As mentioned in last week’s post, I spent this year’s summer vacation in the Basque Country. Not a destination where you would expect to find a huge (wild) beer scene. Nonetheless, in my everlasting online research to find breweries that make wild beers, I identified three producers of wild beer Garai Agro Brewery, Wild Nation (part of Laugar), and Basqueland. While there I discovered another one, Meta Edabeak. I had a deal with Miss Beers Gone Wild that for every art museum she wanted to go to, we’d go to a brewery. Although I don’t think we visited four art museums, we did visit all of these breweries. A longer visit to Garai Agro Brewery and Meta Edabeak with a tour and chat with the brewers, and a short visit to Wild Nation and Basqueland just to buy some bottles. In the coming weeks, you can expect separate posts about my visits to Garai Agro Brewery and Meta Edabeak
Garai Agro Brewery
This nano-brewery is beautifully situated in the hills near the village of Garai. The brewery, run by Ibon, is part of his wife’s business that makes jams, hot sauces, and other condiments. Both work with local and organic produce only, and grow most fruits and vegetables themselves. Due to regulations for small businesses, they’re only allowed to sell within the Basque Country. Garai Agro Brewery produces three types of beer. Regular ales and lagers, mostly available in cans, saison beers brewed with a house yeast culture, and they recently started with coolship ales too.
Wild Nation (Laugar)
Wild Nation is the lambic-inspired spin-off brewery by Laugar. For now, they rely on using commercially available lambic yeast cultures, but in the future, they hope to make use of a coolship. The Wild Nation brewery isn’t open for visitors and is located in the hills near Gordexola. This is the village, approximately 20 minutes by car from Bilbao, where Laugar is situated. This brewery features a taproom and is open to the public. However, the Wild Nation beers can’t be drank there, as they don’t want the yeasts to contaminate the Laugar brew site. Fortunately, the Wild Nation Beers are being sold at this brewery and I was lucky enough to buy some of them. I was even gifted one of the last bottles of Zaldu, a lambic-inspired beer fermented on oak barrels with peaches. Other beers by Wild Nation are Sandamendi, Beraskola, and Zubiete. The first one is the sort of base beer, and the latter two are fermented on Moscatel and Bordeaux barrels respectively. If you can’t drive up to Gordexola, Laugar has a bar, The Craft Tabeerna, in the old center of Bilbao too where these beers might be available.
Basqueland
Probably the most well-known name in this list, Basqueland is a big name in the craft beer scene and has won numerous awards at International beer festivals. Their beers range from stouts to IPAs and anything in between. However, as this is Beers Gone Wild, my reason for stopping by the brewery in Hernani was to buy a bottle of Laia. This is their one and only Farmhouse Ale, a mixed fermentation beer with Brettanomyces Bruxellensis, that was produced in collaboration with one of the best Basque cideries, Zapiain.
Meta Edabeak
This one-year-old brewery in Astigarraga (the cider capital of the Basque Country) makes farmhouse ales, such as saisons and grisettes with their house yeast culture. A carefully curated mix of different commercially available yeast strains, including Brettanomyces. Initially, I was only dropping by to pick up some beers, but I ended up staying longer. I was offered a beer and the two owners and brewers showed me around the brewery. They were preparing for their first-anniversary party the weekend after. At the party, their new beer Muxu, a grisette fermented with local strawberries, was going to be released. As a parting gift, they even gave me a bottle to take home! Furthermore, Meta Edabeak produces many interesting beers, many containing interesting ingredients, like coffee, or fruits. More about this brewery and the beers they make in a future post!
If you need more reasons to visit the Basque Country, there are lots of cool craft beer bars too in Bilbao and San Sebastian. My personal favorite is Mala Gissona in San Sebastian, which offers a great selection of (Spanish) wild beers. Furthermore, the beautiful nature and amazing food make the Basque Country an ideal destination for your next trip. Stay tuned for more posts to come about Garai Agro Brewery and Meta Edabeak!