2nd Chapter - Thank Goodness It's Friday

Calle Somera, h 20:00

The quest has begun. The blog is online. We have been waiting all week to continue with our mission, confident in our drinking skills, and finally we are ready for the second episode of the Quest.
Tonight we start with TIRAUKI, a favourite of ours with its tasty bites and nice atmosphere (yep, veggie options here as well!). Alex and Ivan order a caña of Heineken. 

At ZAMAKONA ETXEA 2, our second destination, the guys go for another Heineken. This small bar looks frozen in time: the Seventies or Eighties, at a guess. The wooden panels on the side of the counter are covered in hundreds of stickers - there's some nice research opportunities for the amateur social anthropologist here. Latino music, a tv on the sports channel and a friendly middle-aged owner complete the picture, setting the empty bar apart from the rest of the punk, noisy calle.

Some friends join us just before we move to BASOA. Third Heineken of the night, but this time it proves to be a disappointment: waterish! Alex is upset. The pub has nice beer-themed tiles, though.  

Number four tonight is JONEN ETXEA. The place is very crowded, so we grab our cañas of Estrella Damm and drink them outside. One of the topics of our chat is, naturally, how cheap gooddrinks can be in this town; and yet, we Quest people still hope for a day in which our efforts are recognized by the local bars and cañas are given us for free. Dream big!

Since the munchies are kicking in, we walk to MUGA TABERNA, in Calle María Muñoz. Rock music, great food, a very lively vibe (plus the brusque Basque of the patrons) make this a popular pub among bilbaínos. The cañas are Amstel lagers. It's hard to hear each other over the loud music, but the delicious pinchos keep everyone occupied anyway.

Afterwards, it's Calle Somera again with the pub K2 and another round of Amstel. If you ever feel like drinking something other than a beer here, you might want to ask for a special liquor to the bearded bartender... We can't remember the name, but he probably will know. Be warned, though: it's stuff strong enough to keep explorers alive on top of the real K2 mountain.

It's past midnight and our friends begin to take leave. At this point, 33% of the remaining three-people group declares themselves "sleepy" (we chose to omit names in order to preserve the person's manliness. Ok, Ivan?). Although Somera is far from finished, we call it a night.
Cheers!

1st Chapter - Veg Pincho Day

Calle Somera, h 14:00

Let the Bilbo Beer Quest begin!

It’s a warm Sunday afternoon. We have a lucky start today, since it happens to be the International Day of Veganism and, for the occasion, Calle Somera is having a Vegan Pintxos Contest promoted by the local organization Piztiak Konpartsa Animalista. Bea is a vegan, Alex a vegetarian and Ivan a food enthusiast, so we are quite happy of the event.

We therefore enter our first place: BIKANDI. It’s a traditional restaurant of Basque cuisine and, in spite of the hams hanging from the ceiling, they have joined the vegan contest with a plate of fried vegetables. The guys have a cold Heineken, scientifically described as “easy” and “not disgusting, a three-out-of-five stars”. Hey, future food critics here!

We warmed up… or refreshed ourselves… Ah well, anyway it’s time to press on, so we head towards JAUNAK. The green pintxo here is a yummy mix of stir-fried vegetables on the classic baguete bread. The beer, a draft Amstel lager.

After some twenty minutes, we decide to move to our third destination: GURE ETXEA. We order a classic Mahou and snack on a marmalade, onion and tofu pintxo. We also meet Helen, a fellow expat from England, who is brave enough to join us for the rest of the day. Beer brings people together once more. Well done, beer.

Our fourth bar is a small, smoky, crowded and absolutely unmissable place called MOTRIKES. If you fancy the idea of snacking on great grilled mushrooms soaked in spicy oil – and we do –, well, you’ve come to the right place. The caña here is again a Mahou, which pairs nicely with the champignons.                                                                     

At this point, unfortunately, the veg food is over… but our thirst has not yet been quenched. Therefore, we leave Calle Somera for Plaza Unamuno, where our last place for today awaits: THE BEETLE BAR. Good for smoothies, coffees and cakes, this café lacks not a cup of Estrella Galicia for us – fancy and drinkable.

And for today we are done… Our first quest episode has been more like a preliminary reconnaissance. Alex has proposed to print stamp cards and get stamps or signatures by pub owners that we visit. We are definitely getting closer to a professional touch.

Updates next week or so with our second episode! Cheers!

Introduction

Bilbao, or Bilbo in the local idiom Euskara, is an industrial-turning-alternative city in the Basque Country, Northern Spain. The lively Casco Viejo (Old Town) is its oldest nucleus: it originally started with seven streets, las Siete Calles, and grew to include a square (Plaza Berria or Plaza Nueva) and the streets Santa María, Bidebarrieta, Correo and Askao. Thanks Wikipedia!

The area is bursting with bars, pubs, cafés and cervecerías where one can drink a refreshing caña for a very low price: the streets are usually full of people having a drink (or two, or more…), accompanied by a savoury pincho and a costant flow of chitchat.

So, once upon a time, three expats met in the multicultural environment of the town… Here, let us introduce ourselves:

• Alex, from Wales – the Failed Comedian;
• Ivan, from Croatia – the Superciuk;
• Beatrice, from Italy – the Writer.

After bonding over our common penchant for beer, we started wondering *how many* bars really are in Casco Viejo. Since a simple Google search didn’t satisfy us, we decided to turn the whole thing into a proper project: the Bilbo Beer Quest.

Rules are simple: over the following weeks, we will drink a caña (a glass of draft beer) in each place of the Casco, thus mapping the centre and counting all the drinking holes offering a cerveza... well, más o menos. Alex and Ivan will do the drinking bit, while Bea will mostly take care of reporting their noble enterprise.

Our beer quest is currently under development (read: we’ve just started our drinking mission!), therefore we’ll try updating the blog every week or so with the new places we’re hitting. Expect some inconsistencies as the alcohol level in our bodies increases and the mental skills accordingly suffer.

We are aware of the challenging path lying ahead of us, but our motto is:

“Till the last drop! …Or until one of us drops out”.