Searching for Craft beer in Valletta

Having given up on waiting for summer to arrive in the UK in 2024, we headed out for a week in Malta where there was ample sunshine and shorts weather.
In fact, it was so hot that I found myself pining for the overcast skies and rain showers of Minehead.  Yep, never happy.

Our first proper excursion with 'craft beer' on the itinerary was to the capital, Valletta.
The hilly streets of the town are strikingly wonderful, a wealth of impressive architecture whichever way you turn.

 

Mrs PropUptheBar is a bit of a WW2 history buff so we had to visit the war museum in St Elmo's fort at the tip of the peninsula (great views from the Bastion, but swelteringly hot).  We were later guided through the fascinating war tunnels (swelteringly hot, even underground).

Here's the view from the bastion, looking across to the controversial modern developments of Sliema on the other side of the bay.  For movie location buffs, the old barracks in the foreground starred as the Turkish jail in Midnight Express.

The temps were such that I worryingly had little enthusiasm for beer.  But a healthy late lunch salad and lots of water put that right, and we headed to The Pub in the middle of the afternoon.

This lady hasn't followed my instructions to act naturally when I take my pub picture.

The Pub (136 Archbishop Street, Valletta)
This small side-street bar is infamous as the place that actor Oliver Reed met his demise.  Reed was filming scenes for Gladiator in Malta in 1999 when he dropped dead after a drinking session with a group of sailors in The Pub on the 2nd May, aged just 61.
The Pub seem quite morbidly proud of this beer bar fatality.

I was pretty underwhelmed by this place when I visited many years ago, but I really quite liked it this time around.  It's small with a total of six tables in the ground floor room, hugging the walls either side with the fabric well-worn on the bench seating.  The bar is decorated throughout with pictures of our aforementioned hellraising actor and insignia of various naval crews that have passed through.

Beers on offer were Farson's 'Blue Label', Cisk, Strongbow, Guinness, and - rather more interesting - Red Mill Brewing Co. 'IPA' and 'Golden Ale'.

Established in 2023, Red Mill aren't quite the micro they appear - they're a craft offshoot of the island's big brewery Farsons, producers of Cisk, alongside their own ales.
That didn't stop me really enjoying the IPA which didn't suffer from over-carbonation or chilling that puts me off keg so often. 

Mrs PropUptheBar realised that the Cathedral was due to shut soon, so I valiantly agreed to stay in the pub and tackle the beers whilst she whizzed away to tick off the Caravaggio.
Therefore, The Pub can legitimately put up one of those 'Husband Creche' A-boards.

We moved on to what was touted as the cities top craft beer spot, appearing most frequently on Untappd.

67 Kapitali (67 Triq l-Ifran Il-Belt Valletta)
This was a comfortable single room corner bar with an unusual counter in that the draft taps were on the outside of it on one side facing the door.
They served 11 lines of beer from Malta's best known independent brewery, Lord Chambray, covering styles ranging from a strawberry sour to stout.  The hot weather made me pick something I'd usually steer well clear of - 'A Toda Velocidad', a Mexican lager packed with lime zest and brewed in collaboration with To Øl.

Our final beer bar in Valletta was a fair way through the streets back towards the barracks and bastion at the edge of the city.

Wild Honey Beer and Bistro House (131 Merchants Street, Valletta)
This was very quiet customer-wise, as we interrupted the barman from tinkering on his phone on a table in the corner.  There were a couple of other people called in whilst we were there, but we really didn't visit when the party was in full swing.

But it's a must-visit when in Valletta, with a good design, great music, a fine beer selection, and friendly staff.
I picked the Lord Chambray 'San Blas' on tap, whilst Mrs PropUptheBar made an excellent choice from the bottle fridge with the Lord Chambray one-off coconut stout.

Then I decided to be decadent and return to the fridge for a bottle of Westvleternen 12.

 

At that point, we hadn't really taken the opportunity to sample the best of the regular Lord Chambray range.  A couple of days later, we traveled north and hopped on the ferry to Gozo, where a visit to the brewery taproom was on the agenda.

Being a bit of a fan of some ancient stones, I was excited by the chance to visit Ggantja on Gozo.  I'd done the stone temples on the SW of Malta back in 2005, and covered a couple more smaller places from Julian Cope's Megalithic European during this week.
But Ggantja is the big one, an awesome complex on a massive scale, of which I don't have a single picture doing it justice. 

We caught the bus from the village of Xaghra down to Victoria, the island capital: overly busy with coachloads of folk, hectic and hot.  The attempt to walk around the walls of the Citadel in the mid-afternoon heat just about finished me off.

Another short bus ride took us to Xewkija, a couple of miles south of Victoria, and home to Lord Chambray on a small agricultural park.

Lord Chambray (Mgarr Road, Ix-Xewkija)
The brewery was set up in 2014 as the first craft brewery in Malta and has since enjoyed a fair bit of success.  Originally a reception area and small tasting area, the front bar has been transformed into a smart tap room over the subsequent years
There is a handy map on the website showing everywhere on the island that stocks their beers, acting as a good guide, although I typically spotted that when I was coming home.

Between us we tried the American pale ale, white IPA, wheat beer, wittbier with local rosemary, and Fungus Rock stout.
All great stuff.  Enjoyed in the air conditioning with a contemporary soundtrack of music I didn't recognise.
The Lord Chambray beers were great, but there was more local craft to be had in Sliema, which is what I'll be waffling on about in the next post.