Madrí: row brews over Yorkshire's 'Spanish' lager

You'd be forgiven for thinking that Madrí Excepcional beer is "as Spanish as it comes", said The Telegraph.

Launched during the Covid pandemic, it was the "sales sensation of the year" in 2023 among Britain's alcohol brands, said The Grocer. But the Madrí logo is "a man adorned in the distinctive 19th-century chulapo style associated with the Spanish capital", and the bottle "features the phrase el alma de Madrid – the soul of Madrid," said The Telegraph.

Yet the beer is actually brewed in Tadcaster, Yorkshire, by Molson Coors, prompting accusations of dishonesty from an actual Spanish beer boss. 

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'Duped and cheated'

Aitor de Artaza, international managing director of Estrella Galicia, has criticised the makers of Madrí for using "a big famous city in Spain" for marketing, even though "they don't produce here", which is "confusing for the consumer".

Accepting that it was a "nice job" in terms of "marketing", he added that it was "a little bit tricky because people think they are drinking a Spanish beer". He told The Telegraph: "They are not very clear and not, to my point of view, very honest."

Southpaw, a creative agency that worked with Estrella Galicia, told The Grocer last year that beer lovers are "starting to get really upset about being duped and cheated by big British-brewed brands masquerading as Spanish beers". It described them as "noisy pretenders".

Molson Coors, the US firm that makes Madrí, "has a history of marketing its beers with a geographically ambiguous origin story", said Fortune. It also makes Blue Moon, a "Belgian-style wheat beer" that was produced in Denver, Colorado.

'Blurred provenance'

Madrí is certainly not the first British beer to claim affinity with elsewhere in Europe. These sorts of lagers "sound like they're from Spain or Italy", with their "loud, brightly coloured labels" that "make you think of long days in the sun, crunching on little bowls of olives and manchego", said Time Out. "When you sip them in a pub garden you forget all about the woes of the UK." But "sorry, people, you've been had".

Brewing Madrí in the UK is more environmentally friendly than importing from the Continent, said Molson Coors, and it is made "in collaboration" with La Sagra, a Spanish brewery near Madrid.

"Any qualms about authenticity have not hindered the remarkable rise of Madrí," said The Telegraph. It recently topped £100 million in UK supermarket sales. "Like it or not, this is the summer of Madrí and it will be some time before Britain's taste for the 'soul of Madrid' fades," said the paper.