The saying goes that if it walks like a duck, smells like a duck and quacks, it must be a duck. Let’s transfer the expression to the case at hand: if it’s called Madrí, is defined as the soul of Madrid and has a chulapo on the label, it has to be a Madrilenian beer… or maybe not.
Madrí Excepcional has been one of the trendiest beers in the UK since 2020. The reasons for its success and boom are related to (in this report by Luis Alemany for El Mundo and in the pandemic context) with a kind of homesickness for Spain and in a short time it has become one of the ten best-selling beers in the country.
where is Madrí Excepcional manufactured?
And also manufactured in the country, of course. Exceptional Madrí belongs to British brewing giant Molson Coors, which joined forces with La Sagra (a Toledo brewery created in 2011) to give rise to this beer that the only thing madrileño about it is its name.
Molson Coors, by the way, is the third largest brewer in the world and owns brands such as Carling and Blue Moon. In their definition of the Spanish brand they say: “Madrí Excepcional is crisp, clean and refreshing with a short, bitter finish”.
It comes as a surprise to the tourist who occasionally visits England. The presence of Madrí Excepcional is not testimonial. Pub taps and supermarket shelves have the chulapo logo. And at that point it is surprising to look at the label and see that the beer is brewed in the town of Tadcaster, located in the county of North Yorkshire, England.
The beer controversy
As a result of this last condition, an executive of Estrella Galicia accused the brewery of engaging in a dishonest practice (to be honest, it is logical: it is hard to imagine Estrella Galicia factories in Teguise) in an interview with the Telegraph: “There is a lack of transparency because they use the name of a famous Spanish city, but they don’t produce there. It’s confusing for the consumer,
His case refers to an almost global logic of exoticization of any foreign element. In this case it is Madrid, barely attractive a couple of decades ago and with the figure of the chulapo as a marketing element a few years later: the mere presence of beer is to the capital what chorizo paella is to Valencia.