Quaffers! Thursday!

The third Quaffer´s outing! Thursday, the 29th of November at 8pm. Bangalore Brit Pub and Curry House, Humboldt 1416 (near the corner of Niceto Vega), Palermo ¨Hollywood¨

As you may have noticed from other posts and our Facebook entry, the group also goes by the name something like Beer Drinkers Who Hate Quilmes. That´s a bit of a misnomer (although Quilmes Crystal is about as detestable a yanqui-style liquid-air chem-brew as a fella is likely to bring to his lips in this vale of tears.)

It sounds like, from our name, that we members hate the Quilmes Company... which couldn´t be farther from the truth.

The Quilmes brand comes from the Bemberg family (still one of the most fabulously wealthy families of all the even still fabulously wealthy families of Buenos Aires history.

Now just being wealthy and making a brew more apt to compete with coca-cola than cerveza is not enough to spare Herr Bemberg et al from my wrath.

What gives Otto & descendants, however, a lifetime pass from at least me is the fact that he was the Man who Brought Barley to the Argentine.

...and not just brought barley here... he made barley WORK... and made Argentina not only a Breadbasket of the World but added the title ¨Maltser to the World¨, as well.

It wasn´t easy. Good European barley grew well here... but not well enough to make anybody fabulously wealthy... or bring membership to La Republica in the club of great maltsers... or even satisfy the small but burgeoning demand for beer in South America.

For that Don Otto would have to work hard... and with a fanatical attention to detail that reminds me of nothing more than John D. Rockefeller´s attention to the emerging lampoil business some 10000km away.

Bemberg actually sent barley seed to every corner of Argentina. He hired the best men to not only sew, grow, and harvest but also to analyze every stage of the growth and the yield and results. Then all the tabulations were sent to Lo de Otto for compilation.

So far, so good... but not good enough for Bemberg.

He then produced his own strains of barley from the results and repeated the process again and again until he had his hands on the very best barley that could grow in South America... particularly in Argentina.

To this this day some or all of the fine micro- and craft-brews in Argentina are entirely from malt either directly from Bemberg or from his descendants... the same barley used in Quilmes Crystal.

I have 50kg of Quilmes Paine barley.

2 or 3 kilos of which is available to any aspiring maltser that attends Thursday´s gathering.

Cheers!
Mike