Food & Beer Culture

What do people in Barcelona eat with their beer? Tapas. A caña in Catalonia is typically paired with pa amb tomàquet — toasted bread rubbed with ripe tomato and drizzled with olive oil and salt. Alongside it comes fuet, a thin, air-dried sausage, plus cheese or ham.

In Barceloneta, the old fishermen's quarter by the harbor, people order bombas — fried balls of mashed potato filled with ground meat and served with spicy sauce. The crust is crisp, and the cold lager cuts through the fat in the mouth. The same goes for croquetas and fried sardines.

Classic dishes of the region include escalivada, oven-roasted vegetables made of eggplant, pepper, and onion, and botifarra, a Catalan sausage often served with white beans. The beer rinses away the smoke and fat, and the lager's light body never overwhelms any of it.

In winter and spring, it's calçotada season. Calçots are long, mild spring onions grilled over an open fire until the skin turns black and charred. You peel them, dip them in romesco sauce, and eat them with your hands. Wine often accompanies the meal, but a cold lager also suits the sweet, smoky onion beautifully.

Ordering together is something of a ritual. Dishes are shared from the middle of the table, round after round of fresh caña gets ordered, and the evening stretches on. The city's biggest festival is La Mercè in September, when all of Barcelona takes to the streets to celebrate — and a cold beer, naturally, is part of it.