Last weekend at Mar de Plata, we casually found the III Gastronomic Festival, which takes place around the same time every year. As soon as we saw the poster sign, we went over there looking for something to eat for lunch, but we found it was rather an exhibit of stands with products, not all of them from Mar del Plata. Among the offered products were cheese, honey, dulce de leche, chocolates, liquors, kitchen equipment, etc. Walking around the place, we found out about some guided tours that were offered for the low price of 6 pesos (US$ 2), and one of them was about visiting places that produced their own beer. Obviously, we signed up for that one.

The tour passed -but didn’t stop- by Los cuencos, a nice bar/restaurant at Roca 1404, a block away from the commercial Guemes street. You can have locally brewed beer there. Since we happened to stop by earlier to eat lunch there, we already knew the place. We chose red beer. It had a quite particular full bodied taste and quite aromatic. Only apt to those who want to experience other flavors. It went good with the food, a nice flounder with echalottes sauce and side vegetables -14 pesos, or 4.5 dollars- and a caprese salad. The beer cost 10 pesos.

The first stop was at the popular Antares brewery, where we could taste the different types of beer they made there. At that time, we tasted Kolsch, a light beer with a fruity taste; Scotch, red beer, one I tasted gladly -but I liked Kaunas’ better, which I will talk about later-; and Porter, black beer. These are the “classic” beers, which sell at 6 pesos (2 dollars) the pint, and 6.50 the 660 cm3 bottle. Then, there was the “special” beers group, which we tried later that same night, when we returned to the brewery.

They are, Cream Stout, quite similar to Guinness -and one I really like-; Honey beer, with a honey aftertaste -honestly, I liked Buenos Aires Buller’s kind better-; Barley Wine, with a higher alcoholic content and with a similar taste to white wine; and last, but not least, my favorite: Imperial Stout, dark beer with a taste close to coffee. Quite delicious, a rich beer without that caramel-like taste Quilmes Stout unfortunately has. The pint of special beer costs 7 pesos (less than 3 dollars), and the 330 cm3 bottles sell at 4 pesos. Luckily, Antares has opened in Buenos Aires now -if nothing funny happened, it opened in Palermo, at Armenia 1447. I’ll stop by for my pint of Imperial Stout. Soon.

The second stop was at Kaunas, a small brewery with an also small production which is distributed in local bars, and also gets bottled and sells. The style is closer to the english kind, much darker. Particularly, I liked the red beer -ok, I’m fond of red beers-, called Nut Brown Ale. Less aromatic than the one at Los Cuencos, easier and quicker to drink, but quite delicious. Highly recommendable. At the brewery, the small bottled beer sold at 3.50 pesos, and the 660cm3 bottles, at 5 pesos (less than 2 dollars). I don’t know if they can be found outside Mar del Plata, and I’d really love to know.

The third and last stop was at Posta del Angel, in Santa Clara del Mar. The place is really nice, with a patagonian look going on. Besides the brewery, there’s also a small bar, crafts store, and other things. We bought a black beer liquor there, which I still haven’t opened yet -and I will comment about it when I do-. We didn’t test much of the beer there, the cups were really tiny, but the red beer seemed really good, although it had less body than Kaunas’. Anyways, I brought a 660 cm3 bottle of red beer home. By the way, Santa Clara del Mar, a place I hadn’t been to before, seemed very quiet and nice. I’d like to spend a few days there in a not so far away future.

Of course, I you visited any of the places mentioned above, or want to mention any other thing about the topic of breweries, you can leave you contribution in the comments area, so that other reads have more information.