Madri Excepcional

0.5 can. Pours golden yellow with huge white foam that dissipates rather slowly, a bit of veil stays. Aroma is nothing special, rather on the dull side, a bit sweet and malty. Flavor is stale, finish is a little bitter, grassy, grainy. Carbonation is low side of medium. Body is quite light. Pretty dull beer but not offensive. Another one - no thanks, nothing excepcional.

0.5l can from Konzum Vrbik, made at Apatinska pivara in Serbia. Bloody. Hell. The fakest of the fake macro brands has started worming its way outside of its English (not Spanish) homeland and into other MolsonCoors markets. Not really sure why they are pushing another useless run of the mill lager into the Croatian market - I'm guessing because someone ordered they had to - and partly maybe to steal some crumbs off of Estrella which semi-established itself... or maybe so English tourists getting wasted can drink something recognizable, that reminds them of home. I don't know. But here it is, and it's a tick, and I'll get on with it so that I can safely ignore it forever (unless maybe when it's free and I'm thirsty).

Beautiful crystal clear golden body, fairly big, thick white head, falling apart a bit unevenly. Dusty sweetish maltiness is dominant in the aroma with some vague hops in the taste, with mild green apple coming through later. Acetaldehyde marks the taste too, the green apple notes showing up in between sweet soft vaguely caramelly maltiness, edged by vague floral, herbal hoppiness, bit minerally and low, low yeasty touches. It's got the smoothness the least demanding beer drinkers might appreciate, but it's not clean and it's not good. Not seeing it make any kind of foothold here unless they invest an ungodly amount of money into pushing it everywhere, with questionable payoff.