Galicia’s star reflects better image of Spanish big beer

I’ve lived in Spain since around 5 B.C. (Before Craft). During that time I would regularly be asked what was my favourite Spanish beer. Estrella Galicia was the unhesitating reply.

Clearly that has changed since the craft revolution reached the Iberian peninsular at the end of the noughties. But I still have a hankering for the signature brew from Hijos de Rivera in La Coruña.

It seems I am not alone.

A recent study conducted by DataCentric involving 35,000 “big beer” drinkers declared the Helles-style lager the nation’s preferred tipple, securing twice as many votes as any other, including Mahou and Heineken.

Quite the feather in the gorro for the family-owned brewery founded in 1906.

Well, yes and no. The survey was nuanced. It was not seeking an answer based on consumer volume, but on an emotional attachment; in short, being a fan.

Hijos de Rivera ranks fourth nationally in sales, comfortably outstripped by market leader Mahou-San Miguel which produces those eponymous beers and which in 2019 increased its stake in Founders, the Michigan craft brewery, to 90 per cent.

As a consequence Founders All Day IPA can now to be found on the shelves of the nation’s supermarkets. (And Canadian Breakfast Stout in discerning bars, but I digress.)

Nonetheless it represents a significant upswing on a similar survey conducted three years earlier. Then Estrella Galicia was shown making little impact outside its north-western heartland.

Estrella Galicia’s market share currently hovers around 10 per cent, yet compared to the likes of Barcelona’s Moritz is one of the few beers with deep-set regional roots to thrive on a national scale.

Its brewery has almost doubled domestic production in the last 10 years. It might produce only around one-fifth the volume of a giant like Mahou-San Miguel but Estrella Galicia boasts a brand awareness that would be their envy.

Just how has the beer from Galicia managed to become the most loved macro in Spain?

Savvy marketing has played its part.

The alcohol-free Estrella Galicia 0,0 is already well known in motorsport. In Formula 1 it sponsors driver Carlos Sainz, currently with McLaren, while in Moto GP it backs multiple world champion Marc Marquez.

In football Estrella Galicia is shirt sponsor to several football teams, the best known being Deportivo La Coruña and Celta de Vigo.

But perhaps the master stroke has been the commercial tie-up with a Spanish TV show.

La casa de papel premiered on Spanish channel Antena 3 in May 2017. It was taken on by Netflix, was rebadged as Money Heist, became a global phenomenon and won an Emmy.

And through it all the characters were regularly seen glugging Estrella Galicia in Mahou’s homeland of Madrid, where much of the series is set. Product placement gold.

Thirty-two million bottles of specially branded Estrella Galicia were produced for the domestic and Latin American markets ahead of the show’s fourth season release in April.

The brewery also has a reputation for social responsibility.

In May, Hijos de Rivera signed a 12-month agreement with La Federación Española de Bancos Alimentos (the Spanish Federation of Food Banks) that initially saw it donate €400,000 for urgent projects.

• 

• 

• 

• 

The second phase saw one million bottles labelled with 1 millón de gracias (one million thanks) in support of front-line workers during the height of the pandemic.

The brewery has been affected by COVID-19, suspending operations on occasions due to positive tests from staff, or spikes in the locality.

Estrella Galicia is available in the UK, though anyone seeking a taste of macro Spain should know the product weighs in light at 4.7% compared to the domestic 5.5%.

Three years ago Hijos de Rivera took a 32 per cent stake in the Carlow Brewery Company, the independent Irish craft brewer. Subsequently the O’Haras craft range has come to Spain.

Though clearly “Big Beer” with a capital B, the brewery has dabbled in its own craft-style beer, producing brews flavoured with, for example, Goose Barnacles (percebes, a Galician delicacy) and Padron peppers.

I’ve tried the latter. It’s billed as a 6.5% chilli beer into which are added whole Padron peppers (those thumb-sized firecrackers) and ground cayenne. Bizarrely it was actually rather good, a malty mouthful with a pleasing follow through of throat-tickling heat.

I will readily admit to the guilty pleasure of necking a well-chilled Estrella Galicia – or a 0,0 – on a hot afternoon.

And if today you were to ask me what is my preferred mainstream Spanish beer the answer would be the same as 15 years ago.

Bars Brewers Craft Beer