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. 

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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.
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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.

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”. 

Map of Casco Viejo