The Days of Good Beer

Argentina is not known for it’s beer. It has decent, cheap, light, beers; and sweet, cheap, body-less, dark, beers; but for the most part, nothing special. Mendoza has a handful of microbreweries. All of them except for one produce what might be likened to pee. I’m no snob either, I’ll drink just about anything. Sometimes I would marvel at how long it had been since I had a beer, but when you think about all the wine, it all makes sense.

The one good brewery in Mendoza is called Jerome’s and it’s up in Potrerillos, or El Salto, to be exact. This is, even after these past few days, the best beer in Argentina. The trouble was, you had to drive some 68 km to the brewery to drink the beer and we did not have a car, plus, the stuff wasn’t cheap. Regardless, every time we were in the neighborhood, we paid a visit to Eduardo at his brewery in the Andes and drank some of his fine cerveza. Our last trip up there, the day after our full moon rafting trip, Eduardo rewarded our repeat patronage with free beers for us and our friends. I don’t understand why his beer was not sold in Mendoza. He is even looking into exporting to a couple of markets in the US; maybe Colorado (hopefully) and Oregon.

These past few days we have had an abundance of micro-brewed beers. Here it’s called cerveca artesanal. Here, they use the word artesanal a lot. I would even go as far as to say that it is overused. I mean, come on, how can you have an artesanal car wash or dry cleaning? Our luck started in the Swiss Colony near San Carlos de Bariloche. Oh, before I forget, I should mention that these days of good beer have also been marked by tasty food from fairs. Argentina has tons of ferias, or artisanal fairs, and we have been to too many. The one in El Bolsón is the best by far.