In a Berlin beer hall, before they pour your Berliner Weisse, they ask you one question: red or green? This week’s folktail is a sour wheat beer with a shot of syrup that survived by getting smaller. Bar Convent Berlin, the most important bar show of the year, is about to try the same.

A folktail is what I call a street drink: popular, cheap and rooted in a place. Every week I follow one and, through it, tell you the bar and hospitality industry news, in about fifteen minutes.

In this episode:

• The Berliner Weisse mit Schuss: the “Champagne of the North” (legend or not), old bottles aged like wine, and why Berliners started adding raspberry and woodruff syrup around 1900
• Bar Convent Berlin (BCB) drops from three days to two in 2027, after around 11,000 visitors in its 20th edition
• Zana Möhlmann (Manhattan Bar, Singapore) wins Diageo World Class 2026 with a barrel-aged Rob Roy. I met her in Amsterdam, when she was at Flying Dutchmen Cocktails and Super Lyan, and she was the one who recommended my barber
• Ana Roš (Hiša Franko, Slovenia) won’t travel to Lima for The 50 Best Restaurants gala, even though she’s number 60 on the list
• Max Shapiro vs Massimo Bottura: “the worst meal of my life” at Osteria Francescana, and the answer in the Instagram comments
• What one extra star on Yelp or Google Maps means for an independent restaurant, according to a Harvard Business School study by Michael Luca
• Why every new café and wine bar looks the same, from Bilbao to Lisbon to Mexico City
• Think Drinks’ UK trends report: are we drinking less, or just lighter? Plus the rise of the Hugo Spritz and low-ABV drinks
• Absolut x Charli XCX, “I love Dirty Martini” T-shirts and a song called “Card Declined”

Coming up: Lucerne Cocktail Week, Athens Bar Show (3–4 November), The 50 Best Restaurants in Lima (4 November), Puerto Rico Cocktail Week (8–14 November), the first Manchester Cocktail Festival (from 9 November) and Bar Convent Berlin 2027 (4–5 October).

And to finish, two one-star Google reviews for two of the best cocktail bars in the world. One says skip the cocktails and order a beer. Which bars? Listen and find out.

Folktails is a weekly podcast about cocktails, bartending and the bar and hospitality industry, made from behind the bar by Alf del Portillo, bartender and co-owner of Quattro Teste in Lisbon.

Follow me:
Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/alfdelportillo⁠
Linktree: ⁠https://linktr.ee/folktailsbyalf⁠
YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/@folk_tails⁠
Substack: https://folktails.substack.com

TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@alf.del.portillo⁠

A mother in a Spanish village with no bus needed a bar that would feed her daughter once a week. That bar will never be on a list, and this was the week the bar industry sat down to grade itself.

In this episode:

• Bar Convent Berlin turns twenty, drops to two days, and why the third day matters
• The 50 Best Bars list: Bar Leone, London down to three, Hamish Smith (CLASS Magazine) and Tyler Zielinski
• Kings Heath, Birmingham: Matt Wilden (Perro) and Katie Rouse (Couch) open a bar. Chelsie Bailey (Happiness Forgets) on moving to London. Abraham Rivera
• Tom Kerridge's VAT petition, the British Beer and Pub Association on pub closures, and why I think rent is the bigger squeeze

• Rules and the National Trust
• The KAM report on alcohol-free drinks, and what it means behind the bar

• Noah Galuten in Punch on the beach dive bars of southern California, and
• Plus two reviews of reviews of cocktail bars.

Follow me:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/alfdelportillo
TikTok and everything else: https://linktr.ee/folktailsbyalf
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@folk_tails
Substack: https://folktails.substack.com

The number for the week is three — the British bars in this year’s World’s 50 Best list. In the first episode of Folktails, we dig into what the new rankings actually say about who’s rising, who’s falling, and whether novelty has quietly become the real currency of the list (the bars climbing have been open 5 years on average; the ones falling, 9).

Plus: US craft distilleries closing faster than they’re opening, Southern Glazer’s getting sued over pricing to small retailers, London Cocktail Week scraps its festival-wide fee, a Tamago Sando goes viral for all the wrong reasons, and the story that stopped us in our tracks — a 103-year-old bartender in Maryland still pouring drinks in his cash-only basement, 60 years in. We also read (and roast) a couple of real reviews left at Bar Leone and The Clumsies, break down a new technique called “Frost Bloom,” and look ahead to what’s coming at Bar Convent Berlin.

Folktails is a weekly podcast about hospitality, food and drink — cocktails and bartending at the center — hosted by Alf, bartender and co-owner of Quattro Teste in Lisbon.

Follow along:
Instagram — @alfdelportillo / @quattro.teste
TikTok & YouTube — @folk_tails
Newsletter — folktails.substack.com
Everything in one place — linktr.ee/folktailsbyalf

Got news, feedback, or something you want us to talk about? Write to alf@etxealisboa.com

New episodes every week. Better drinks, less noise.