@@mickeyfinn8956 many beers are brewed away from their origin. If you drink Stone IPA in the UK is was brewed in Germany - but it's still authentically the Californian company. Madri is different, it's not a spanish origin story, it's a lie.
@@mickeyfinn8956 The Bedford plant was opened quite recently. The Estrella Damm in the UK was being brewed in Barcelona the last time I looked at a bottle a few months ago, but I certainly won't be buying anymore after the UK supply is no longer brewed in Spain.
Im fed up with what I call "fake foreign lagers" - foreign brands brewed in the UK. Mostly swill. It should be illegal to sell a British brewed lager and claim its a foreign beer. Quite different from brewing a foreign style. This should be called something like "Madri Spanish Style Lager". A lot of British brewers already do this with pilsner and helles style but they are clearly British lagers and they are good and honest.
Especially since a lot of these supposed "foreign" beers are brewed in parts of England where the water is a lot harder than their homeland - completely different taste. I wonder why they never used Scottish breweries where the water is much softer? When Heineken bought over S&N, I would have expected them to jump on the bandwagon🤔
@@Suspended4thYTdont they all use burtonised water so once you have the recipe you plug that into your brewing system and from then it’s basically brewing by numbers.
Why don’t you just drink what you enjoy? That’s what I do, you see this is how it works,,,,,,you try a drink and if you like it you buy another one,, I like Mars bars, it was only a few years ago I found out they were really not from Mars but were made just down the road,, I still eat them.👍
The image on the front says it all - looks like an estate agent from Reading on a night out, not at all like someone from Madrid. Victoria from Málaga is on sale now in Britain and is a really nice Spanish beer.
100% agree with you . Most people dont really care. Its the sort of beer you drink when you are on a caravan holiday in a rural location and you are complety snookered into drinking it.
Lovely video!! I'm actually from Madrid and have actively refused to buy the so-called "lager" Madrí just because of the stupid marketing that tries to lure you into buying just because it forcibly integrates typical Madrid iconography onto the label. I didn't know it wasn't even made by a Spanish company, but will spread the word, mostly because we've never had too rich of a beer culture and truly local craft brewers are making amazing efforts to fix that. Thanks for this :)
I’m not sure why people think marketing a beer as being related to Madrid is a good thing. Madrid is one of the dullest cities in Europe. Guess many of their target consumers haven’t been there
I work in alcohol retail in Canada, and we got Madrí in recently and I did some bare minimum research (Google and Wikipedia) and saw that it was a British product... And in Canada it's brewed in Canada. So, you have a British macro lager cosplaying as a Spanish beer that's brewed in Canada.
And rumour has it, it's the original Carling Black Label recipe. So it's a British macro lager, cosplaying as a Spanish beer, brewed in Canada to a formerly Canadian recipe that became popular in Britain! 😂
Much as I dislike Madri for this reason it is a standard industry practise in the UK, sadly. We are sold inferior quality, lower strength imitations branded as continental lagers. People should stop buying them.
Madri is a dishonest beer. It is an absolute scam. Yes we should be avoiding it. It should be promoted as a Yorkshire lager. As a publican I would never sell it.
The best brewed lager in the UK is Samuel Smith's organic pure brew lager,in fact all Samuel Smith's lager are excellent,Sam Smith brewery learnt how to brew lager back in the day from the Germans
To be honest I'm surprised that a lot of these companies haven't been done for false advertising. Most of them, as you say, aren't even really a lager (having not been lagered), and then they try to pass them off as the product of another country when brewed in the UK. It's shite, and in any other product it would be called out.
Your second camera caught the spirit of the video going in and out of focus on the Budvar sign in the background! It’s that kind of attention to detail in the production that keeps me coming back to CBC!
If it’s brewed in the UK but trying to pass as something foreign it’s usually trash. Cruzcampo is another offender. absolute dish water and has glucose syrup as an ingredient 😂. I just grab a 6 pack of pilsner urquell. It never misses. Budvar is very nice as well.
@@louisbeerreviews8964 LOL no it isn't. It is owned and brewed by Molson Coors (Canadian Company, not Spanish), in Molson Coors facilities all around the world. The only thing Spanish about it is the name on the bottle.
It reminds me of the craze among UK breweries in the 1980s for brewing terrible lagers with German-sounding names like Grünehalle and Hofmeister. Couldn't agree more with the video.
I was shocked to see it on sale somewhere in Madrid in late August. It was clear to me that it was marketed "skilfully" in the same way Somersby cider was.
Well as my blind taste test of macro lagers showed, there is a definite difference... just not one you'd necessarily spot unless they were next to each other
As someone who used to work in advertising and marketing; The front of the packaging is advertising the back is the truth. If a consumer can’t turn a bottle around and read then, they probably don’t care, or are too stupid to worry about.
I spent three weeks in the UK this summer, noticed Madri being sold, and thought, "that's funny...I've never heard of that Spanish beer...and I've been to Madrid!" Didn't try it, 'cause when I'm in England, I tend to drink cask ale. Very amused to discover Madri is a scam!
Great video. This is one of my hobby horses and it was great to get a shout out about it a few weeks ago on the pod! It puts me in mind of a story in our family that assumed the status of truth, although I’m not 100% sure. We were in Germany in the 80s and I do recall picking up a box of tea and I think recall it actually had the strap line “as grown on the banks of the River Thames.” Thinking back maybe it said “as drunk”. So at least there was some possibility of truth, unlike Madri which is neither drunk nor grown in Madrid!
It’s a classic marketing strategy. Build the hype and throw money behind a brand. The sheep, sorry customers, that have no clue about beer and how it’s made or its ingredients provenance just drink what’s trending. Having worked in pubs for over 20 years and running a craft beer pub for the last 7 years I very much have my finger on the pulse of what is happening in the industry. Customers will just walk in and ask for that weeks ‘goto’ beer without even looking at our choice or even asking for a recommendation. It’s a sad state of the industry and pricing has gone through the roof too! We are charging almost the same for a mass produced beer like Peroni as we would for a beer made by a small brewery that hand crafts each batch of authentic beer.😢
No, it’s not. I’ve just opened the spreadsheet for the bill materials from the 2003, 2004 and 2005 calling production schedules, and it’s simply not the same list of ingredients or brewing schedule. Oh yes, I do work for Molson Coors.
I travel to Lanzarote at least three times a year, and my local has now jumped on the bandwagon, and installed Madri on tap, to take advantage of naive Brits thinking they are getting some authentic Spanish version of the stuff they get at home. Cheaper than UK prices, but still a full TWO Euro more expensive than the local lager, Dorada, that is brewed on the islands. So of course, at €2.50 a pint, I am happy to stick with the Dorada.
@@heneganov I don't mind it. When I'm in a warm country, I'm only looking for something cool and refreshing anyway - and at €2.50 a pint (that's about £2.13), it's a no brainer.
It shows the state of the UK lager market.. that they have no idea of pilsner ... copying a Spanish lager ??? And Italian lager is the best selling (have they started brewing in uk ,as yet?) .. ??! ... when in uk stick to bitter,Stout, ale ... if you want pilsner beers , helles ,try the beer where its made for centuries . Commercialisation killed the British beer industry.
@@MKRM27 I believe you, I suppose it's where you live? In the Midlands it's brewed in Wolverhampton and then I'm told San Miguel originates from the Philippines!? Either way I tried madri and I don't like it, for a larger I like staropramen as I think it still comes from the Czech Rep. BUT that maybe wrong now these days!
Wasn't this lager just made out of thin air by Carling to address it's non sales in pubs now. To take back some market share from peroni and morreti etc
At the end of the day, it's a supermarket lager - refreshing enough when chilled and much like the Danish/Italian/German/Belgian/other lagers it sits next too on the shelf, I've never bought it thinking "ooh, authentic Spanish cerveza". I've usually bought it thinking "ooh, 4 cans for £5 clubcard discount!" 😎
Just avoid buying any UK brewed 'Continental lager' and you'll be fine. It's utter pish.......That many people buy it tells you all you need to know about a lot of drinkers in the UK.....They'll drink anything as long as they get pissed.
I used to live in Spain and still travel there regularly, so I knew right away that Madri was a fake Spanish beer. But the British public are easily duped, and for some reason most people in the UK prefer drinking "foreign" swill to the amazing cask and craft ales that we have abundantly available. You know what they say about horses and water!
I've been drinking and enjoying Madri quite recently. Had no idea there was this controversy of its origin or marketing. As a Yorkshireman, I'm now even more enamoured by it being a local brew!!
@@stevehall2137 I am generally a lager drinker, it’s perfectly drinkable. My favourite has the (channel appropriate) Northern Monk as their house lager. Though as a Lancastrian I am somewhat disappointed ;)
Really interesting Jonny! Tadcaster is also home to Samuel Smiths Brewery isn't it? Love to see your thoughts on this brewery, their quality beers and the owners temperamental, sometimes manic behaviour!
Completely agree - I'm not a beer ninja but I do like good beer. I assume all beers I don't know are macro-brewed in the UK and are just labeled to look like they're from Spain/Germany/Australia etc and I give them a wide berth. Still, as an unintended side effect I just learned that Estrella Galicia is realy spanish 👍👍
I've been buying M&S Spanish Lager frequently during the summer. Guess what? It is brewed in Spain and it knocks the spots off Madri. Unfortunately, Madri is not the only beer that is brewed in the UK using the brand name of a foreign beer. THere are plenty around, but perhaps Madri is the most blatant fake. I avoid them all and try to buy the authentic beers.
Hong Kong's best selling beer "Blue Girl" has almost an identical story behind it (though the brand been around for as long as I remember) - it's a Hong Kong company faking a German beer and contact-brewing it in Korea.
Great vlog. I am that consumer we used to stop in a little dive bar at the top of the city in Madrid on the way back to the hotel after a day of tourist stuff and get a large ice filled flower pot of 6 various Estrella bottles for about €8 "bargain", the brand lured me in with the promise of those memories you are dead right but that's it they are done I will stick with the two Estrella varieties I can get here and also Xibeca which has turned up recently in Tesco for my memories, now you can ruin Steigl Goldbrau for me 😂
Great points. No time for this kind of dishonest marketing. When I drink a Verdant beer I think of the harbour in Falmouth and something about both Cloudwater and Track feels very true to Manchester. Couldn’t tell you why but it does to me. Just a couple of examples where provenance matters for me.
I am a german brewer. I have to correct the fact that brewers in germany would not laugh about the highly stabilized and filtered nature of the MC beers. Most of german beers are brewed in under 2 week, are highly processed with silica sol (sedimentation aid), Silica Gel (Protein fraction stabilizer) and PVPP (polyphenolic fraction stabilizer) and filtered either through a membrane filter or by using diatomaceous earth candle filters. Those are allowed under the (actually not really existing) German Purity Law. those process steps are basically common practice, even for medium sized brewery (50000 hl and up...probably starting even smaller)
And that's the reason why I love Frankonia so much in my town of 10000 inhabitants we have two local breweries and the next brewery is about 5 km away. This brewery is over 500 years old and 400 plus years owned by the same family. None of these breweries has more than 5000 Hl output, more probably about 1000 to 2000. In my neighbouring town everyone is welcome to the Sudhaus and have a talk with the brewer every Tuesday when he is preparing his weekly brew. The most funny thing is that even this traditional beer is much cheaper than the beer in the UK.
@@habi0187 I actually have nothing against all those things. What bothers me is that it is sold as Purity Law beer. By no means it is pure. The label Reinheitsgebot should be a choice but then a strictly regulated certificate. No water treatment, no technical aids, no filtration that interacts with the beer (Like DE is doing). The Reinheitsgebot implies quality which it shouldn't, because the beer regulations allow way too many aid chemicals. One hypocritical aspect of the Reinheitsgebot is the use of CO2 extract. A hop product by law mustn't be altered from its natural properties, that's why tetra hop product or iso-hop extract is forbidden. But due to the nature of the process of the CO2 extraction the alpha acids partially isomerize. Which changes the properties from its natural composition. But yet it is allowed. Why?
@@habi0187 plus incognito and spectrum need permission by the federal institutions because extract can only be given during the boil, since in the 1950s they used methanol for extraction as well and it is still in the law, although methanol extraction isn't a thing anymore. And spectrum and incognito do not have the isomerization issue as I understand from their patent
@@Mikkogram I totally agree with you. I am not so deep in the brewing like you I just appreciate the fact that in the small breweries in my area most of this stuff and techniques are not used. In the brewery at my neighbour town each week the beer is tasting a bit different from the last week due to the use of only natural ingredients. The malt comes from a Mälzerei in Bamberg and the hops comes out of a big bag as pressed pellets but when you break the pellet you see the cut leaves in it. I don't know if it has been treated before pressing I just saw that it is marked as organic hops from the Hallertau. About 100 years ago hops were still produced in our area but unfortunately it has been given up. Personally I always buy the so called Zwickel Beer from this brewery because I like the taste of the yeast. The Reinheitsgebot has been watered down by the industry that's true and it's a pity but when you look outside Germany and read the ingredients list of let's say Indian beer you realise that things can get much worse.
Exact same as the asahi craze in macro UK pubs - so many brits say its the worlds best lager - if they blind tasted it against others they would have no clue. The power of marketing in the macro lager scene is certainly powerful Estrella Galicia is brilliant - I headed to the brewery in Galicia this summer, brilliant tour and insight
@@TheCraftBeerChannel I’m more just speaking to the power of marketing in the space, as you said when its cold enough, there is very little difference. The drinkers of macro lager don’t recognise taste difference but certainly are drawn in by the ‘world’ feel. Yes I have so many non craft friends who love Asahi above all- its not the taste driving this. Maybe its younger demographic (20s)
I used to like Asahi about 10 years ago, but I swear it's changed. Also since consuming it watered down in plastic cups at the rugby world cup last year, I've vowed never to drink it again.
Sorry but I think you are mistaken. I've been on the Madrid brewery tour in Madrid, where Madri el alma de Madrid is from. Some times if you're lucky Snr Pedro Madri is there and greets the visitors. A true character, and truly Exceptional Cerveza de Madrid.
I think you're missing the big reason about why it became so popular. The San Miguel I was ordering in 2021/2 was jumping in price to £140/barrel. Or I could get Madri at £78/barrel. Easy choice. Since then they have raised prices and I think quality has gone down. Getting more and more bad pints out now.
I think the strangest one is the Sapporo imported which is brewed in Vietnam. Ive noticed the 330ml Heineken cans say imported on but not the larger cans.
Timeout did an article on this. Remember “spirit of Madrid” that can mean anything. The guy who came up with it heard a girl in the pub say she was farting a lot because she had Tapas , or he remembered the family holiday he had to Spain when he was a kid, or Real Madrid were playing on the television while he was thinking about coming up with a new beer, he was at Manchester Airport. He saw some typical british getting off a plane from Spain and he thought “hey let’s do a Spanish lager” to make it look more up Market will have a picture of some Spanish hipster on the bottle. When you were talking about Wetherspoons, that’s the perfect example. British people go to Spain on sleazyjet or conair those places they go will be very like Wetherspoons just hotter. Irony is Aldi now do a copy of this lager and that is actually Spanish.
I know of a spirit that says on the lable , "made in the heart of london" with an address and the spirit is sourced from Scotland from another company and the address is just their office in london. Never mind
I feel a Madri pump clip sticker campaign coming up as feminists did with underwear ads on the London Underground. They stopped those ads with a campaign, we should do the same with this lie....
One could argue that at least 3 people in Tadcaster have heard of Madrid, thus strengthening the link between the two places. Also, one could argue it's statistically probable that at least one person from Tadcaster has gone to Madrid on holiday, enjoy tapas, and said rather ineptly in Spanish "Hay una rana en mi baño." One could argue, but one won't.
I've lived in Madrid for about 15 years in total and here's what I think. The packaging for Madrí (stress on the second syllable) is actually pretty cool - the person depicted is a chulapo - like a pearly king/queen type equivalent. They've really got it right. and it looks as if it was made in Madrid. It tastes okay and they have tried to launch it over here but it has totally flopped. Why? Because the city is utterly in love with Mahou - either in it's milder clásica (green can) or cinco estrellas (red) guises. It's a symbol of the city in itself and most locals have drunk a swimming pool sized amount of it in their lifetimes. Other regional beers such as Estrella Damm can be found in the city, and i think the excellent Estrella Galicia has made inroads into Mahou's market share in the Madrid region in the past 10 years, but Mahou is very much still king here. There are old adverts in the style of murals for Mahou around the city and a handful of residential buildings that have giant Mahou signs that can be seen from motorways and main roads. It is to madrileño beer what PG is to British tea. Mahou is pronounced /mau/ by the way as in 'Chairman Mao'.
Molson Coors introduced Madri in response to Estrella Damm. Molson Coors were purchasing a huge amount of Estrella, to service their free trade customers. I know this, as I was there when they decided their response.
@@ilcorvo9559moretti had been around for a while. Molson Coors were the largest single on trade purchaser of estrella - became too frustrated at giving all that margin to the U.K. distributor of that brand, and growing its volumes. Took the volume for themselves, with a completely made-up beer
I really many years ago, we got a versos of "Charington's TOBY Ale" here in Canada, & for the world it tasted like every other industrial suds. This beer brand is brewed in Canada as well, & I wonder if MC ships the Canadian version to the US so it can legitimately say "IMPORTED" on the label?
If I am correct of the beers we drink in the UK Fosters was never Australian, isn't Guinness brewed in England so what is new? If you like the taste what does it matter? I had Madri in Spain this spring, wasn't up to much anyway.
No company should be allowed to mislead and give the wrong impression to customers. They should also be forced to tell us all the ingredients like they have to with foods. Were taken as fools.
Think there are others too that are all brewed in UK that give fake impression too…. Starting with an Italian sounding one…. Of course San Miguel has always been the classic 😊
Well to be fair, it's history is rich and interesting. I have no issue with contract brewing - just brands that co opt an identity they have no link to
The real shame is that this Madrí is more popular in UK than Estrella Galicia, the actual most popular beer in Spain.
Why is that a shame?
@@MKRM27 idk, maybe read my comment again?
@@MKRM27because Spanish lager is excellent, not fake Carling crap
I can't stand Estrella
@@MKRM27madri is Spanish
Estrella should do an ad campaign calling Madri out.
Estrella is brewed in Bedford! 😂
@@mickeyfinn8956 But also in Spain. Madrí on the other hand...
@@mickeyfinn8956 estrella damm is brewed in Bedford, not Estrella Galicia (the one Johnny's drinking in this video) which is brewed in Galicia.
@@mickeyfinn8956 many beers are brewed away from their origin. If you drink Stone IPA in the UK is was brewed in Germany - but it's still authentically the Californian company. Madri is different, it's not a spanish origin story, it's a lie.
@@mickeyfinn8956 The Bedford plant was opened quite recently. The Estrella Damm in the UK was being brewed in Barcelona the last time I looked at a bottle a few months ago, but I certainly won't be buying anymore after the UK supply is no longer brewed in Spain.
"classic ingredients like glucose syrup" made me giggle
Im fed up with what I call "fake foreign lagers" - foreign brands brewed in the UK. Mostly swill. It should be illegal to sell a British brewed lager and claim its a foreign beer. Quite different from brewing a foreign style. This should be called something like "Madri Spanish Style Lager". A lot of British brewers already do this with pilsner and helles style but they are clearly British lagers and they are good and honest.
Especially since a lot of these supposed "foreign" beers are brewed in parts of England where the water is a lot harder than their homeland - completely different taste. I wonder why they never used Scottish breweries where the water is much softer? When Heineken bought over S&N, I would have expected them to jump on the bandwagon🤔
@@Suspended4thYTdont they all use burtonised water so once you have the recipe you plug that into your brewing system and from then it’s basically brewing by numbers.
Why don’t you just drink what you enjoy? That’s what I do, you see this is how it works,,,,,,you try a drink and if you like it you buy another one,, I like Mars bars, it was only a few years ago I found out they were really not from Mars but were made just down the road,, I still eat them.👍
The image on the front says it all - looks like an estate agent from Reading on a night out, not at all like someone from Madrid.
Victoria from Málaga is on sale now in Britain and is a really nice Spanish beer.
that is very much traditional working class madrid style. no one actually wears it anymore of course, but it is definitely accurate.
It's traditional Chulapos dress worn in May for the festival
'estate agent from Reading' 😂
So, you have no idea what that guy on the label is? Understood.
It's called Vittoria and it's both horrendously sweet and bland
Great video! - the trouble is 95% of people just don’t care what they are drinking. They just want fizzy lager.
Sad! 😞
100% agree with you . Most people dont really care. Its the sort of beer you drink when you are on a caravan holiday in a rural location and you are complety snookered into drinking it.
Lovely video!! I'm actually from Madrid and have actively refused to buy the so-called "lager" Madrí just because of the stupid marketing that tries to lure you into buying just because it forcibly integrates typical Madrid iconography onto the label. I didn't know it wasn't even made by a Spanish company, but will spread the word, mostly because we've never had too rich of a beer culture and truly local craft brewers are making amazing efforts to fix that.
Thanks for this :)
I’m not sure why people think marketing a beer as being related to Madrid is a good thing. Madrid is one of the dullest cities in Europe. Guess many of their target consumers haven’t been there
Good ol’ Tadri
I work in alcohol retail in Canada, and we got Madrí in recently and I did some bare minimum research (Google and Wikipedia) and saw that it was a British product... And in Canada it's brewed in Canada. So, you have a British macro lager cosplaying as a Spanish beer that's brewed in Canada.
And rumour has it, it's the original Carling Black Label recipe.
So it's a British macro lager, cosplaying as a Spanish beer, brewed in Canada to a formerly Canadian recipe that became popular in Britain! 😂
We have Labat and Molson in the UK. None of those are brewed in Canada when you buy them over here.
I was shocked when I found out Innis and Gunn cans are being brewed in East York, Toronto.
@@MKRM27😂 they're crap in Canada too. Pe4haps Labatts Blue is barely passable as barely decent.
Much as I dislike Madri for this reason it is a standard industry practise in the UK, sadly. We are sold inferior quality, lower strength imitations branded as continental lagers. People should stop buying them.
Madri is a dishonest beer. It is an absolute scam. Yes we should be avoiding it. It should be promoted as a Yorkshire lager. As a publican I would never sell it.
The best brewed lager in the UK is Samuel Smith's organic pure brew lager,in fact all Samuel Smith's lager are excellent,Sam Smith brewery learnt how to brew lager back in the day from the Germans
@@markjohnathanappleton8642it's sad that most the classic uk breweries are now just owned by Heineken, coors or Budweiser
@markjohnathanappleton8642 I think Track or Donzoko would probably argue about the best lager. Big Foam in particular is excellent.
It seems Breweries/pub chains are really pushing it though
@@markjohnathanappleton8642 shame they don't know how to make good ale 🤭😉
To be honest I'm surprised that a lot of these companies haven't been done for false advertising. Most of them, as you say, aren't even really a lager (having not been lagered), and then they try to pass them off as the product of another country when brewed in the UK. It's shite, and in any other product it would be called out.
Your second camera caught the spirit of the video going in and out of focus on the Budvar sign in the background! It’s that kind of attention to detail in the production that keeps me coming back to CBC!
Yep totally on purpose.....
its biggest crime is that its utter shite
Too true. It’s not good.
All lager (Chemical) type beers are shitte! If only Weissbier was more readily available in British bars!
I’m a dark ale guy but you’re wrong, for a larger, Madi actually has a very nice taste especially as a pint.
If it’s brewed in the UK but trying to pass as something foreign it’s usually trash. Cruzcampo is another offender. absolute dish water and has glucose syrup as an ingredient 😂.
I just grab a 6 pack of pilsner urquell. It never misses. Budvar is very nice as well.
Brewed in multiple locations across Canada as well, hardly Spanish!
It’s brewed by a Spanish company and it’s still Spanish
@@louisbeerreviews8964 LOL no it isn't. It is owned and brewed by Molson Coors (Canadian Company, not Spanish), in Molson Coors facilities all around the world. The only thing Spanish about it is the name on the bottle.
Fake news, it’s brewed in the incredibly Spanish town of Burton Upon Trent
It’s brewed in tadcaster in Yorkshire as well.
Brewed in Costa Del Tadcaster
@@ELCNUmorFnaMehTit’s Spanish and it’s Spanish company
It reminds me of the craze among UK breweries in the 1980s for brewing terrible lagers with German-sounding names like Grünehalle and Hofmeister.
Couldn't agree more with the video.
I was shocked to see it on sale somewhere in Madrid in late August. It was clear to me that it was marketed "skilfully" in the same way Somersby cider was.
You have to wonder whether the only difference between these UK-brewed 'world' lagers is the label they happened to stick on the bottles that day.
Well as my blind taste test of macro lagers showed, there is a definite difference... just not one you'd necessarily spot unless they were next to each other
Drink Madri if you want today's beer to taste like you opened it yesterday. 😂
Even Estrella Galicia are being a little dishonest the version you get in Spain is 5.5% versus 4.7% for the version you get in the UK
It really cheeses me off that they force weaker beers on the UK, it's all well under 5% in supermarkets now.
As someone who used to work in advertising and marketing;
The front of the packaging is advertising the back is the truth.
If a consumer can’t turn a bottle around and read then, they probably don’t care, or are too stupid to worry about.
The classic Spanish ingredient “glucose syrup” made me laugh
Oh. This explains it. Not a beer connoisseur, but this is why all the British brewed foreign tastes like shite
@@andrewrossy they dye it sometimes to make it look darker as well
Madri is like a hybrid car. Hybrids are cars advertised as environmentally friendly but are petrol powered generators on wheels.
I spent three weeks in the UK this summer, noticed Madri being sold, and thought, "that's funny...I've never heard of that Spanish beer...and I've been to Madrid!" Didn't try it, 'cause when I'm in England, I tend to drink cask ale. Very amused to discover Madri is a scam!
yeh I thought this too - it just *appeared* everywhere one day
@@ozorna9401 and was heavily marketed and aggressively forced into the taps of chain breweries.
Brewed in Yorkshire, red rose on lapel? Standards have slipped.
Great video. This is one of my hobby horses and it was great to get a shout out about it a few weeks ago on the pod! It puts me in mind of a story in our family that assumed the status of truth, although I’m not 100% sure. We were in Germany in the 80s and I do recall picking up a box of tea and I think recall it actually had the strap line “as grown on the banks of the River Thames.” Thinking back maybe it said “as drunk”. So at least there was some possibility of truth, unlike Madri which is neither drunk nor grown in Madrid!
It’s a classic marketing strategy. Build the hype and throw money behind a brand. The sheep, sorry customers, that have no clue about beer and how it’s made or its ingredients provenance just drink what’s trending. Having worked in pubs for over 20 years and running a craft beer pub for the last 7 years I very much have my finger on the pulse of what is happening in the industry. Customers will just walk in and ask for that weeks ‘goto’ beer without even looking at our choice or even asking for a recommendation. It’s a sad state of the industry and pricing has gone through the roof too! We are charging almost the same for a mass produced beer like Peroni as we would for a beer made by a small brewery that hand crafts each batch of authentic beer.😢
Never mind that, try Aldi's "Grande" if you're after a Spanish lager. It's imported, tastes better and is cheaper too 👍
Madri Recipe is actually just the 2004 recipe for Carling with a upmarket label to then sell as a premium lager.
No, it’s not. I’ve just opened the spreadsheet for the bill materials from the 2003, 2004 and 2005 calling production schedules, and it’s simply not the same list of ingredients or brewing schedule. Oh yes, I do work for Molson Coors.
Aye mate that right? @@MKRM27
@@MKRM27thank you for calling out his BS
I travel to Lanzarote at least three times a year, and my local has now jumped on the bandwagon, and installed Madri on tap, to take advantage of naive Brits thinking they are getting some authentic Spanish version of the stuff they get at home. Cheaper than UK prices, but still a full TWO Euro more expensive than the local lager, Dorada, that is brewed on the islands.
So of course, at €2.50 a pint, I am happy to stick with the Dorada.
Everywhere you turn they are taking the piss out of consumers.
Though Dorada is shite as well. At least you're paying €2 less.
@@heneganov I don't mind it. When I'm in a warm country, I'm only looking for something cool and refreshing anyway - and at €2.50 a pint (that's about £2.13), it's a no brainer.
Of course it matters. It's the equivalent of Moe writing an umlaut on a Duff bottle and selling it to Homer as Düff from Sweden
Yes it matters and I will judge you for drinking Madri... ;)
Halfway through this vid I got a Peroni advert explicitly invoking the “transports you there” trope.
I read somewhere that it is Carling Black Label in a fancy bottle.
And san miguel is from the Philippines
It shows the state of the UK lager market.. that they have no idea of pilsner ... copying a Spanish lager ??? And Italian lager is the best selling (have they started brewing in uk ,as yet?) .. ??! ... when in uk stick to bitter,Stout, ale ... if you want pilsner beers , helles ,try the beer where its made for centuries . Commercialisation killed the British beer industry.
It did - though to be fair we never made good lager. Of course, now we have countless breweries making fantastic German and Czech style lagers
The big Italian lagers are UK brewed. We have plenty of excellent British lagers, widely available in pubs. Though maybe not in the industrial north.
I heard that the madri recipe was the old Carling Black Label recipe, after Molson Coors got caught selling it under ABV
Yes I have been told that too, also san Miguel is brewed in Wolverhampton for us in the uk
@@olderthangodsdog29San Miguel was brewed in Northampton.
@@MKRM27 I believe you, I suppose it's where you live?
In the Midlands it's brewed in Wolverhampton and then I'm told San Miguel originates from the Philippines!?
Either way I tried madri and I don't like it, for a larger I like staropramen as I think it still comes from the Czech Rep.
BUT that maybe wrong now these days!
Wasn't this lager just made out of thin air by Carling to address it's non sales in pubs now. To take back some market share from peroni and morreti etc
At the end of the day, it's a supermarket lager - refreshing enough when chilled and much like the Danish/Italian/German/Belgian/other lagers it sits next too on the shelf, I've never bought it thinking "ooh, authentic Spanish cerveza". I've usually bought it thinking "ooh, 4 cans for £5 clubcard discount!" 😎
I know what you're saying but some people do care about this sort of bullshit.
Just avoid buying any UK brewed 'Continental lager' and you'll be fine. It's utter pish.......That many people buy it tells you all you need to know about a lot of drinkers in the UK.....They'll drink anything as long as they get pissed.
'Brewed in the UK under licence' in tiny print on the bottles. Different brands, same gnat's p**s !! Avoid.
I used to live in Spain and still travel there regularly, so I knew right away that Madri was a fake Spanish beer. But the British public are easily duped, and for some reason most people in the UK prefer drinking "foreign" swill to the amazing cask and craft ales that we have abundantly available. You know what they say about horses and water!
I’m trying to get past how you said “Galicia” 😂😂
San Miguel is brewed in Wolverhampton 😒
And it's awful and tastes nowt like the Spanish stuff.
I've been drinking and enjoying Madri quite recently. Had no idea there was this controversy of its origin or marketing. As a Yorkshireman, I'm now even more enamoured by it being a local brew!!
Haha really confuses our quite frequent line about "drink local"!
Ha. Love this! ‘Drink local’.
@@stevehall2137 I am generally a lager drinker, it’s perfectly drinkable. My favourite has the (channel appropriate) Northern Monk as their house lager. Though as a Lancastrian I am somewhat disappointed ;)
La Sagra actually do brew a Spanish brewed Madrí lager and IPA these days. But it came after the success of the UK version
Isn't Madri just the original Carling recipe, before they started watering Carling down?
I heard that as well, if it is just proves they created madri just to pump up falling sales of carling
I doubt it given the use of unmalted barley, wheat and glucose!
Fairly sure it's just Coors light with added hop flavourings.
I heard that too, is it true?
I’m in Spain atm drinking the Spanish domestic version of Estrella Galicia at 5.5% - genuinely one of the best lagers out there.
If you're still there try the EG 1906, it's lovely too.
@@diskopartizan0850 didn't get chance soz
Interesting vid. Love your insight into this subject.
Really interesting Jonny! Tadcaster is also home to Samuel Smiths Brewery isn't it? Love to see your thoughts on this brewery, their quality beers and the owners temperamental, sometimes manic behaviour!
Ironic that I got a Peroni UK add during this
The irony is that the ALDI knock-off is brewed in Spain. So which is the fake?
Completely agree - I'm not a beer ninja but I do like good beer. I assume all beers I don't know are macro-brewed in the UK and are just labeled to look like they're from Spain/Germany/Australia etc and I give them a wide berth. Still, as an unintended side effect I just learned that Estrella Galicia is realy spanish 👍👍
I've been buying M&S Spanish Lager frequently during the summer. Guess what? It is brewed in Spain and it knocks the spots off Madri. Unfortunately, Madri is not the only beer that is brewed in the UK using the brand name of a foreign beer. THere are plenty around, but perhaps Madri is the most blatant fake. I avoid them all and try to buy the authentic beers.
Surely if it’s made with a bottom fermenting lager yeast it is a lager (not necessarily a good one but a larger nevertheless).
What is the best beers to get in the pub then?
That's a good simple question.
Hi, I'm in Hong Kong & our local Heineken, Carlberg, San Miguel are all made across the border in Guangdong, China.
Why would you want to drink Spanish beer anyway? It's like asking for Belgian paella...
I’ve heard it’s just the original Carling recipe rebranded
Not even that. Heard it was an old Carling recipe from the 1980s.
Back when Carling Black Label was half tidy
Hong Kong's best selling beer "Blue Girl" has almost an identical story behind it (though the brand been around for as long as I remember) - it's a Hong Kong company faking a German beer and contact-brewing it in Korea.
I wondered why I have never seen it in Madrid!! According to it's label it is 'La alma de Madrid' - the soul of Madrid.
Because it’s Spanish
Great vlog. I am that consumer we used to stop in a little dive bar at the top of the city in Madrid on the way back to the hotel after a day of tourist stuff and get a large ice filled flower pot of 6 various Estrella bottles for about €8 "bargain", the brand lured me in with the promise of those memories you are dead right but that's it they are done I will stick with the two Estrella varieties I can get here and also Xibeca which has turned up recently in Tesco for my memories, now you can ruin Steigl Goldbrau for me 😂
Cucurella drinks Estrella. Cucurella doesn't drink Madri.
But would you trust a man with that haircut?
But Madri really pairs well with the aftertaste of the packet you just shared in the slug and lettuce toilets with Josh from the BMW dealership.
Great points. No time for this kind of dishonest marketing. When I drink a Verdant beer I think of the harbour in Falmouth and something about both Cloudwater and Track feels very true to Manchester. Couldn’t tell you why but it does to me. Just a couple of examples where provenance matters for me.
Given it is in breach of consumer protection law yes it matters.
The same as Cobra, doesn't exist in India, just Kingfisher.
Cobra at least has a reputation within India as a diaspora thing. The same can't be said about Madri.
I am a german brewer. I have to correct the fact that brewers in germany would not laugh about the highly stabilized and filtered nature of the MC beers. Most of german beers are brewed in under 2 week, are highly processed with silica sol (sedimentation aid), Silica Gel (Protein fraction stabilizer) and PVPP (polyphenolic fraction stabilizer) and filtered either through a membrane filter or by using diatomaceous earth candle filters. Those are allowed under the (actually not really existing) German Purity Law. those process steps are basically common practice, even for medium sized brewery (50000 hl and up...probably starting even smaller)
And that's the reason why I love Frankonia so much in my town of 10000 inhabitants we have two local breweries and the next brewery is about 5 km away. This brewery is over 500 years old and 400 plus years owned by the same family. None of these breweries has more than 5000 Hl output, more probably about 1000 to 2000. In my neighbouring town everyone is welcome to the Sudhaus and have a talk with the brewer every Tuesday when he is preparing his weekly brew. The most funny thing is that even this traditional beer is much cheaper than the beer in the UK.
@@habi0187 I actually have nothing against all those things. What bothers me is that it is sold as Purity Law beer. By no means it is pure. The label Reinheitsgebot should be a choice but then a strictly regulated certificate. No water treatment, no technical aids, no filtration that interacts with the beer (Like DE is doing). The Reinheitsgebot implies quality which it shouldn't, because the beer regulations allow way too many aid chemicals.
One hypocritical aspect of the Reinheitsgebot is the use of CO2 extract. A hop product by law mustn't be altered from its natural properties, that's why tetra hop product or iso-hop extract is forbidden. But due to the nature of the process of the CO2 extraction the alpha acids partially isomerize. Which changes the properties from its natural composition. But yet it is allowed. Why?
@@habi0187 plus incognito and spectrum need permission by the federal institutions because extract can only be given during the boil, since in the 1950s they used methanol for extraction as well and it is still in the law, although methanol extraction isn't a thing anymore. And spectrum and incognito do not have the isomerization issue as I understand from their patent
@@Mikkogram I totally agree with you. I am not so deep in the brewing like you I just appreciate the fact that in the small breweries in my area most of this stuff and techniques are not used. In the brewery at my neighbour town each week the beer is tasting a bit different from the last week due to the use of only natural ingredients. The malt comes from a Mälzerei in Bamberg and the hops comes out of a big bag as pressed pellets but when you break the pellet you see the cut leaves in it. I don't know if it has been treated before pressing I just saw that it is marked as organic hops from the Hallertau.
About 100 years ago hops were still produced in our area but unfortunately it has been given up. Personally I always buy the so called Zwickel Beer from this brewery because I like the taste of the yeast.
The Reinheitsgebot has been watered down by the industry that's true and it's a pity but when you look outside Germany and read the ingredients list of let's say Indian beer you realise that things can get much worse.
Exact same as the asahi craze in macro UK pubs - so many brits say its the worlds best lager - if they blind tasted it against others they would have no clue. The power of marketing in the macro lager scene is certainly powerful
Estrella Galicia is brilliant - I headed to the brewery in Galicia this summer, brilliant tour and insight
Do they?! Not come across this view. My blind taste tests would certainly disagree with that.
@@TheCraftBeerChannel I’m more just speaking to the power of marketing in the space, as you said when its cold enough, there is very little difference. The drinkers of macro lager don’t recognise taste difference but certainly are drawn in by the ‘world’ feel.
Yes I have so many non craft friends who love Asahi above all- its not the taste driving this. Maybe its younger demographic (20s)
I used to like Asahi about 10 years ago, but I swear it's changed. Also since consuming it watered down in plastic cups at the rugby world cup last year, I've vowed never to drink it again.
@@charlesmcelroy7413 really depends where it's brewed. Japanese Asahi is great, the italian one not so much
@@charlesmcelroy7413yes, it’s now brewed in the UK!
The Lilt of beers.
Took me a while but o see what you mean now! Very similar approach to marketing
Oh lilt, a blast from the past. I used to quite like a can of lilt back in the day!
You can forgive Lilt as it was genuinely nice. I can't say the same for Madri.
Madri is Spanish because it tastes like Holiday and Spain post-1975 = Holiday
Don't all these macropilsners though?
Sorry but I think you are mistaken. I've been on the Madrid brewery tour in Madrid, where Madri el alma de Madrid is from. Some times if you're lucky Snr Pedro Madri is there and greets the visitors. A true character, and truly Exceptional Cerveza de Madrid.
I think you're missing the big reason about why it became so popular. The San Miguel I was ordering in 2021/2 was jumping in price to £140/barrel. Or I could get Madri at £78/barrel. Easy choice.
Since then they have raised prices and I think quality has gone down. Getting more and more bad pints out now.
Its rebadged Carling black label from the 90’s
If this was Wine, they’d be sued…
I think the strangest one is the Sapporo imported which is brewed in Vietnam.
Ive noticed the 330ml Heineken cans say imported on but not the larger cans.
Timeout did an article on this. Remember “spirit of Madrid” that can mean anything. The guy who came up with it heard a girl in the pub say she was farting a lot because she had Tapas , or he remembered the family holiday he had to Spain when he was a kid, or Real Madrid were playing on the television while he was thinking about coming up with a new beer, he was at Manchester Airport. He saw some typical british getting off a plane from Spain and he thought “hey let’s do a Spanish lager” to make it look more up Market will have a picture of some Spanish hipster on the bottle. When you were talking about Wetherspoons, that’s the perfect example. British people go to Spain on sleazyjet or conair those places they go will be very like Wetherspoons just hotter. Irony is Aldi now do a copy of this lager and that is actually Spanish.
I know of a spirit that says on the lable , "made in the heart of london" with an address and the spirit is sourced from Scotland from another company and the address is just their office in london. Never mind
If you think Exeter Wetherspoons is rainy you've never visited the one in Aberystwyth when I once drank "world beer" about 18 years ago.
I feel a Madri pump clip sticker campaign coming up as feminists did with underwear ads on the London Underground. They stopped those ads with a campaign, we should do the same with this lie....
One could argue that at least 3 people in Tadcaster have heard of Madrid, thus strengthening the link between the two places. Also, one could argue it's statistically probable that at least one person from Tadcaster has gone to Madrid on holiday, enjoy tapas, and said rather ineptly in Spanish "Hay una rana en mi baño." One could argue, but one won't.
Pleased to say Madri lasted only a couple of weeks in my local. People seem to be increasingly aware of the deception and gave it a wide berth
I've lived in Madrid for about 15 years in total and here's what I think. The packaging for Madrí (stress on the second syllable) is actually pretty cool - the person depicted is a chulapo - like a pearly king/queen type equivalent. They've really got it right. and it looks as if it was made in Madrid. It tastes okay and they have tried to launch it over here but it has totally flopped. Why? Because the city is utterly in love with Mahou - either in it's milder clásica (green can) or cinco estrellas (red) guises. It's a symbol of the city in itself and most locals have drunk a swimming pool sized amount of it in their lifetimes. Other regional beers such as Estrella Damm can be found in the city, and i think the excellent Estrella Galicia has made inroads into Mahou's market share in the Madrid region in the past 10 years, but Mahou is very much still king here. There are old adverts in the style of murals for Mahou around the city and a handful of residential buildings that have giant Mahou signs that can be seen from motorways and main roads. It is to madrileño beer what PG is to British tea. Mahou is pronounced /mau/ by the way as in 'Chairman Mao'.
Molson Coors introduced Madri in response to Estrella Damm. Molson Coors were purchasing a huge amount of Estrella, to service their free trade customers. I know this, as I was there when they decided their response.
Chasing moretti’s success as well I’d suggest.
@@ilcorvo9559moretti had been around for a while. Molson Coors were the largest single on trade purchaser of estrella - became too frustrated at giving all that margin to the U.K. distributor of that brand, and growing its volumes. Took the volume for themselves, with a completely made-up beer
Madri has glucose syrup added, in the ingredients
Another example of why the state of beer reflects social values…
Haven’t Fosters been doing this for years?
I really many years ago, we got a versos of "Charington's TOBY Ale" here in Canada, & for the world it tasted like every other industrial suds. This beer brand is brewed in Canada as well, & I wonder if MC ships the Canadian version to the US so it can legitimately say "IMPORTED" on the label?
If I am correct of the beers we drink in the UK Fosters was never Australian, isn't Guinness brewed in England so what is new? If you like the taste what does it matter? I had Madri in Spain this spring, wasn't up to much anyway.
No company should be allowed to mislead and give the wrong impression to customers. They should also be forced to tell us all the ingredients like they have to with foods. Were taken as fools.
Think there are others too that are all brewed in UK that give fake impression too…. Starting with an Italian sounding one…. Of course San Miguel has always been the classic 😊
It’s Galicia, not Galicía😊
In Madrid Mahou is number 1.
Mahou is the one true beer of Madrid
Simon from Real Ale Craft Beer says Madri is just an old Carling recipe from when it was higher in ABV. Do you think it's true?
Its false advertising, its the old Carling recipe
.......what about the famous "Belgian" lager....Stella Artois,,, that's actually owned by budweiser & brewed in the UK?????
Well to be fair, it's history is rich and interesting. I have no issue with contract brewing - just brands that co opt an identity they have no link to