You may remember my trip to Cervejaria Bodebrown in Curitiba, Brazil back in November.
If so, you may also remember that Paulo gave me some bottles of Bodebrown beer to take away with me – the first of these, the Blanche de Curitiba, was enjoyed in Cabo Polonio, Uruguay.
Well, it took a while (50 days to be precise) but a suitable location for the second beer, the Hop Weiss, was finally found – standing on the Perito Moreno Glacier. Definitely worth the wait…
The four days after leaving El Bolsón were easily the most challenging since arriving in Argentina, with hitchhiking south not being as easy as first expected. After struggling with getting any decent rides for two full days, we eventually resigned ourselves to the fact that buses were the better option. Unfortunately, the few rides that we did get had placed us in a pretty awkward location and three buses were required instead of just one. We did, however, finally make it all the way to El Chaltén.
We set off reasonably late the following morning and luckily, the weather was great – a view of Fitz Roy greeting us about 10 minutes into our hike to Laguna Torre. We were told that the mountain hadn’t made an appearance for three or four days, so perhaps taking a bit longer to get to El Chaltén wasn’t too bad after all…
We were met by some of the strongest winds I have ever experienced at Laguna Torre, but we decided to climb another 2km to the lookout to get a better view of the Torre Glacier at the far end. Despite nearly being blown off the path more than a dozen times, it was definitely worth it – our amusement probably overshadowing how dicey it actually was.
It wasn’t quite 4pm when we got half way back to El Chaltén, so we decided to head to Laguna de los Tres, at the foot of Fitz Roy. A local guide estimated that it would take us 6.5 hours of solid walking, but daylight until 10pm and the rate in which we covered the trails around El Bolsón left us pretty confident of getting it done before dark.
The contrast in weather was unbelievable, with extremely calm conditions along Laguna Hija and Laguna Madre being balanced out by more fierce winds at Laguna de los Tres. Nevertheless, we spent around half an hour at our destination before heading back to El Chaltén, arriving at 9:30pm. It was just 5 hours and 45 minutes since chatting to the guide – another successful (and fairly rapid) hike…
After four testing days and 10.5 hours hiking, I insisted on steaks and a couple of beers that evening. We ended up at La Vineria after dinner and tried the Negra Porter from Gülmen (a brewery in Río Negro) and Mendoza-based Uelts’ Scotch. Both were great drops.
The next day we walked to Mirador de los Condores (Condor Lookout) where I decided to have a chilled out day. I spent a couple of hours up there after Dominik set off on another long hike (what a sicko) and managed to see three of the huge birds, which can have a wing span of up to 3.5 metres. It was difficult to say how big these ones were as they were quite high up, but it was still a dream come true after watching The Mysterious Cities of Gold in my yout.
Over breakfast I had calculated that we had covered more than 40km the previous day, on trails that many people do over 2-3 days, so I felt that further compensation was in order. I had spotted a brewpub, La Cerveceria, on the way home the previous evening, so it was the obvious choice for a beer after lunch. I ordered their pilsner (they also produce a bock) and it went down extremely well sitting out the front in the afternoon sun. I also briefly checked out their microbrewery, which looks like a great little set-up, complete with wooden tanks.
That evening it was back to La Vineria to have another crack at their extensive craft beer range. I started with the Roja from local brewery Supay, however wasn’t too impressed with it, so I moved onto the Bock from El Hoyo-based Sheken. This was far better, but easily the best of the night came from Escobar brewery, BarbaRoja and their Negra Fuerte Stout. I hope I can get hold of some of their other beers in the future – the Double Bock in particular.
It may have been a huge mission to get there, but the day hiking around El Chaltén, combined with a couple of places to get hold of some good craft beer made it all worthwhile in the end. The village definitely warrants a look if you’re ever in this part of Patagonia…
This one was enjoyed in front of the Hielo Azul Glacier, just a 45 minute walk uphill from Refugio Hielo Azul.
And yes, that is the moon in the sky above the bottle, but it would have been beer o’clock somewhere. I’m sure of it…
Head along to Refugio Cajon Del Azul’s Facebook page and ‘Like’ away…
See Refugio Lago Natación’s Facebook page for further info…
Check out Refugio Hielo Azul’s website for more information…
After four days driving around and camping in the Lake District of Patagonia, it was back to Bariloche for a night before another spot of hitchhiking – this time to El Bolsón. Even though it was only a 130km journey, it still took four rides and just as many hours, but we made it there eventually.
I had read about El Bolsón before I left Australia and have to admit that the hippy atmosphere, combined with a big craft beer scene was more than slightly appealing…
I tried a couple of brews at the Artisan Market, which is held every couple of days (although it seemed to be running every day at this time of year). The first of these was Lenga (a bitter ale) from Cervecería Pilker, followed by Cerveza Artesanal Piltri’s Stout – both not too bad, especially at $3 AUD a pint.
We also walked to the most famous brewery in town, Cervecería El Bolsón, on New Year’s Day, however they hadn’t opened yet – not the first time on this trip that I’d been too eager for a beer…
Unfortunately this meant that I didn’t manage to try any of their beers during my stay, therefore giving me a good reason to head back to El Bolsón at some stage in the future.
The other point I had read about early last year is that there are many refugios in the mountains around El Bolsón that are linked by hiking trails and which brew their own beer. Needless to say, this is something we didn’t miss out on and we ended up staying in one of the refugios and having a beer at two others.
These three refugios will be documented over the next few days, however it is worth mentioning that they all carry out the brewing process onsite in large plastic barrels, using water sourced locally – be it from a glacier or mountain stream.
All of the beers we tried were quite sour, but still decent brews after some more than demanding hiking. It definitely made it easier to get up the steep inclines knowing that there was a beer at the end of it all…
From Cipolletti, Dominik and I headed west to the outskirts of Neuquen and waited for around two hours in the scorching sun for our first lift. Luckily we were able to pass the time by listening to Grinspoon, Jebediah and Frank Turner on my portable speakers, which have now paid for themselves many times over in the past six months. This first lift took us around 10km, but put us in a better position – albeit in the middle of a dust storm…
Another two hours and more Frank Turner carried us through to 18:00 and probably about thirty minutes short of chucking it in, when a rusty old Renault pulled up around 10m past us. We initially thought it was just another customer for the old couple selling nectarines out of the back of their car, but on enquiry he was actually heading the whole 400km to Bariloche, our destination. Our day was suddenly looking up.
We arrived late that night to a very different 5° Celsius and luckily found a couple of beds in a hostel. We planned to stay in Bariloche for just one night, but some ordinary weather and a Christmas party in the hostel on the 24th pushed our stay out to four nights.
It was a pretty slow start to Christmas Day due to the previous night’s proceedings, but we walked up the very steep Cerro Campanario in the Nahuel Huapi National Park that afternoon. Not wanting to get too fitness-oriented at this time of year, we undid all that hard work by stopping off at a brew house on the way home…
Cerveza Berlina was founded around seven years ago by three brothers, one of which studied brewing in Germany. The original brewery was located at the site of the Brew House and Restaurant site, however they opened a larger brewery 10km away in Colonia Suiza in 2008.
Berlina is apparently the name of the muse of brewers in the Renaissance period and the brewery’s logo is their interpretation of how the goddess looked.
They produce three regular styles and we tried two of these while we were there – the Foreign Stout and IPA. We were also given a couple of bottles of the Golden Ale on departure, completing the trifecta.
They also produce several seasonal styles and wanting to make the most of our time there, we got stuck into the Wheat Ale, Lupulution and Nina’s Pumpkin Ale – named after the Brew Master’s 14-month old daughter, whose love of pumpkins extends so far that she won’t eat anything without some on her plate! With regards to the beer, the pumpkin is wrapped in aluminium foil and cooked on the BBQ. The heart of the pumpkin is then mashed and used in the brewing process.
Berlina currently produces around 1,500L per day and while the Brew House is the only place you can find their beer on tap, bottles are available all over Argentina and also in Italy and Canada. If the Foreign Stout and Lupulution are anything to go by, their beers will be even further afield in the near future…
