Best Beer Bars, Breweries and Restaurants with Good Beer in Barcelona
What's the Craft Beer Scene Like in Barcelona?
Craft beer in Barcelona is on the up. The number of craft beer bars is expanding all the time, offering beers brewed in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain and the rest of the world.
Should I Seek Out Beer from Barcelona?
Though the bars are good, the standard of Barcelona-brewed beer is not amazing. There are exceptions (Edge Brewing is consistently good and early indications from Black Lab are promising), but so far no bar has been able to consistently stock a full range of local beers.
Instead they tend to serve a variety of Spanish, Scandinavian, British, American and Italian craft beers (a notable exception is Cat Bar, which only serves Spanish beers).
What's Unique About the Beer Scene in Barcelona?
One unique aspect of the craft beer scene in Barcelona is the use of the porrón. Though not widespread, if you see that a bar has one (Ale and Hop has one), definitely ask to use it.
What is a porrón? It's that strange glass apparatus in the picture above. In Barcelona, they use them to drink sour Belgian beers. This is a combination of two Spanish traditions:
Drinking a sour Belgian beer in this way has two advantages:
Where Should I Drink Craft Beer in Barcelona?
Check out the following bars for a good range of beers in Barcelona.
Click on the bar that most most interests you or click 'next' in this gallery.
Large Craft Beer Bars (more than 10 taps)
Small Craft Beer Bars(10 or fewer taps)
Craft Beer Breweries and Brew Pubs
Restaurants with Good Craft Beer
BierCaB Craft Beer Bar in Barcelona
Well, we have to start here, don't we?
Biercab has risen in the past few years to become one of the most popular beer bars in the world.
But sometimes a bar can be less than the sum of its parts.
Sure they have a lot of taps - and all of them are guests (once when I was in there they were having an Italian craft beer weekend takeover) which is fantastic in a craft beer scene that is already becoming saturated with 'house beers'.
The first time I came to BierCaB, it reminded me of Moeder Lambic in Brussels - something which the barman told me was deliberate. And then the rest of the bar started to fall into place. The whole bar feels like it's doing its best to tick all the boxes - such as food served on black slates like all the trendy bars do today - preferably the kinds of boxes that will give it a high score on Tripadvisor or Ratebeer. You get the sense that Biercab would serve 30 types of llama milk if they thought it would sell.
The atmosphere is sterile with high, uncomfortable stools and tables, while the food is overpriced. Like the seven-euro patatas bravas which, if they didn't spend all their time cutting the potatoes into perfect cubes and discarding the unwanted excess potato that doesn't fit their design, could have a couple of euros shaved off the price (and even then, at 5 euros for 20 bites of potato, they'd still be expensive).
Still, with this many beers, you're more likely to find one you like here than anywhere else in the city.
It's just that there are nicer bars.
Number of Taps: 30
Food? Overpriced Spanish bar food
Website: Biercab
Address: C/ Muntaner 55, 08011 Barcelona
Nearest Metro: Universitat
Cat Bar Craft Beer Bar in Barcelona
Unlike BierCaB (see previous page), Cat Bar is a beer run by, and for, true beer lovers. One of the first craft beer bars in Barcelona, Cat Bar is a mainstay of Barcelona's craft beer scene.
And though the owner is British, Cat Bar stocks only Spanish beers on its 9 taps, which means you're likely to find as many Spanish beers here as on the 30 taps at BierCaB.
Regular jam sessions upstairs.
Number of Taps: 9
Food? Vegan burgers and roasts.
Facebook: Cat Bar
Address: c/ Boria 17
Nearest Metro: Jaume I
Mosquito Restaurant and Craft Beer Bar
Mosquito is an Asian tapas bar that just happens to have a great beer selection (including two British-style hand pump casks). There is often a line out of the door to get seated at lunch time, but I usually pop in during siesta time (Mosquito stays open all day) and sit at the bar with a pint of cask ale.
Number of Taps: 6
Food? Freshly made noodles and other Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese dishes.
Website: Mosquito Tapas
Address: C/Carders 46, Barcelona
Nearest Metro: Jaume I or Urquinaona
Ale & Hop Beer Bar in Barcelona
Ale and Hop is a fantastic place to try beers from Barcelona, Europe and the rest of the world. They also serve great vegan food.
One of my favorite things to do here is to get a porrón and a sour Belgian beer.
This is the place where you are most likely to find the owners of other bars coming for a beer.
Number of Taps: 10
Food? Vegan burgers and other vegetarian treats.
Facebook: Ale and Hop
Address: C/ Basses de Sant Pere 10
Nearest Metro: Jaume I or Urquinaona
Edge Brewing
Edge is one of the best new craft breweries in Catalonia (they even got a prize from Ratebeer for it). Their range of beers run the full gamut - from easy drinking 'beginner' beers to interesting concoctions with apple and coffee flavors.
Edge has a full bar on its premises, but it is only open for special events: check out the calendar on their site for full details.
Number of Taps: 10
Food? No, though they occasionally have guest food suppliers at their events.
Website: Edge Brewing
Address: Carrer de Llull, 62, 08005 Barcelona, Spain
Nearest Metro: Bogatell
La Resistencia
A solid craft beer bar with a lot of taps and good Catalan cold cuts. It lacks a bit in atmosphere, but the beers are always good.
Number of Taps: 12
Food? Mainly local sausages and cheeses.
Website: La Resistencia Facebook Page(Their own website appeared to have been hacked when I tried to access it).
Address: Carrer de Viladomat, 107, 08015 Barcelona, Spain
Nearest Metro: Rocafort
La Cerveteca
One of the first craft beer bars in Barcelona. Its location in the Gothic Quarter makes it the nearest good beer bar to the Ramblas.
Number of Taps: 13
Food? Small bites.
Website: La Cerveteca
Address: Carrer d'En Gignàs, 25, 08002 Barcelona, Spain
Nearest Metro: Jaume I or Barceloneta
Cerveseria La Mes Petita Beer Bar in Barcelona
Perhaps the best tap-to-bar-size ratio of any bar in the world. This bar, close to Plaça de Espanya has a great selection of beers and very generous servings of Scottish whisky (they are also experimenting with craft beer and Scotch mixes).
Number of Taps: 8
Food? Small bites.
Website: Cerveseria La Mes Petita
Address: Carrer Diputació 30
Nearest Metro: Rocafort
L´Espumossa. Art & Cervesa
A small place close to Sants bus station from one of the first craft brewers in Barcelona.
Number of Taps: 8
Food? Selection of Catalan dishes
Website: Homo Sibaris
Address: Plaça d’Osca 4
Nearest Metro: Plaça de Sants
La Bona Pinta Barcelona Beer Bar
Craft beer bar and art gallery. Feels more like a social club than a bar. Lighting is too much.
Number of Taps: 6
Food? Empanadas and other small bites.
Facebook: L'Espumossa
Address: Provença, 171
Nearest Metro: Hospital Clinic
Black Lab Brewhouse and Beer Bar in Barcelona
A small beer bar and shop close to La Sagrada Familia.
Number of Taps: 6
Food? No
Facebook: La Bona Pinta
Address: Carrer de la Diputació, 433, 08013 Barcelona, Spain
Nearest Metro: Monumental
Cervecería El Vaso de Oro
A new brewery at a great location in the port area of Barceloneta. When I went they didn't have a lof their own beers on tap yet, but their ambitious set-up suggests good things are to come. Food is great.
Number of Taps: 6
Food? Asian-American fusion. Excellent pickles.
Website: Black Lab
Address: Palau del Mar, Plaça Pau Vila, 1, 08039 Barcelona, Spain
Nearest Metro: Barceloneta
A vintage tapas bar that has had the good foresight to bring in craft beer on tap and in bottles from local brewery Fort.
That classic Spanish bar brings with it that classic 'brusk' service. Don't expect the staff to share your passion for craft beer.
Number of Taps: 2
Food? Classic tapas. Their patatas bravas were extortionately priced.
Website: Vaso de Oro
Address: Calle de Balboa, 6, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
Nearest Metro: Barceloneta
Craft beer in Barcelona is on the up. The number of craft beer bars is expanding all the time, offering beers brewed in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain and the rest of the world.
Should I Seek Out Beer from Barcelona?
Though the bars are good, the standard of Barcelona-brewed beer is not amazing. There are exceptions (Edge Brewing is consistently good and early indications from Black Lab are promising), but so far no bar has been able to consistently stock a full range of local beers.
Instead they tend to serve a variety of Spanish, Scandinavian, British, American and Italian craft beers (a notable exception is Cat Bar, which only serves Spanish beers).
What's Unique About the Beer Scene in Barcelona?
One unique aspect of the craft beer scene in Barcelona is the use of the porrón. Though not widespread, if you see that a bar has one (Ale and Hop has one), definitely ask to use it.
What is a porrón? It's that strange glass apparatus in the picture above. In Barcelona, they use them to drink sour Belgian beers. This is a combination of two Spanish traditions:
- The sharing of drinks, usually wine, in a porrón or leather bota.
- The pouring of sour ciders from a height in order to aerate it and lower the acidity levels
Drinking a sour Belgian beer in this way has two advantages:
- It makes it easy to share an often expensive bottle
- The aeration takes the harsh edge off the beer without changing the fundamental flavor.
Where Should I Drink Craft Beer in Barcelona?
Check out the following bars for a good range of beers in Barcelona.
Click on the bar that most most interests you or click 'next' in this gallery.
Large Craft Beer Bars (more than 10 taps)
Small Craft Beer Bars(10 or fewer taps)
Craft Beer Breweries and Brew Pubs
Restaurants with Good Craft Beer
BierCaB Craft Beer Bar in Barcelona
Well, we have to start here, don't we?
Biercab has risen in the past few years to become one of the most popular beer bars in the world.
But sometimes a bar can be less than the sum of its parts.
Sure they have a lot of taps - and all of them are guests (once when I was in there they were having an Italian craft beer weekend takeover) which is fantastic in a craft beer scene that is already becoming saturated with 'house beers'.
The first time I came to BierCaB, it reminded me of Moeder Lambic in Brussels - something which the barman told me was deliberate. And then the rest of the bar started to fall into place. The whole bar feels like it's doing its best to tick all the boxes - such as food served on black slates like all the trendy bars do today - preferably the kinds of boxes that will give it a high score on Tripadvisor or Ratebeer. You get the sense that Biercab would serve 30 types of llama milk if they thought it would sell.
The atmosphere is sterile with high, uncomfortable stools and tables, while the food is overpriced. Like the seven-euro patatas bravas which, if they didn't spend all their time cutting the potatoes into perfect cubes and discarding the unwanted excess potato that doesn't fit their design, could have a couple of euros shaved off the price (and even then, at 5 euros for 20 bites of potato, they'd still be expensive).
Still, with this many beers, you're more likely to find one you like here than anywhere else in the city.
It's just that there are nicer bars.
Number of Taps: 30
Food? Overpriced Spanish bar food
Website: Biercab
Address: C/ Muntaner 55, 08011 Barcelona
Nearest Metro: Universitat
Cat Bar Craft Beer Bar in Barcelona
Unlike BierCaB (see previous page), Cat Bar is a beer run by, and for, true beer lovers. One of the first craft beer bars in Barcelona, Cat Bar is a mainstay of Barcelona's craft beer scene.
And though the owner is British, Cat Bar stocks only Spanish beers on its 9 taps, which means you're likely to find as many Spanish beers here as on the 30 taps at BierCaB.
Regular jam sessions upstairs.
Number of Taps: 9
Food? Vegan burgers and roasts.
Facebook: Cat Bar
Address: c/ Boria 17
Nearest Metro: Jaume I
Mosquito Restaurant and Craft Beer Bar
Mosquito is an Asian tapas bar that just happens to have a great beer selection (including two British-style hand pump casks). There is often a line out of the door to get seated at lunch time, but I usually pop in during siesta time (Mosquito stays open all day) and sit at the bar with a pint of cask ale.
Number of Taps: 6
Food? Freshly made noodles and other Korean, Chinese and Vietnamese dishes.
Website: Mosquito Tapas
Address: C/Carders 46, Barcelona
Nearest Metro: Jaume I or Urquinaona
Ale & Hop Beer Bar in Barcelona
Ale and Hop is a fantastic place to try beers from Barcelona, Europe and the rest of the world. They also serve great vegan food.
One of my favorite things to do here is to get a porrón and a sour Belgian beer.
This is the place where you are most likely to find the owners of other bars coming for a beer.
Number of Taps: 10
Food? Vegan burgers and other vegetarian treats.
Facebook: Ale and Hop
Address: C/ Basses de Sant Pere 10
Nearest Metro: Jaume I or Urquinaona
Edge Brewing
Edge is one of the best new craft breweries in Catalonia (they even got a prize from Ratebeer for it). Their range of beers run the full gamut - from easy drinking 'beginner' beers to interesting concoctions with apple and coffee flavors.
Edge has a full bar on its premises, but it is only open for special events: check out the calendar on their site for full details.
Number of Taps: 10
Food? No, though they occasionally have guest food suppliers at their events.
Website: Edge Brewing
Address: Carrer de Llull, 62, 08005 Barcelona, Spain
Nearest Metro: Bogatell
La Resistencia
A solid craft beer bar with a lot of taps and good Catalan cold cuts. It lacks a bit in atmosphere, but the beers are always good.
Number of Taps: 12
Food? Mainly local sausages and cheeses.
Website: La Resistencia Facebook Page(Their own website appeared to have been hacked when I tried to access it).
Address: Carrer de Viladomat, 107, 08015 Barcelona, Spain
Nearest Metro: Rocafort
La Cerveteca
One of the first craft beer bars in Barcelona. Its location in the Gothic Quarter makes it the nearest good beer bar to the Ramblas.
Number of Taps: 13
Food? Small bites.
Website: La Cerveteca
Address: Carrer d'En Gignàs, 25, 08002 Barcelona, Spain
Nearest Metro: Jaume I or Barceloneta
Cerveseria La Mes Petita Beer Bar in Barcelona
Perhaps the best tap-to-bar-size ratio of any bar in the world. This bar, close to Plaça de Espanya has a great selection of beers and very generous servings of Scottish whisky (they are also experimenting with craft beer and Scotch mixes).
Number of Taps: 8
Food? Small bites.
Website: Cerveseria La Mes Petita
Address: Carrer Diputació 30
Nearest Metro: Rocafort
L´Espumossa. Art & Cervesa
A small place close to Sants bus station from one of the first craft brewers in Barcelona.
Number of Taps: 8
Food? Selection of Catalan dishes
Website: Homo Sibaris
Address: Plaça d’Osca 4
Nearest Metro: Plaça de Sants
La Bona Pinta Barcelona Beer Bar
Craft beer bar and art gallery. Feels more like a social club than a bar. Lighting is too much.
Number of Taps: 6
Food? Empanadas and other small bites.
Facebook: L'Espumossa
Address: Provença, 171
Nearest Metro: Hospital Clinic
Black Lab Brewhouse and Beer Bar in Barcelona
A small beer bar and shop close to La Sagrada Familia.
Number of Taps: 6
Food? No
Facebook: La Bona Pinta
Address: Carrer de la Diputació, 433, 08013 Barcelona, Spain
Nearest Metro: Monumental
Cervecería El Vaso de Oro
A new brewery at a great location in the port area of Barceloneta. When I went they didn't have a lof their own beers on tap yet, but their ambitious set-up suggests good things are to come. Food is great.
Number of Taps: 6
Food? Asian-American fusion. Excellent pickles.
Website: Black Lab
Address: Palau del Mar, Plaça Pau Vila, 1, 08039 Barcelona, Spain
Nearest Metro: Barceloneta
A vintage tapas bar that has had the good foresight to bring in craft beer on tap and in bottles from local brewery Fort.
That classic Spanish bar brings with it that classic 'brusk' service. Don't expect the staff to share your passion for craft beer.
Number of Taps: 2
Food? Classic tapas. Their patatas bravas were extortionately priced.
Website: Vaso de Oro
Address: Calle de Balboa, 6, 08003 Barcelona, Spain
Nearest Metro: Barceloneta
