St.Patrick's Day in Porto Alegre

When we just came to Porto Alegre (more than four years ago, wow!), the first time I felt homesick was on St. Patrick's Day. It was the first time for years that I didn't party with my friends in our favorite local Irish pub back home and I couldn't even find one place to have a nice pint of Guinness in Porto Alegre.

These days are over and now Porto Alegre can offer more than one place serving proper pint of Guinness and more important - I have some drinking friends to party with.

The Mulligan pub will have a special event on Monday, March 17 - offering the second pint of Guinness for free. They promised to have St. Patrick's Day's T-shirts and hats and a lot of Guinness.

You can already call in sick for Tuesday, March 18.

Mulligan Irish Pub
Address: Padre Chagas 25 (Moinhos de Vento). Tel. 3029-3725 / 8422-9301. Opening Hours: 17:00 - 2:00 (Close on Monday)

Mulligan Irish Pub - my place for a Pint of Guinness

Living just few blocks away from Padre Chagas st., I frequently take the opportunity to walk few minutes to Mulligan Pub, sit on the bar and have a nice pint of Guinness (or two) with the simple-yet-fantastic "Boxty Gaelic" - potato pancake filled with meet in whiskey and mushroom sauce.

Mulligan is a "fancy" place, located in the heart of Moinhos de Vento, and therefor is not cheap (a pint of Guinness will be around 13R$). Yet - I like the atmosphere, the service is great and the professional beer pouring (Fabinho - the bartender is "Guinness certified") is well appreciated.

Mulligan offers great variety of local and imported beers - draught beers ("Chopp") as well as bottled beers ("Cerveja"). Usually I'm here for the Guinness, but sometimes, when I'm in the right state of mind (or when I want to introduce the Brazilian beers to guests and visitors) I'm going for one of the Eisenbahn draft variety (the best is to start with Pilsen, continue with Pale Ale and finish with Dunkel).

Address: Padre Chagas 25 (Moinhos de Vento). Tel. 3029-3725 / 8422-9301. Opening Hours: 17:00 - 2:00 (Close on Monday)

Beer - Brazilian and Imported

There is a nice variety of local beers available at any supermarket in Porto Alegre. Imported beers are available too, but may be very expensive (for example - a 500 ml can of Irish/English beer may cost 10 to 15 R$). Some of the international beers are produced in Brazil, what make them available with local prices (Heineken, Miller, Budweiser). I found that the local beers can actually be very good and I, as a "dark-beer" addict, could even find few nice dark and bitter Brazilian beers.

The Brazilians prefer lighter beers (Brahma Extra is my preferred beer in this category). Simple popular beer (Brahma, Bohemia, Polar, Skol...) price may vary from 1.20R$ to 1.70R$ for a "long neck" (335 ml bottle). What I consider as the best dark beer for this price range is Xingu. It can be found also as a draft beer ("chopp") in some of the pubs and even served in Gol flights.

My favorite Brazilian Brewery is definitely Eisenbahn (they have an English website!!!). It costs a bit more than the common local beers (2.50 - 3.00R$) but in my opinion - it worth every cent of it. Eisenbahn has a nice variety of more than 10 different beers and i will mention the most interesting ones:
Dunkel - Dark Lager, with roasted and chocolate malt character. Medium bitterness. Rich and complex.
Pilsen - Light color beer - Pilsen style. Clean and dry, brewed only with natural ingredients.
Weizenbier - South German style wheat beer, unfiltered, with banana and cloves aroma and flavor.
Strong Golden Ale - "killer beer". Golden colored with high alcohol content (8.5%). This powerful beer presents hops flavor, besides spices. The yeast for this high fermentation beer is imported from Belgium
Pale Ale - A Belgian style pale ale, medium bodied but very complex, with hints of cloves and some citrus. Amber colored with medium bitterness.

BTW - the Eisenbahn brewery is located in Blumenau (SC) and they offer brewery tours. I'm still looking for the opportunity (and the partners) for this visit....