The big guns

To this northern European it's a very alien drinking culture they have in Argentina. It would almost be fair to say that they don't really have one. Beer tends to be treated almost the way we treat wine: shared comunally with meals. The human need for mild psychoactive stimulation appears to be taken care of by the ever-present mate -- a ubiquitous cross between tea-drinking and pipe-smoking. In several places, a request just for beer was met with well-OK-then suspicious looks, though doubtless I could have got my mate thermos filled with hot water as a basic courtesy. On one occasion I ordered a beer while perusing the menu in a restaurant and since my wife didn't, the 33cl bottle arrived to the table with two glasses. These bizarre backward foreigners with their weird notions of beer being something to be served in large bottles and enjoyed with food. What do they know, eh?

One upshot of such practice is that big bottles are the norm for most beers, certainly the stuff the mainstream breweries produce. For some unfathomable reason 970ml is the standard measure (and cm³ is the standard unit). There's a definite thrill of the exotic when glancing through the window of a classy restaurant to see a family at table with giant mutant bottle of Stella Artois in a silver ice bucket on the side.

None of that for me though. On a cool sunny day in downtown Puerte Iguazu, however, I did partake in a big bottle of Iguana. I love the branding on this, though the beer is a very simple and thin quenching hot-country lager, designed for taking edges off thirsts and nothing else. The other biggie I met, again in Iguazu where choice was severely limited, was Palermo Ice. Quite smooth and sweet, this, in almost a Munich Helles style.

Only two servings of Quilmes Cristal passed my lips on the trip, one being in a pub which I'd been told had a great beer selection, and indeed featured well over a dozen taps, but for some reason (recent change of ownership?) was serving only Stella and Quilmes and I was too tired and thirsty to back out. It was horrible. The other was in the Iguazu Falls park itself, after a long morning of trailing about in hot sunshine we sat down for an empanada and an ice-cold Quilmes straight from the can. It was nectar. I didn't enjoy the stout or bock from the same brewery when last we met, but my curiosity was piqued by Quilmes Red Lager. It's a red-brown beer with some nice roasted flavours at first, but it gets too sickly too quickly and I resorted to draining the remains straight from the bottle, confident I wasn't missing much by way of sensory experience.

Imperial Lager I met on the terrace of an upmarket bar in the rejuvenated dockland district of Puente Madero. It looks the part, or maybe that's just because it was a nice day. A bit stronger than the usual at 5.5% ABV, it's another sweet one, expressing hints of banana ester that get louder as it sits around. But that's about it: definitely not as especial as the label would have you believe.

I'm not sure where on the macro-independent-craft spectrum the beer from Otro Mundo sits, but I'm sticking the one I had in here: Otro Mundo Golden Ale: a bold move to sell it in a half-litre bottle, I'm sure. It's very pale and quite hazy with some fun fruit tartness: a bit of apple and some light lemons. First impression is of a light and zesty ale for witbier lovers, though wait a while and there's some toffee to be found in here as well. Passable, I thought.


The brass-neck award for audacious marketing bullshit goes to Schneider, one of the major lager brands and one which makes big claims about its German heritage and standards. Featuring the signature of old Herr Schneider himself, it's brewed "according to German tradition". I caught up with it on the ferry crossing to Uruguay, where the label's fine print confessed to "cereales" of the non-malt variety, as well as stabilisers and anti-oxidants. In short it's a hideous adjunct lager: dry, dull and unpleasant. I don't think I've ever seen a beer put this much distance between what it is and what it claims to be.

And then, just like that, we were in Uruguay.

Amateur night

Bringing your own beer to the pub is great. Drinking beer that other people have brought to the pub is even better.

Last Thursday the Bull & Castle hosted a tasting night for the members of IrishCraftBrewer.com. Seven homebrewers brought their wares along and the standard was, frankly, amazing. Highlights included a hopped-up amber ale, a cherry stout, and a porter which -- were it available on the open market -- would leave Messrs Fuller, Smith and Turner quaking in their boots. It was a good night.

We non-brewers were permitted to bring along any interesting or unusual beers we had come across, and the management generously offered round some of the oddities they had accumulated but had no intention of selling. I don't think the commercial beers were deliberately chosen to make the homebrew look good, but that's certainly how it turned out for me.

Starting with something light, I tried a Tusker, fully aware that it doesn't have the greatest reputation, even among African lagers. It's pretty close to being your average tasteless fizzy yellow beer, but there's an almost weiss-like fruit flavour in there as well. Not enough to make it really worth drinking, however.

I've long been curious about King Cobra, the extra-strength double-fermented version of my favourite pseudo-Indian English lager. I wasn't impressed, however. There's all the corny taste of regular Cobra, but the lightness of body which makes the standard beer palateable is replaced with a heavy, sticky body which just tips over into special brew territory. Not recommended with curry. Or anything else.

Passing real Africa and fake India, we come home to Ulster. Until Thursday I wasn't aware that Whitewater made a lager, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised: lack of imagination can affect craft brewers the same as any of us -- though not the other Northern Irish microbrewery Hilden, who make a superb golden ale for the lager crowd, called Belfast Blonde. Whitewater's Belfast Lager was hugely disappointing. The flavour is dominated by a powerful malty mustiness and I couldn't get past it. I suspect they're going for a full-bodied central European feel, but it's not working for this drinker. How the people who brew the amazing Clotworthy Dobbin make something this poor is beyond me.

One of the event's attendees was just back from South America and, judging from what he brought us, I have to wonder how much he enjoys the company of his fellow ICBers. They were three from InBev's Quilmes range. The Cristal is yellow and basically tasteless, with just a teensy hint of dryness. Quilmes Bock is the same in brown: a bit sweet, but not sweet enough. Not enough of anything, in fact. And then we come to Quilmes Stout. Everyone who tasted it made faces and proclaimed its disgusting sweetness. As the only fan of sweet beer I know, I wouldn't run to damn it outright, but it's still pretty awful. The saccharine quality of the flavour reminds me of nothing so much as a dodgy oud bruin, like Brand. There's also a bit of Belgium's Leroy stout in there as well. If these are your two favourite beers, you'll enjoy Argentina. Once they let you out of the asylum, of course.

The lesson, then, is that when the world gives you bad beer, make it better yourself.