Gringo In Peru

The Super Bowl has come and gone. I’m not going to bore you with the details. You are either a fan and watched it, or you opted for other entertainment.

Thankfully, I was able to enjoy the big game with some big time American craft beer.

My aunt Kathy and her friend Jodee visited us last week. Jodee found out I was a beer fan and brought me two bottles of good stuff. One thing I can honestly say that I miss (besides friends and family) is good beer. Peruvian beer is OK, but really underwhelming. It’s good beer for a hot sunny day, but lacks flavor.

My personal favorite Peruvian Beer is Pilsen Callao. It reminds me of a lighter version of the “high gravity” lagers your grandpa used to drink that are now coveted by hipsters. Water down a PBR, Hamm’s, Shlitz or Old Milwaukee and you get the idea. Pilsen offers some of the beer taste I crave, but not all. Actually, many Peruvian drinkers complain that its too strong for their pallets.

Cristal is far and away the most popular beer in Peru. This offers the serious beer drinker nothing really. The best way to describe this beer’s taste is cold.

Cusquena is the only Peruvian beer that is widely exported. Not that it is terribly popular around the world, but if your local liquor store sells South American beer, Cusquena will likely be in stock. It is smooth and has a very clean finish. This year they offered a limited edition wheat beer that wasn’t bad. Many people I talked to didn’t like it because it “tastes funny” to them. Personally, wheat beers are not my favorite, but I appreciated the different flavor.

My dentist has family in Champlin, MN. When they visit she always brings her brother-in-law bottles of Cusquena as a gift and he loves it. I understand why. If you are used to drinking crappy American macro-brewed light beer this is a banquet of flavor, but not too offensive.

(For further reading on Peruvian brews this may help)

Thankfully, yours truly has moved on from those days. The older I get the more I like hoppy beers. For those of you who don’t know hops are the ingredient that give beer its flavor. I like my beer bitter and these beers didn’t disappoint.

I celebrated the first half with a Lagunitas Hop Stoopid Ale. The label said hop extracts were used in the brewing process making for a stronger hop flavor and cleaner brewing tanks. It had an International Bitterness Unit rating of 107, which is bitter. There is some debate within the beer community about the validility of the IBU scale. Some say that the human pallet stops sensing the bitterness around 100 IBU’s so the numbers are worthless. Also, because of the chemistry of beer, a malty brew may have a high IBU but not taste as bitter as a less malty beer with a lower IBU.

Whew! If that goes over your head I’m sorry. This isn’t meant to be beer 101 and truthfully I’m no expert.

My take on the Hop Stoopid. It was everything I wanted in a beer. From the first sniff to the first taste it was flavorful. It wasn’t terribly bitter, but it was citrusy with a very clean finish. It was refreshing to drink a real beer.

The second half kicked-off with an on-side kick and a Dugan A IPA. Both were good choices. Wow. This is what I was looking for. It reminded me a lot of my favorite beer the Surly Furious. Dugan A clocked in at 93 IBUs and you could feel it. No clean finish here. With each sip it felt like a hop was setting up camp in the back of my throat. Now that’s what I call beer.

I liked the Dugan A better, but I’m not going trash the Hop Stoopid. Both were great beers. Both were much better than what Peru has to offer.

In other news…

Tomorrow is our big appointment at the embassy. I’ll keep you posted.

All this beer talk is making me thirsty. I’ll leave you with a web short for Twin Cities own Surly Brewing Company. Cheers.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 10th, 2010 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.