19th Chapter - Including Interesting Beer & Bar Facts!

Friday, 29 April 2016
Calle Sendeja et al

And here we are with yet another sortie of our Quest!
After some deliberation, we decide to start the evening from the northern limit of Casco Viejo and move our way inwards. As a result, our first beer is an Amstel at BAR EIDER in Calle Sendeja, a cafeteria which probably works mostly during the day, but all the same looks quite ok to us. 
Although we personally do not look very ok.

At the bar-Asian restaurant ARRATIANO we find a beer we have never heard of before: Aguila. It looks and tastes suspiciously like Amstel, though... and rightly so, since it's the same drink, only under its old name: Aguila was acquired by Heineken and then fused with the Amstel company and barrels years ago; this bar happens to keep the old sign on the draught beer font. See? We are actually expanding our hop-and-malt knowledge!

Next comes YAMIKE, a modern-looking place in Calle Esperanza. Sitting on the bar stools, sipping very cold Heineken and listening to the background music, we talk about Jon and Alex's misadventures earlier during the day - a small incident that for now only serves to confirm Ivan's prejudice against Bilbao's most "punkards" areas. But what would life be without a little adrenaline, after all?

At TABERNA PLAZA NUEVA, in the square of the same name, we find the real treat of the evening (beside another Amstel). The navy blue walls, ceramic tiles, knick-knacks and pictures hung on the walls of this bar already tell an interesting tale in their own way. And then from one of the barmen-owners, a friendly and chatty elder guy, we learn the story behind one of the framed memorabilia: one day the comic artist Kim (famous in Spain for creating the series of Martínez el Facha) came into the bar, ordered a drink and asked for some paper; closest thing they happened to have that day was a poster for a pelota game, but Kim, unperturbed, proceeded to sketch the bar itself on the back of the poster in just three minutes. We are also told how a Japanese journalist featured this bar in his article about food in Spain. And how another foreign correspondent, from the Netherlands this time, included in his reportage on the Basque Country a full-page picture of Taberna Plaza Nueva which was bigger than the photograph of Guggenheim itself - as the barman is quite proud to point out!

Eventually we get to the busy Calle Somera to try one more bar: our choice falls on TXALAPARTA, a very crowded bar that must have (re)opened quite recently, since none of us recalls noticing it only a few months ago. Another Amstel drunk, another place ticked off our list, another episode concluded... 

But before ending this post, enjoy this rare pictures of the three Questers preparing themselves for a table football challenge at TIRAUKI. ¡Hasta luego!

18th Chapter - A Long Awaited Reunion

Friday, 22 April 2016
Calle Ronda (for a start)

The BBQuest is on again, at last!
More than one month has passed since our last episode, due to the fact that we all went on holidays and/or trips back home around Easter time - and some more time, too.

*****

Tonight we are happy to have Jon, and most importantly his camera!, joining us. 
As a start, we decide to try the newly reopened BAR ARITZA, in Calle Ronda (the first of the Seven Streets of Casco Viejo). Despite its diminute size and plain air, the place has a good atmosphere, with several customers inside and people hanging around outside. We order Mahou Classic plus a Dubbel trappist, while we tell each other tales from our vacations (should I mention Alex ending up sleeping in the woods in Lithuania? Maybe not). Noteworthy fact: when the time to leave arrives and, for once, Bea steps up to buy the first round, the barman shows his sharp disapproval at the idea of three men letting the only girl in the group pay for them.

Stopping at CAFÉ TEATRO LA VILLA is a walk down memory lane for Jon: he tells us that this used to be "the" place during his teenage years. It still works as a late-night bar, as one can guess from its dark colours and the not-so-vague smell of something that is not cigarettes. But it's too early for teenagers and dancers, and too smoky for us. We grab our Heinekens and drink them in the fresh air outside. In the photo below: Ivan and Alex cautiously entering its sinister doors.

Although it is not exactly on our list of top places to go for a drink, 100 MONTADITOS in Calle María Muñoz still has to be included in our Quest. It's a popular franchise where chips and tinto de verano (wine mixed with soda pop) are all the rage, but we opt for a Cruzcampo and a Radler for Bea (she's part German after all, so we can forgive her). Ivan is displeased with the size of our glasses, that only allow for very small cañas.

Our following stop is TABERNA ASKAO BERRI in Calle de la Esperanza. They offer quite a wide variety of rolls and bites, so it can often be crowded, but tonight it's a slow Friday and we are almost the only ones in. The ceiling displays an artsy decoration with a net of coloured threads holding upside down glasses. The beer here is, once again, Heineken.

The last bar featured in this episode is GRAN CAFÉ EL MERCANTE in Calle Arenal, where we have the third Heineken of the evening. A spacious café-restaurant facing the tree-lined square of Arenal, this place boasts colourful stained glass windows, elegant wooden interiors and industrial chic lighting: it even has a cocktail bar-inside-the-bar downstairs.

Since we end the evening in another part of Casco Viejo that has already appeared on our blog, we can only conclude by putting a couple more pictures of us not being photogenic. Until next time, cheers!

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...