Revolutionary Beers

Cuba has a fair number of beers coming in three different categories. To understand the difference between the first two categories you must first be aware of Cuba's monetary system. Until recently the average Cuban was paid in pesos with a value of 25 pesos to the U.S. dollar. Tourists however use CUCs (CUban Convertible Pesos) whose value is tied to the U.S. Dollar, which is one of the many things tourists find strange, since the U.S. has had an embargo on trade with Cuba since 1963.

The national brands of beer are sold in CUCs. The average price in a bar is 2 CUCs; local stores charge around 1 CUC. The most available is Cristal, a light lager at 4.9% alcohol by volume. Our favorite is Bucanero fuerte having more body and flavor at 5.4% alcohol. Cacique is even lighter than Crystal at 4.5% alcohol. Mayabe is lightest of all at 4.0%. All of the these come in 350ml bottles and 355ml cans. Also, they are brewed and bottled/canned by Bucanero in Holguín. This is according to the labels, but we were told they might be brewed in different locations and bottled or canned someplace else. Uh, that might be a state secret.

We now move into an entirely different category, "beer for the people." The average Cuban makes the equivalent of $25.00 a month, this includes doctors and engineers. So they can hardly afford the price of a Cristal. So there are other breweries which make cheaper beers that sell for 10 pesos a bottle (about 40 cents). These brews are supposedly only for Cubans, but we weren't going to let a government regulation stop us.

Our first encounter with one of these beers was in a small snack bar which was serving Cristal on draught. A group of young Cuban men came in with a case of beer and placed in behind the bar and started drinking from the bottles which were none of the beers we had previously seen. "What's that?" we chorused. My wife went over and asked the guys what beer they were drinking and they graciously gave her one. It was Princesa at 5.3% and with more character than the other light beers. The address of the brewery was right on the label: Carretera Borrego Km 1.5, Pinar del Rio. The next day we persuaded our guide Alex to make a small detour to find the brewery. We found it but they didn't sell beer there. That afternoon at the end of a very long day we were looking for a place to take a break. As we slowed down I spotted a small restaurant named Princesa. "There! stop there, please," I said to Alex, "they must have Princesa beer." They didn't but they instructed Alex where we could obtain it around the corner. So off we went to find a thatched covered restaurant. Once there we received a lesson in Cuban business practices. Only government owned businesses can sell the cheaper beers and are run by government employees. Who, as Alex says, "pretend to work while the government pretends to pay them." The staff was slow to serve us and claimed we had to buy food if we wanted a beer. Eventually, we agreed to buy one plate of roasted pork for five people, which along with four beers and a soft drink cost about $3.00. One of the beers was flat but they quickly exchangd it. We really liked it, but never had a chance to get another (*SIGH!). Our cheap beer experience continued in Playa Larga, site of the Bay of Pigs invasion. This time the beer was Bruja, the Spanish word for witch. How could one resist a witches brew? Once again we liked it better than the canned lighter beers. Bruja is brewed in Villa Clara at 4.5%; the slogan on the label translates to "Enjoy the mystery until the final sip." We did.