A Brutally Honest, No B.S., Viewpoint on Xingu Dark Brazilian Beer
Written: Jan 28 '05
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Not quite like your usual American or European beers...
Cons: (Could really use some hops!)
The Bottom Line: If you haven't tried one before, pick up a bottle of Xingu. It's sweet and a bit different...
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| mrkstvns's Full Review: Xingu |
I don't usually write reviews in response to other reviews, but in the case of Xingu, I'm not sure I see the beer from the same perspective as our illustrious CL, Bruguru. His review is interesting, and I know that it reflects the viewpoint of most folks who have tried Xingu, but that's because it also reflects the viewpoint of Alan Eames and his cronies in Vermont --- the folks who were responsible for inventing Xingu and having it specially brewed for import to the U.S. back in the mid to late 1980s. The for-public-consumption viewpoint is summed up on Eames' website: www.amazonbeer.com
My viewpoint is a little different. I think all the talk of chicha influences and pre-European brewing among natives in the Amazon is just a lot of hot air spewed out to drum up interest in the brand. Xingu has absolutely zero resemblance to chicha and zero right to invoke its heritage. Chicha is very much an indigenous drink, and I can't imagine a legitimate brewery actually hiring armies of women to come and chew up corn and spit in vats to make the stuff, which is what you've got to do if you're going to make anything that's even remotely like chicha. Ain't gonna happen. And it doesn't....
These days (for the last 3 years anyway), Xingu has been brewed by Kaiser (despite what you might read on some web sites --- like realbeer and beeradvocate --- whose info is more outdated than mine).
Kaiser is a mainline industrial brewer with huge production numbers (and business ties to Molson, Dos Equis, Heineken, and Coca-Cola). Their factories in Brazil are little different from Anheuser-Busch beer factories in the U.S. Kaiser's bread and butter comes from light chopps, which really aren't that much different from beers like Miller High Life.
Saying that Xingu has anything in common with chicha is like saying that Ferrari draws its influence from the covered wagons of the wild west. It's a free country, and I suppose Eames is free to spew whatever B.S. he feels like he can sell, but the truth is, Xingu is just a light-bodied dark adjunct lager that's very much like a dozen other similar dark beers sold across Brazil.
Don't get me wrong, I like Xingu, and I find it to be an interesting beer that's not just like every other dark lager you can buy everywhere in America. But it is also no Munich dunkles, and it is certainly no chicha...so then what is it?
About Brazilian Dark Beers...
Trying to classify Brazilian dark beers by any style definition that you can find in the English speaking beer world just does not work. The beers are not stouts, they are not porters, they are not brown ales. They are not dunkles, they are not bocks. I've heard folks say they are foreign stouts --- but they aren't (they're lagers for one thing, they're lighter in gravity for another, and they have tons of adjunct sugar character to break the back of the camel that holds up that argument.) Sounds like maybe they could be along the lines of an American industrial dark beer, doesn't it? Nope. Not really. American industrial darks aren't that dark --- typically 15-20 SRM --- and they're drier and far more attenuated and much more lightly refreshing than a Brazilian dark. Braziliand darks also have a much bigger sugar flavor to it and is sometimes almost cloying in its sweetness (not too wildly different from a couple of lesser-known European brews I've had, including Heineken Oud Brouin).
Sugar is what really defines the Brazilian darks as a style unto their own, in my opinion. To a brew, they all display an unmistakable cane sugar flavor --- not a flavor of corn or rice used as an adjunct in the mash --- but sugar. Refined sugar. Sometimes they wave the sugar banner in the form of molasses, dark brown sugar, or burnt caramelized candy sugar, but no matter how the sugar expresses itself, the beer is still unmistakably sugary tasting. That sugary flavor is also almost never smooth, like a beer sweetened with lactose would express itself --- it is a rough and tumble sharply sweet beer. This holds true on almost every dark beer you'll ever taste in Brazil, whether it's a quenching dark draft beer (chopp) or a bottled dark beer (like the Xingu, which I don't recall ever seeing on tap, even though I know that Kaiser does sell a Xingu chopp --- gives me an incentive to go back to Brazil...there's still more beer to drink).
A Chilly Glass of Sweet Xingu...
Without further ado, let's go ahead and pop the top of this bottle of Xingu and take it for a test taste. And by the way, the glass that best shows off a Brazilian dark beer is the classic dimple mug that you still find some brewers using for their house bitters. It's a friendly, everyday kind of glass that shows off the beer well while conveying a kind of casual drinking attitude that fits well with the beer. (It is also the kind of glass that you'll find most often used in the chopp houses around Rio de Janeiro or Sao Paulo....)
So, without further ado, let's pop the top....psssstttt....and commence the pour....glug, glug, glug....
Appearance:
Think porter. Like dark ale styles, Xingu is a very dark, almost black, beer that shows a bright ruby red tinge at the edges when held up to the light. I would estimate its color at between 20 and 25 on the SRM scale --- not opaque black, but hardly brown either. Call it light black. Unlike porter though, the Xingu pours with a slighter head, and one that's more short-lived, dissipating long before it ever gets a chance to trail any lace fingers.
Aroma:
Malty with a sweet corn syrup edge to it. It reminds me a bit of the smell of a freshly opened bottle of Karo dark corn syrup, with that razor sharp kind sweet scent to it. At first I was thinking, maybe this isn't too different from a molasses scent that you find on some dark UK strong ales, but on a second pass, I'm sure that it really is quite different, and that it's really corn syrup more than anything else that I'm getting on the nose. There's not a trace of hops character on it, and no real yeast signature either. It's just a clean profile dominated by sugar.
Flavor:
Initial sweetness of malt and sugars is my first, and really only, impression, although this bottle seems more balanced than I recall the beer being when I'd buy it cans in Brazil. That's a good thing, because in the bottle now, the beer hits me as refreshing and quaffable, though with an unmistakable balance tilt towards sugars. Even in the flavor, I really get no a hint of hops --- not in the flavor, and definitely not in the aftertaste, which is decidedly sweet and, honestly, I think a bit off-putting if you've got a preference for at least a hint of hops in your beers.
In spite of a sugar flavor that can get to be too much, this isn't a big beer and it doesn't pack a huge wallop (by the numbers, Xingu is actually just 4.4 percent alcohol by volume --- which is less than a Bud Light). The sugar character is kind of interesting to me on this. While it's noticeable, it's not that big on the numbers either --- and this isn't a high carb or a high calorie beer, which you might suspect given the residual sugar flavor. (By the numbers, Kaiser claims that Xingu has 142 calories per 300 ml serving.)
Overall Impression:
Good stuff.
If you demand adherence to an American or European style guideline, you'll be disappointed, but if you come at this looking for something a little bit different from your usual "same old, same old", then you might be in for a pleasant taste treat. Xingu is a drinkable, not overly heavy dark lager beer. Expect a more sugary flavor than you're used to, and don't look for too much in the way of hops of roast character. Do that, and Xingu will probably tickle your tongue in nice ways.
While I like the sugary flavor of dark Brazilian beers for a while, it's usually a flavor that wears thin on me about halfway down the second glass (kind of like a favorite cousin who comes to visit for Christmas, but then doesn't seem to be moving on by the time New Years rolls around). End result: This is one beer that I usually drink just one of, then I switch to something with a bit more conventional balance and more conventional hopping.
Compared to Other Dark Brazilian Beers...
Dark beers are popular in Brazil, and you don't have to look far to find beers that are very similar in style to Xingu. Most of these dark beers though are either chopp escuros or malzbiers, neither of which are quite in the same class as Xingu. Two brands though do seem to me to appeal to the Xingu drinker: Caracu and Bohemia Escura. Of the two, Caracu claims to be a stout, but isn't (way too sweet without any roast element to it) --- Caracu is slightly sweeter than the Xingu, and slightly bigger in the body, but Xingu is more satisfying. Bohemia is way different, it's a dead ringer for a Munich dunkles and is brewed with classic German processes --- it's malty where it should be malty, with dryness and hops where it should have dryness and malt --- Bohemia is a much better beer than Xingu, but unfortunately, isn't exported as far as I know.
Of all the Brazilian dark beers, Xingu is probably the single best example of the Brazilian dark style that you can buy (in Brazil, or anywhere else for that matter). Bohemia is a better beer, but it is really the ugly duckling of dark beers in Brazil --- because it really isn't of the Brazilian dark style at all, other than by color and the happenstance of being brewed in Brazil.
Closely Related Reading...
If you have any interest in Brazilian beers, you might like this overview...
* Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Brazilian Beers, But Were Afraid to Ask
Recommended:
Yes
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