Madrí Excepcional
madriexcepcional.com/en-ie/our-beers
Brewed by Cervezas La Sagra
Style: Pilsner
Numancia de la Sagra (Toledo), Spain
Madrí Excepcional is a a European-style lager produced and brewed for the British and Irish markets by Coors in conjunction with Spanish brewery La Sagra. It has suddenly sprung up on our shores, been sold in supermarkets and off licenses throughout Ireland and the UK.
It has capitalised on the new found fad of “Mediterranean style lagers” started by Peroni, and followed on by Birra Moretti and Estrella Damm. With people just recovering after Covid, Madrí offered one a chance to enjoy a bit of the Med without the effort of getting on a plane. It was a huge hit, as the lager boomed in sales, and from its launch in October 2020 it has managed to be sold in over 10,000 bars and pubs to becoming one of the fastest growing beer brands in Ireland and the UK. Not bad for a beer that no one knew pre Covid!
With intensive social media marketing and playing on the imagery of Spanish sunshine and the Mediterranean feel, people bought it in droves. The marketing team put on many social events and city tours showcasing “the soul of Madrid” in London and Dublin and other towns and cities throughout and people lapped it up, celebrating Spanish culture with tapas and traditional music all the while downing Madrí lagers. Consumers are really getting into world beers and anything that is different and deemed “exotic” well the consumer on the street will just go for it.
But all of this is a bit of a marketing gimmick, as the reality is its totally brewed in the UK under licence, albeit it was created in collaboration with the Spanish brewery and is marketed as Spanish influenced, if that makes any difference I don’t know! I thought there was EU rules about that, aka Baileys Irish Cream, but maybe not and in any case the Brits are out of the EU, ha!
So what about the La Sagra Brewery, the connection to Spain? Well this is a craft firm in Spain that was bought out by Coors in 2017. La Sagra, are actually not based even in Madrid at all, but an hour’s drive from the centre of Spain’s capital city. So much for their slogan “El Alma de Madrid” (“the soul of Madrid”), brewed in the north of England, for the Irish and UK market and with a heavy reference to Madrid! OK!.
The La Sagra brewery is a very young, innovative brewery that was founded by Carlos Garcia, a first-generation brewer born in Madrid. He started La Sagra Brewery in 2011 in Toledo, on the outskirts of Madrid, a unique area of Spain, historically, a melting pot of 3 different cultures.
What stood out for me in the offy was the red branding which featured a man with the cap and a nice snazzy waistcoat. It certainly is eye catching and the main reason I ventured over to have a look at it. Apparently the man is called a ‘Chulapo’, originally a group of people in Spanish society in the 19th century, famous for their vibrant and elaborate style of dress and cheeky attitude. Today, as the blurb goes, “they represent the people of modern Madrid, full of life and energy. It’s this progressive spirit of modern Madrid that inspired Madrí Excepcional, bringing the Soul of Madrid, or as we like to say “El Alma de Madrid” to bars & restaurants across the world”
Review: 660ml bottle of Madrí Excepcional El Alma De Madrid 4.6% vol.
Madrí Excepcional El Alma De Madrid is the official name of the beer, but that’s a mouthful so its shortened and Anglicised to Madrí, and “Madrí is the traditional way of pronouncing Madrid”, as it says so on their website!
I got mine in a lovely big bottle but it also comes in cans and in draught in selected venues. The bottle is well designed, with lovely big red and white lettering and the Spanish looking guy, it certainly stands out and one can see why people pick it up so easy in the off license.
Onto the appearance, it looks pretty nice, a good creamy white head appears on the pour and a good looking clear golden coloured beer ready to be drank. Standard enough but decent enough too. Some nice carbonation to add. A decent looker with a good white head and a nice colour.
Smells lagery – ok. Standard smell. The aroma for me was very light, not much at all on the nose. A bit of a typical lager smell, malty, corn and grain notes but all subtle and barely noticeable. Nothing really.
Onto the taste and oh man……..urgh…….a very sweet and very sickly taste……this tastes like a pissy lager, very bland and nothing special at all that stands out…….this is just another bad lager in a market full of bad lagers, but this time a Spanish version…..or a make believe Spanish version!
Getting the malts and the sweet grains but not much else to inspire or enjoy. Overall a very boring and bad tasting lager, not even good for a session, not nice at all.
Watery taste, very soft and a sweet aftertaste that disappoints. Just a cheap tasting lager with no “umph”. Nothing special at all, worse than generic, and I am very disappointed considering all the marketing spiel. Disappointed.
It all started when a young and very eager Gabriel Hasler, at just 16 years of age was given his first craft beer kit. Excited he enlisted the help of his two good friends Reto Engler and David Paraskevopoulos, and set out on a quest to brew their first beer. After initially producing 20 litres in Gabriel’s parents’ kitchen, and then moving to Reto’s parents’ cellar, the young entrepreneurs soon needed extra space so that they could share their passion and talent with as many people as possible.
Available throughout Switzerland in supermarkets, restaurants and selected bars and pubs. I picked mine up in Coop in an Interesting looking bottle, which doesn’t look very dissimilar to a medicinal bottle! A strange drab looking IPA bottle if I am to be honest -orange and black perhaps not the best colours to mix together!
Its overall quite tough to drink at the start, but once it settles down it is very manageable and drinkable, definitely a slow burner as I started to enjoy it the more I drank of it. In fact by the second glass, I found it not bad at all, and it went down much smoother over time, balancing out, and with me getting much more used to the bitterness. Experiencing malts, citrus, herbal hops and an orange zest.
On the bottle there is a very distinctive portrait of General Pułaski, a Polish nobleman, soldier, and military commander, who was from Warka. He was driven into exile and ended up in North America to help in the American Revolutionary War where he distinguished himself throughout, most notably when he saved the life of George Washington. He has been called, together with his counterpart Michael Kovats de Fabriczy, “the father of the American cavalry.” as they created the Pulaski Cavalry Legion and reformed the American cavalry as a whole. A hero in both his native Poland, and in the USA. In any case, it looks pretty cool, and is a good look on the bottle.
Deep taste, and it does take a while to get the hang of it…….it is a strong Euro lager after all, not my most favourite type of beers…….but after enough of these, I eventually adapted to the kick and enjoyed this over time. 
Can be found from 5.8% to 5.6% ABV but I got mine in Poland from a supermarket at 5.2%, in a bottle but can also be found in cans and on draught. 
Not too bad on the looks department at all for a lager. Crisp look, clear and golden.