What do plumbing, the town of Tomelloso in Ciudad Real and craft beer have in common? In principle, nothing, but these three elements merge into one person, Carlos Ramón López. This plumber from Tomellos who has been installing heating, gas and air conditioning equipment in the homes of many of his compatriots for many years, has been enjoying success with his craft beer for some time and now can boast of making one of the best IPAs in Spainin a country like La Manche, where the star product is precisely the competition, wine.
Marie IPA, its beer brewed in the American Indian Pale Ale style, has just won second prize in the general category of the National IPA Day Competition, which took place a little over a month ago, on September 28, in Valladolid. Organized by the Association of Spanish Brewers (ACCE)this competition had the participation of 31 samples from all over Spain.
As its creator explains to ABC, “it is a beer with white and persistent foam, dark golden in color, with a certain turbidity, with aromatic notes of tropical fruits and mango, and on the palate it has a creamy palate with a marked bitterness, medium carbonation “It won second prize for its balance between bitterness, sweetness and aroma, it is very balanced and very drinkable.”
“This is the third time I’ve done it and it’s impressive. I am super proud of this result because this year I started it with my father diagnosed with lung cancer, which he has now overcome and is doing very well, and this encouraged me to introduce my beer and I do “I didn’t expect it, which gave me a lot of strength,” he admits.
It all started in 2014, when he discovered this world during a beer tasting in Albacete. This is how he met ACCE, which is already at the origin of many of these events and these rich creations which attract him so much. Thus, after documenting and sharing his experiences on his preparations with the members of this already consolidated group, he began to design his own recipes with an in-house team, seeing the light of his first craft beers at the end of the same year. All the recipes that serve as inspiration for this Tomellos coffee maker have been taken from the software www.homebrewer.es free, created by a member of the non-profit association and open to all.
In 2016, in full boom craft beer, one of his friends joined him, who set up a factory to make his own creations in the neighboring town of Alcázar de San Juan, with the name of Cervezas Artesanas La Primera. “This is how I began to take my first steps in a world that, for me, was unknown and I immediately realized that it was very hard and extremely complicated to establish myself in the market” , says Carlos, who gave a twist to his idea and his activity turned to diffusion and “making people enjoy this world, making friends taste it during small meals, with pairings with gastronomic creations that he realizes himself – who is his other Project “Party in your mouth” (FTB)– and send my creations to national competitions.
So a year later, he launched into the other part of his hobby, organizing craft beer tastings for the entire public. The first of them took place in mid-2017, at the request of the City Hall of Manzanares on the occasion of the National Fair of the Country (Fercam), in an event that lasted three days, in which it is still engaged six years later. “It’s a fun beer tasting in which, with all the gadgets and raw materials, I describe the whole brewing process, step by step, and then we taste the beers we have previously made,” he explains.
Previous recognitions
In 2020, its brewing moment arrived, securing a second prize in the German Beer and Best Bock Beer of the Year category. IX Amateur Brewers Competition at the Hop Garden in Madrid on March 7, and in August the second prize at IPA Day with its Marie IPA, as well as a third at the Cordoba Homebrewer Contest with its Kôlsch beer. “An achievement after the year we had, finishing in the Top 7 nationally in the squad, but honestly, I didn’t want to celebrate anything, because many people were dying every day from coronavirus and Tomelloso was one of the municipalities hardest hit by the pandemic,” he recalls.
After a year of to wait for In 2022, she began sending beers to competitions again, earning an average score of 34 points out of 50, but they did not reach the final table in tastings ranging from 38 to 44. Today she also joins A group of people from La Mancha – from Toledo, Miguel Esteban, Albacete, Belmonte, Socuéllamos, Ontígola and Tomelloso – who form the Manchabeer team, which participates in the ACCE MatchBeera national brewery competition by region, which represents Castilla-La Mancha year after year. Last year, without going any further, they occupied third position of the 17 autonomous communities that make up the Spanish state.
“By changing my habits, especially in terms of production and always using the best raw materials, I began to climb, obtaining this year again this great merit that is second best American IPA beer in the IPA Day 2024 competition“, he says, full of pride and satisfaction, as a monarch that everyone knows and who shares a name with Carlos would say. This is precisely what this winemaker has become: the king of craft beers in wine country.
