Food

Beers Of Uruguay

Yves Weissig

• 3 min read
Beers Of Uruguay

No visit of a foreign country is complete without one of my famous beer evaluations. Uruguay is no exception, so here is the rundown.

The grid is made up of four major beer brands which are widely known in Uruguay. They run television, radio and street commercials and can be found in any restaurant, supermarket or kiosk. According to the labels all beers are brewed under license of the Fábricas Nacionales de Cerveza.

  • Pilsen - The most popular and cheapest beer brand, offers, in addition to the Lager, five different tastes: "7 Grados", "Ambar", "Bajo Cero", "Stout" and "Sonic".
  • Patricia - A beer which is produced with the water from the Sierras de Minas. Besides "Salus", which is a Lager, it comes in the following flavours: "Weisse", "Porter" and "Dunkel".
  • Zillertal - No, we're not yet in the Alps, Zillertal is a premium beer from Uruguay. No one could tell me why the beer is named this way, but if this is the real creation process then we have a top contender for the gold medal.
  • Norteña - As far as I know the beer from Uruguay with the longest brewing tradition. But as usual, information is really scarce,

For my evaluation I tested two kinds of Pilsen, Lager and 7 Grados, two kinds of Patricia, the Lager and the Porter, the Zillertal Lager and the Norteña Lager. In total this sums up to six candidates challenging for the gold medal.

Here are the six contenders in pictures:

And the winner is...

  1. Pilsen Lager - A really nice beer, not too strong, not too light, perfect color, perfect amount of hops for the summer.
  2. Patricia Lager - A close second, the aftertaste is just a bit more hoppy than the Pilsen Lager.
  3. Norteña Lager - A litte stale but otherwise a solid Lager.
  4. Pilsen 7 Grados - The 7 is meant to identify the level of alcohol. For its high amount of alcohol it's relatively mild, but still too strong for the summer. Bonus points for the best design.
  5. Zillertal Lager - The Zillertal is the "Becks Gold" of Uruguay, a very light and "trendy" beer. It's quite hoppy, but also very watery.
  6. Patricia Porter - The Porter of Patricia is a really heavy and intensive dark beer. It's creamy and very sparkling. To sum it up, if the outside temperature would be -5°C this beer would definitly win, but because there are 30°C the situation is different: Too heavy for the beach.

See you for the next beer evaluation in Argentina!