Xingu Draft

[G.M. Gillman]

This beer has a long history, long in craft beer terms anyway. Early in the days of the renaissance, I recall reading about it in All About Beer magazine (80's). I bought it in the tall bottle in the states, and it was a good German-style dark beer despite being from South America. Or perhaps one should say, "because of", in that German brewers who expatriated early on to Brazil and elsewhere on the continent implanted the lager tradition there.

There was a story IIRC about some origin of the beer with an Indian tribe which even then I put down to good marketing: anyway the beer to me was a well-made one in the German tradition, not more but if one can get that, you don't need anything more.

And so all these years later, I see it at Biermarkt on draft and had a go. (I did see it a couple of years ago, had a small taste, but didn't go further for whatever reason).

Glad I did. To me it is Munich dark in style with that typical molasses-like quality a lot of dunkel has. It was very fresh and better than any Munich dunkel currently available in Toronto, IMO. (It reminded me a lot of San Miguel Dark, which we don't get here but old hands may know and was a favourite of Michael Jackson). There was some good German hopping too, working incisively under the rich malt.

I know the beer has been typed as a German black beer-style (Schwarzbier) but to me it spells Munich all the way.

A good one-two punch after work today at Biermarkt in Don Mills Shops, the other was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, clearly a different keg than I had last week with more hop character and a little less malty sweetness. Excellent either way.

Gary