Cerveceria Austral - meaning Austral Beer. Is one of Patagonia´s beer. It boasts having started since 1892 where it was the beer of choice by the local populace.
Everywhere in Southern Chile it is one of the most common beers being sold. There is Austral Larger (most common and the orginal recipe), Austral Imperial (same recipe but purer and stronger), Austral El Calafate (combined with a local fruit - interesting taste), Austral Patagonia ´Pale Ale´ and Austral Dark Ale.
It is Briel´s favourite beer in South America. I am not a beer fan myself, however after tasting these beers, I did like them all. My favourite being Austral Larger. I even downed a few beers today to proove it.
Perhaps the beer´s secret is that Chilean water is so fresh, so pure and so delicous. It has been the best tasting water I have ever tried. We lived out of drinking from the streams, rivers from the glaciers during our trek!
The Brewery has tours Monday-Friday at 5pm only (although the tourist agencies will tell you also at 11am in the morning). This was our mistake, we turned up at 10.45am wanting a tour and there was none! It costs 2500 chilean Pesos person.
However since our friends were leaving this evening, we begged the administration if we could at least just have a quick look around. We explained that we couldn´t go tomorrow and that we would be devastated since it was our favourite beer in South America so far.
We have found many people from this area very sweet and helpful, she took pity on us and actually gave us the entire tour! The brewery was since 1892 and it is still being used to today to create the delicious beer. It is not just a museum! We got to see the real deal!
To finish off a great tour, we were rewarded by getting to taste all the favourite Austral beers mentioned above. YUM. Of course right after we had to look for somewhere that serves great beer and fries.
We spent the rest of the afternoon in excellent conversation with our friends Inbal and Yuval. It was our last afternoon together after travelling together for nearly 2 weeks. Who could believe that we met in Iguazu and foudn great friends to travel with (we even shared a tent together in Torres, and a room in Punta Arenas). A shame that our paths must end for the moment. However I am sure we will see them again in Israel and Australia.
We wish our friends safe travels.
