13 craft beer bars and taprooms, ranked by our editors. Barcelona's brewing scene has grown from nothing to 40+ local producers in under a decade — here are the best places to drink it.
Barcelona's craft beer scene arrived late by European standards — German, Belgian, and British craft brewing had decades of head start. But the city has made up the distance fast. Garage Beer Co launched in 2015 and is now producing IPAs that would hold their own at any California taproom. BlackLab's barrel-aged stouts compete with anything from Belgium. Edge Brewing has a West Coast sensibility that comes directly from its American founders.
The interesting question for Barcelona is what happens when craft brewing meets a city with deeply embedded drinking traditions. The answer is vermouth-barrel-aged sours at Beerlab, Mediterranean-inflected session lagers at Nòmada, and house cava at bars that have been open since 1929. Barcelona craft beer does not wholesale adopt American or British templates — it absorbs them and makes something more interesting.
Price expectations are lower than London or Amsterdam. A 33cl craft beer at a Barcelona taproom typically costs $5 to $8; at a specialist bar like BierCaB or Garage, expect $6 to $10 for premium taps. The neighbourhood cava bars — La Plata, El Xampanyet, Can Paixano — serve under $5. An afternoon moving between craft taprooms and cava bars in El Born is one of the great $30 drinking experiences in Europe.
Combine this guide with the cocktail bars of Eixample and El Born for a full evening, and the hidden gems guide for the neighbourhood bars that run alongside all of it. The full Barcelona bar guide covers all 8 categories. For craft beer comparison, our London craft beer guide and Berlin craft beer guide follow the same editorial standards.
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