her share of liquid social skills.

Just in front we find the TABERNA TXIRIBOGA, where Hameed buys a round of San Miguel. 

At ANDER ETXEA, in Barrenkale, the guys drink Amstel lager; Giedre encourages the others to try a Martini, since this bar is famous for them. We can happily confirm that they are lip-smackingly good - although mixing several types of drinks might not be the best idea, you know, healthwise. Whoops.

Our last beer stop is the PIN UP BAR for an Estrella Damm. At this point, only a few of us are left: in addition to Ivan, Bea and Alex, followed by Judith, Svea and Hameed. We are tipsy, there is music, and well, inhibitions lower... The worst happens.
We start dancing. 

Eight - yes, eight - bars have been conquered tonight, and in some cases more than one drink was ordered, bringing the grand total of alcohol units per person to... well... a "we are too old for this s***" figure.
And yet we are not done. Being three guys and three girls, the KAFE ANTZOKIA disco sounds like the perfect way to end such an evening. Technically no beer was drunk there, but some moments are worth remembering. Yes, we will regret this next time one of us applies for a job, but how not to mention...
....Alex opening his umbrella to better dance Rihanna's hit song?
...Bea improvising a limbo using the new t-shirt as a rope?
...Ivan with his weak attempts to fight away unwanted attentions?

Enjoy. And until next chapter, obviously: cheers!

4th Chapter - Sirens and Phonetics

Tuesday, 17 November 2015, h 21:30
Calle de la Pelota

This short episode features a special guest star from Italy: Serena, who happens to be Bea's aunt, visiting Bilbao for a few days of chitchat, shopping and art museums. So classy! 
Being a midweek bar incursion, we only go to one bar: LAMIAK, very spacious, nicely arranged with block coloured walls and solid wooden interiors, and at this moment quiet. We order a caña of San Miguel and Serena tastes a crema de orujo, a Northern Spanish creamy liquor. 
We unfortunately forgot to take pics of the place, so we make up by putting images of: 
a) the Lamia, plur. Lamiak, a siren in Basque mythology after which the bar is named;

b) "Whale oil beef hooked", a tongue twister worth trying with your Norn Iron friends if you have any. We do.

Say it very fast and see what happens.

You know, being the learned scholars that we are, we choose to converse over phonetics differences and British accents...
...Before the barmaid starts cleaning up and rolling down the shutters.
So, cheers!

3rd Chapter - Of Spoons and Forks

A brief note.
This post should have been published yesterday, but its light tones did not seem to go too well with the mood of the day. We spent last Friday night with two friends from France, and our sympathy goes to them and their compatriots.
-------

Friday, 13 November 2015, h 21:30
Calle de la Torre; Barrenkale

Although it technically was not part of tonight, KUKUSOAK taberna deserves to be mentioned here. We went there last week and Alex put his karaoke skills to the test with a rendition of "Video Killed the Radio Star". We might have been, well, quite tipsy by then, so there is no trace of the beer that was drunk there. But it still counts.

Our Friday night out begins at BIZITZA where Alex is waiting for us with some friends. While Ivan and Alex have a couple of Heineken, we reflect that our evenings out resemble more and more a UN session, or one of those jokes that start with: "A French, an American, an Englishman, a Croatian, a Spanish, a German, a Lithuanian, a Welshman and two Basques [etc.] walk into a bar...". And we are quite proud to spread the BBQuest word internationally! 
EDIT: The picture wouldn't be complete without mentioning one of the local drunkards, sitting at the table next to us, who for his part is mumbling some sort of Spanish-Basque-Wino dialect; it is hard to fully capture the essence of his broken speech, which - Alex informs us - is usually accompanied by a distinct swaying walk.

A disneyan representation of the local drunkard.

Just a couple of steps away lies our second destination, ORMAETXE, where we have a Mahou Classic. This bar is known for its juego de la rana (Frog Game, or Toad in the Hole), which consists in throwing brass disks into the mouth of a metal frog - see here for some history. 

Unfortunately it has started to rain - not just the light sirimiri of Bilbao, but a regular full shower. We seek shelter in the nearby ZAZPI BIDE, notable for a nice selection of bottle beers and a varied offer of food. A mention of honor goes to Bea's Napar Porter, rich and toasted; the guys go for a caña of Heineken, but Alex is surprised to be served an Amstel instead. Well, the place is very crowded, and he decides to forgive without forgetting.

So what about the spoons and forks? 

It was an inside joke and the evening leitmotiv: it started with a friend misunderstanding the acronym BBQ for a fork-and-knives meat barbecue, and his bitter disappointment at finding out the plain alcoholic truth of our quest; it continued with the same friend misspelling "fork" with "dork", followed by requests of "bring your own dork out tonight"; it reached its culmination with Alex being presented with a set of IKEA spoons, leading to endless "spooning" puns throughout the evening.

Our last beer is again a Mahou Classic from ZULO TABERNA. Since lots of people crowd the bars of the area trying to find a dry spot, we barely manage to have a look inside. The evening will continue some more, but with no more cerveza and the mood slighlty dampened by the first news regarding the attacks in Paris.

Till the next chapter, cheers.