TOPIC:

Hi guys, i'm off to Barcelona on Saturday for a few days. Can anyone recommend a couple of bars to visit?

Only 1...

The "George and Dragon" on La Gracia. If you head out of the "Passieg de Gracia" Metro stop and head south 1 or 2 blocks it will be on the left-hand side of the street, down the side street to the left 2 doors. (The Tappas place next door is phenomenal and reasonably priced, too.)

The owner is a Brit and he knows his stuff. Lots of Fullers on tap and plenty of English, American, and Belgian craft beers in the fridge (although you'll pay for them).

There's a place called "The International Beer Bar" in the main tourist area of La Rambla but it's pretty crap, honestly. If you're looking for a Duvel, you can stop in.

Don't get fooled by the "Ohara's" Bar where the bar staff are wearing Ohara's stout T-shirts with the actual brewery logo on them; they don't have ANY craft beer. (John Smith's on nitro; MMM even less flavor than normal which is really saying something!)


If you go to the market off of La Rambla there's an imported Italian food vendor hidden in there somewhere who has "Birrificio La Balladin" beers available for between 12 and 20 Euros; some of them are REALLY quite nice; some are very normal but you're not actually being ripped off. They cost about that much even in Italy. The bottles are probably the most attractive beer bottles you'll ever see; they're 650ml or 750ml..

-If you head further afield there's a proper Belgian Beer Bar like 2 hours out of Barcelona that's supposed to be absolutely EPIC and have a couple hundred beers available in bottle. The owner of George and Dragon has flyers to the place and can point you in the proper direction (unless he's sold the place and moved to Virgina already). If you do stop in, tell him I said hello. (Oh yea, and buy his bar from him! lol!)


Adam

-If you're feeling REALLY generous you could go to the market take note of all of the La Balladin beers, post it back here so I can place orders for any I haven't had yet. Lol! <!-- s:) --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif" alt="" title="Smile" /><!-- s:) -->
(I'm just trying to make up for renting a car and driving an hour and a half to La Balladin's brewery and pub and finding out that it's closed until 6:00pm when I was in Italy last year...) -Still angry about that; AND not getting to see Michael Jordan play in person...

Hey Adam, thanks for that sir. I did a bit of research of the last couple of days and it seems the george and dragon is the place to go. I read about another bar called the olympic bar on the marina which is supposed to be ok but the George and Dragon is defo on the cards.

€12-€20 sounds a bit steep but maybe i'll stop in for one! If i've a couple of euro left over i'll get one and bring it along to the next meeting.

Cheers Adam,
Jason