How to drink beer like a Brazilian

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Right now it is quite chilly in Rio. In fact it has been cold for the last few weeks and I have to say I am starting to feel somewhat aggrieved – this is not what someone from my part of the world expects from ‘Sunny Rio’. Thankfully, most of the year the weather is just how I like it – hot, very hot or boiling. And the drink of choice when you are in need of refreshment? Cerveja! [ser-VAY-zha]

In the course of my (ahem) exhaustive research I uncovered some interesting beer facts. Brazil is the fifth largest beer producer in the world, making nearly 10 billion litres each year. Most of this is made by an evil company called Ambev which has something approaching a monopoly here. But I was surprised to discover that the average Brazilian drinks just 53 litres each year – compare this to the average Czech who drinks 158:

Top drinking from the Czechs. No big surprise to find Ireland near the top! (http://snippets.com/how-much-does-beer-consumption-vary-by-country.htm)

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Casas de Sucos – Juice Bars

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Where I come from ‘Juice Bars’ conjure up images of weird, rich people sipping wheat-grass and beetroot juice. These joyless health obsessives have just come from an ayurvedic flotation tank session and are on their way to an organic coffee and yoghurt colonic. Here in Brazil I’m happy to say they have a very different feel to them.

Casas de Sucos are sprinkled all over Rio. They are basic and unpretentious – open to the street with huge and colourful displays of (real) fruit behind a simple stainless steel counter. Ordinary working people will prop themselves on a stool and have a freshly blended fruit juice and perhaps grab a snack before heading off to work.

A typical Rio juice bar

 

An average sized juice bar menu – I have seen some twice this size.

On my first visit to one of these juice bars I was taken aback by the size of the menu. There were more than 20 different fruit juices and half of them I had never heard of.

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Feijão – beans!

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[Whilst reading this entry you should listen to this topical tune from Chico Buarque]. 

 
When thinking about typical Brazilian food, the first thing that springs to mind is rice and beans. Here the name for beans is feijão [pronounced: fay-zhow] and they are eaten with almost every meal. If you come to Brazil and don’t like beans then you are going to end up hungry (in fact I found this to be true in most Latin American countries with the exception of Argentina where you can very happily live solely on the sublime steaks).  
Of course there are many different varieties of bean:

Here are some amazing coloured beans I saw in a market in Xela, Guatemala

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