Urpa, la nest-savior beer

In Catalonia, for more than twenty years, the administration has been looking after the conservation of the Montagu’s harrier (Circus pygargus). It is a threatened migratory bird of prey, typical of open landscapes and that mostly breeds in cereal fields. The advance of the mowing period due to the use of new crop varieties means that many nests can be dug up by the harvesters and that is why in Catalonia it is obligatory to leave a quarter of a hectare of cereal field unmowed, wherever it nests, in exchange for the farmers receiving compensation for the loss of that crop.

In 2022, a group of local naturalists from the association Limonium Natura had the initiative to buy the mature barley from two fields where the gray sedge had nested and make a special, unique beer from it to give to the farmers involved With the aim also of visualizing the problem of the species and with the idea, in the long run, of helping to finance measures for the protection of the gray harrier and its habitat, Urpa, the nest-savior beer.