Brazil's beer and how you're meant to drink it

“Cerveja?”, he asked.

Darcio put his thumb to his mouth and tipped his head back in a universal sign to say “drink beer”.

I gave my brother-in-law the thumbs up. It was my third beer that day, but it was so incredibly hot and beer is pretty much the coldest thing you can drink in Brazil.

In less than a minute an almost freezing can of Itaipava beer was thrust into my hand.

“Gelado”, my brother-in-law bellowed proudly, slapping me on my back.

In Brazil, they go through extraordinary lengths to chill their beer to the coldest possible temperature to just above freezing. This is what they mean when they declare “gelado”. If it’s a fraction of a degree warmer, then they will complain “esta quente”, or “it’s hot”.

The beverage will then be given a look of disgust and usually discarded.

As you can imagine, restaurants and bars will go to extraordinary lengths to prevent this happening and offending their clientele with “hot” beer. It gets accidently served frozen-solid in the bottle sometimes. However, it’s not a major problem – they’ll replace it with something fractionally less “gelado” in liquid-form when you make them aware.

It’s fair to say that chilling beer is a very important part of Brazilian culture. And, they find anyone who doesn’t do it, bizarre. I myself have been asked on numerous occasions, “why people in England drink their beer warm?”

There are naturally, various techniques for getting your beer cold, and getting it cold fast.

One of my favourite techniques I learnt from my sister-in-law who lives in Rio. You get some kitchen towel, wrap it around the bottle, soak it under the tap and stick it in the freezer. Within 20 minutes it’s almost frozen. But, don’t wait any longer or it will freeze.

I also learnt how to build an outdoor fridge with a large polystyrene container, ten kilos of ice, a bag of rock salt and a lot of beer. You make a layer of ice, followed by a layer of beer, then another layer of ice, then more beer etc. Finally you throw on the rock salt, which I think is done to melt the top layer of ice slightly, to wet the cans and bottles below and make them chill faster.

However, although drinking a cold beer seems part of Brazilian culture, they seem to be drinking less of it these days. Volumes sold by Brazil’s largest brewers have fallen in recent years, with many industry experts blaming the economy.

It’s true, Brazil’s economy is currently in the deep freezer. It’s experiencing one of the harshest economic crises in decades. According to the World Bank, up to 3.6 million people in Brazil, could be pushed back below the poverty line by the end of 2017.

The price of beer in Brazil has also risen quite considerably above the rate of inflation over the last five years. When matched with decade-high unemployment, the volumes of beer sold have inevitably dropped.

Interestingly, demand for beer in Brazil is currently quite “elastic” to the level of income. The easiest way to think of this is a rubber band. When incomes rise in Brazil, so does the demand for beer fairly proportionately – this is the other end of the rubber band being pulled. This relationship explains why beer consumption has dropped during Brazil’s recent recession as incomes have fallen.

Of course there are other alcoholic drinks, namely wine and cachaça (ever drink a caipirinha?). The consumption of both is also affected on rising and falling income. However, both drinks behave differently.

Take this photo I took shortly after my trip to Brazil over the Christmas break. It’s in my local Lidl in Zurich. It’s a bottle of a very good, but cheap Portuguese wine, called Monte Velho, which they were selling for CHF5.89 (US$ 5.90). I saw the same bottle of wine in a Brazilian supermarket a week earlier selling for R$88 (US$28.80). That’s multiple of almost five times.

Wine in Brazil is insanely expensive because it’s a luxury good and there are import taxes (Read my last post on Brazil, “Brazil’s real middle-class consumers“, where I demonstrated the same phenomena with the iPhone). Therefore, it much more “elastic” to changes in income. A fall in income, therefore, results in demand for wine plummeting.

There’s also tastes and fashion. I would much rather drink an ice cold Brazilian beer (any brand) in the blistering heat than sip a finely aged Châteauneuf-du-Pape. That’s why wine will never really be a perfect substitute in Brazil.

On the other end of the scale you have cachaça. People actually drink less of it when their wages rise, substituting it slightly for more expensive spirits such as vodka or whisky. And, when there is a recession, like there is now, they drink more of it. You can see this in action in the infographic below.

I remember my wife and I were once invited to a party in London by some Brazilian friends. It was the middle of winter and it was snowing heavily. When we arrived, the men were out in the garden under umbrellas, fanning the charcoal of almighty barbeque with portable fan. They were dancing around, singing to music blaring out at full volume, and drinking beer like the snow didn’t exist. They might as well have been on a beach.

What I love about Brazilians is that they still know how to have fun even in the harshest conditions. And, will continue to do so in this recession and the next. They may be drinking less beer, but they’re still drinking it.

It’s a staple part of their culture and unsurprisingly it’s a largely resilient industry. Ambev is Brazil’s largest brewer and produce Brahma and Skol – two very well known brands of beer in Brazil. It’s taken a real beating from the recession. The market is also consolidating. Heineken in Brazil just acquired Brasil Kirin, who produces another popular beer, Nova Schin (I like this beer). This now makes them the second largest brewer in Brazil and may become a greater competitive threat to Ambev, bring down the price of beer. This will be great for drinker, but may put pressure on brewers’ profit margins in the short term.

But as I said, Brazilian are still drinking. This is afterall the world’s third largest beer market. It certainly won’t stop my brother-in-law Darcio from consuming his favourite beer, Itaipava – produced by Cervejaria Petrópolis. I believe it’s a great industry to invest in over the long term.

“Look, it’s snowing!”, I shout excitedly.

I walk out onto the balcony with the camera of my iPhone switched on, during a WhatsApp video call. My in-laws are watching intently, huddled around the phone at their end and taking in the scene in amazement.

It’s -5 degrees here in Switzerland and it’s sweltering hot over there – a good 37 degrees in Salvador according to my weather forecast app.

“Calor” someone complains, which basically means it too hot.

Darcio comes into view and pushes in front of the others, who yell at him in irritation. He takes in the scene silently. He’s standing there bare-chested with a single bead of sweat on his forehead.

“Ooooh, just think how much beer you could keep out there James”, he said admiringly.

I open a bottle of Swiss Appenzeller beer.

“This is for you Darcio” I raise the bottle to the camera and say, “Saúde!”