Beer in Brazil Part Deux

An English man, a Scottish man and an Irish man walk into a pub in Porto Alegre…. The joke´s on them, there are no Pubs, no real pubs, in Porto Alegre as far as I can tell after 2 years here.  Not pubs as we would understand them in any case. This is not a slur just an innocent observation as there are some inextricable differences in atmosphere, method, blah and blah. That said, there are lots of good, some great, Pubstitutes. Some of them are even called Pubs as opposed to Bars to make them easier to spot.

Say you fancy a liquid lunch, pubs in Porto Alegre don´t usually open till about 6pm so you´ll find yourself having to sit in a neon-blanched lanchonette sharing a midday drinking sesh with retirees. To get a good beer at that time of day the best place I know is Café Cantante in Bom Fim. The staff are nice and you´ll never be alone as there are other lonely people sat in close proximity to you sipping their coffee, reading the paper and wobbling about on the dainty furniture.

Kerouac- Best English night in the city

After 6pm on a Tuesday (the beginning of the drinking week for most locales) you can find a variety of botecos, bars and pseudo-pubs in the area of Cidade Baixa. All of the pubs have table service which means you rarely get up save to go to the bathroom but makes it difficult to mingle.  When you enter these establishments you are given a comanda, a slip of paper on which your orders are tallied and which you lose under pain of a billion R$ fine. The fine is only to spook you, there´s no legal way they can make you pay it. The real problem with the comanda system is when you miscalculate your own funds.

Sadly, the vibrancy of cidade baixa has been coming under attack from a neighbourhood coalition demanding curfews. This has cut off the life blood to some smaller, newer pubs who depend on live music to keep going. The new pubs that don´t have an immediate buzz around them find themselves skittering around like Bambi on ice and are soon dead. The longevity of a pub is one of the deeper differences between back home and here. If you get the chance before it slips off the edge of the world then I heartily recommend the bluesy  beatnik bar the Kerouac Rock Pub in Cidade Baixa which has live music and a kick-ass English pub quiz (see Pub Quiz POA on facebook for info).

Bier Keller - where mugs defy gravity

Some other places I recommend:  First, the Bier Keller is a mysterious tavern hidden somewhere in Porto Alegre. It´s beautifully decorated and has a giant walk-in fridge stocked full of beers from around the world. Entry is by invitation only and it´s a little pricey but the atmosphere is wonderful. Second, the Malt Store in Petropolis is a shop offering a vast array of beers. It has a few tables for degustaçao, meaning you can drink yourself merry until about 10pm. Third, Imperial on the corner of Rua Santana, is a great, great boteco with ninja-fast service, top food and a real buzz. Last and my favourite pseudo-pub is Lagom. A brew-pub in Bom Fim where you can be served draught beers in pints and listen to Maiden!

Some places to avoid: It´d be unfair to name names. Certain irish bars near Redenção with their no havaiana policy (isn´t this Brazil?); an eponymously owned pub on Avenida Mariland where they´ll try to convince you that their sound system isn´t malfunctioning and that Robert Plant raps as fast as Apache Indian while simultaneously telling you that Baden on the menu means Baden Crystal and not Baden Golden which is 5r$ more please; a Bukowski joint which would be amazing if it had about 10 more floors to fit all the sardines in. 

I haven´t been to all of the so-called pubs here, whole streets and neighbourhoods are missing from my experience, and I imagine there´s many more wonderful surprises in store, perhaps even a real pub with London Pride on tap and KP nuts and Sunday roast. 

Sharing my experiences of beer in Brazil, how it´s served and where to find it! (Read part 1)

Now, if you're looking for bars with latin music in, try here.

Beer in Brazil

My first close encounters with beer in Brazil were ordering pints of Brahma, Nove Schin and Kaiser and being given a Choppy instead. I couldn´t understand why I kept being given girly half-pints, half-full with espuma (head).  The beer was cold, so cold I burped ice cubes, and undeniably refreshing but basically tasteless and in lilliputian measures. What was going on?

Soon though I was to discover bottled beers and the strange and shady  world of casco-recycling.  Authentic churrasco is one of the wonders of the world, but unlike the Taj Mahal it goes better with a cold beer.  Big brown bottles of the stuff: Original, Bohemia, Serramalte, their labels slipping off from condensation. When you buy these beers from the shops, you´ll notice that each beer has two prices. That´s because if you bring your empty bottles back to the shop you just pay for what´s inside the casco! Not every bottle is recyclable though and if you build a collection of empties hoping to cash them in, be careful the grateful shopkeep keeps a proper tab. The charitable thing to do is to leave your empties on the street. Here selective littering is a form of charity, as hard laboring poor folk collect cardboard, cans and cascos for recycling.

One of the hardest things to deal with in our different drinking cultures is the Brazilian musketeer approach: All for one and one for all. A 600ml bottle of Original, roughly a pint, becomes property of the collective and is shared equally into pesky little half-pint glasses. The beer evaporates faster than agua com gas, it´s close cousin. Normally if I know my pint is about to be gang-banged,  I try to drink just a little bit faster than everybody else and be sure that I serve the drink, giving plenty of head  to Brazilians who see a lot of espuma as a mark of quality. Here there is no thumb-rule, draught beers from the Shamrock Irish bar to the boteco chopp dispensers are served as if it was bubble bath.

In London, we have a great range of craft ales, we even donate to CAMRA, a society to protect this endangered species. We care more about ales than we do pandas, by and large. If I was to survive Porto Alegre, I knew I would have to find something a little more palatable than thirst-quenching Original. Fortunately, Brazil is at the beginning of what I feel is a beer revolution. The economy is fermenting, people´s salaries are rising and with the world cup brewing, new pubs, breweries and shops are being opened. Yeast is so in right now, that even my wife has dropped out of uni to become a beer sommelier!

Generally, there is a huge mark-up on imported ales. Alas-alack-a-day, you can buy a Bishop´s Finger here but it costs an arm and a leg. Instead, rather than drink expensive imports you can find brilliant national beers.  Seasons, Coruja, Eisenbahn, Way, Helles, Colorado, Rasen, Bamburg and Backer all make good beers. Beers you´d gladly risk walking a mile at night to find.

The well-stocked ´Malt Store´ Cervejas Artesenais - Petropolis

Sharing my experiences of beer in Brazil, how it´s served and where to find it! (Read part 2)

Latin America in Porto Alegre

I like Porto Alegre most for its pure identity. Almost everything in the city exists for the locals and because the locals feel a connection to it. Therefore it’s hard to find anything here that is not Rio Grande do Sul.

However, lately I started taking salsa classes. While you can find several teachers who can teach you to dance a rhythm that is not Brazilian, there are very few places to actually go and practice.

So, I am taking it upon myself to introduce the two places that I found that play Latin American music, such as salsa, merengue, bachata…

Pub Insano (only on Sundays) in Cidade Baixa

Sunday nights at Insano have become legendary for the salsa schools and their students. Although you will find “normal people” (also known as “beginners”) dancing there, it is usually packed with semi-professionals and genuine dance gods and goddesses that will make you want to give up on your dancing efforts in 5 minutes. They have a band and the music is truly good!

Bar Sierra Maestra in Cidade Baixa

Sierra Maestra is a Cuban bar that has salsa playing every day of the week. On Fridays and Saturdays they bring in a band, on other days the music comes from a CD player. The owners are a Cuban-Brazilian couple who have the most fascinating life stories to tell. When you go there, make sure you ask them about how they ended up in Porto Alegre, and bar owners. This is my favorite place to go out at night in Porto Alegre. Despite it being completely charming, well-priced and in a convenient location, the place is almost always empty. Which is a good opportunity to chat with the owners!

Does anyone know of another place?

Read about other bars in Porto Alegre, by Barry Flynn.

Fusion no Sótão Electro Pub

Hoje, 11 de outubro, a partir das 23:00 (véspera de feriado), ocorrerá mais uma edição da Fusion, projeto de música eletrônica com grandes DJs. O ambiente possui duas pistas. Na pista principal, destaque para os djs convidados Lê Brehm e Double S (KIMIK), além de Eliézer Paze e Luciano Araújo. Muito Techno, Detroit, Minimal, House e Techouse. Na pista superior, 2º floor, Hypnotic Minimal & Schranz Style. Destaque para o DJ Luciano Benites.

Pista Principal: Lê Brehm; Elíéser Paze; Cael; Luciano Araújo; Double S; e Ilton Palma.

2º floor: T. Alexx; Luciano Néris; Otto Schranz; Jean Lemos; e Luciano Benites.

O Sótão Electro Pub fica na Rua João Alfredo, nº 383, no Bairro Cidade Baixa. O telefone é (51) 3062.6528. Confere a localização do pub no mapa clicando aqui.