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In the spring of 2017 we did a tour of three islands in the Mediterranean. Our first stop was Malta. Louie picked it because the people speak English. For more info on this and our other stops go to our new web album.

Reference: https://www.europeanbeerguide.net/maltbrew.htm

Malta is made up of two islands: Malta and Gozo. Gozo is the home of the only craft brewery in Malta, so we had to go. The short ferry ride was enjoyable and scenic. It also included an advertisement for Lord Chambray Brewery on the back of the ticket. The beer turned out to be as good as the marketing.

We didn't try them all, but enjoyed the ones we did.

Next stop was Sardinia, part of Italy, and of course the people speak Italian, which we don't. The national beer of Sardinia is Ichnusa, which is how you say Sardinia in Sard, the island's language. But we didn't care for Ichnusa and since it's made by Heineken, we drank that instead. Unfortunately, we didn't get to try all of the listed beers.

We walked by a pub selling Marduk brewery beer, but it was closed. However, a deli down the street had the beers for sale. We grabbed a couple bottles thinking we had found a gold mine. Well, we kind of did in that they cost seven euros a piece (the euro is worth $1.12USD). The beer was very good, but we settled for German beers after that.

Our last island was Corsica (Corse), part of France, and the people speak French, which we definitely don't and the Corses didn't appreciate that we didn't. We seemed to have most of our difficulties in supermarkets. The rules confused us. At first we didn't know we needed to weigh our vegetables and print a label to put on a plastic bag. So when we carried them to the till without labels, the checkers shook their heads and directed us back to the veggie isle. Figuring out what button to push was harder than one would first think. We hate to use small plastic bags for one vegetable, so we stuck the label on the veggie or fruit. The scanners couldn't read the bar code on a round object. When the checkers growled at us in French we couldn't understand what they said but we knew they were upset. We always carry shopping bags, it's a way of life here in B.C., but we had only one, so jammed everything we could into it (and put the beer and water in Louie's pack). Also, when we got money from the ATM's, the machine gave out 50 Euro notes, and much to our surprise the banks didn't give change (the banks don't have any cash!). As a result, we always tried to pay with €50's in the supermarkets. If the checker noticed we hand any small bills, he/she would get upset and growl at us.

The local beers were limited, we tried them all.

All three islands had a wide variety of beers from all over Europe; we tried many of them. The thing I liked the most was the 75cl bottles, my size beer. The first time we bought one we forgot we didn't have a church key. Normally we both have one on our key chains, but since we had to deal with the jerks at TSA, we left them behind. Alas, we had to go back out and buy one, which we left in France before departure.

  

Al Strano ©2017