In the UK, and around the world, cask conditioned beer is seen as a British phenomenon and yet, there are pubs around the world like The Notre Dame, near Buenos Aires that offer cask beer, In this three-part series David Jesudason investigates the type of customer who drinks in these pubs. Are they locals or British people who live abroad? What kind of experiences are they looking for? Are they wanting to recreate a slice of home or is it because of a genuine love of British beer? David looks into the practicalities of serving British beer abroad and whether the beer and the pub experience can be considered as ‘good’ as it is in the UK.
David is a freelance journalist published by BBC Culture, Guardian, Pellicle and more. As a British-Asian campaigner for racial equality David seeks transformative narratives through writing about beer.
“I’m a big fan of cask ale. It’s fresh for three days and compares well to Lambic beer – it’s very historic and the best way to drink beer.”
Alberto Eyherabide is speaking to me from Luján in Argentina and is keen to use this Zoom call to demonstrate that, despite being over 7,000-odd miles away, we are very close when it comes to the way we think of beer. He runs a basement bar called Notre Dame in the city which is located near Buenos Aires; it specialises in cask and despite the hot weather Eyherabide has turned this small establishment into a beacon for real ale by encouraging curious customers to become enthusiasts.
So much so that now people travel from all around to sample his hand-pulled beer and you can easily see why because his enthusiasm for all things cask really shows no boundaries. This is a man on a mission to upend how Argentinians drink beer and view Britain in a romantic light despite previous animosities between the two countries.
And it all started in the Olde Mitre ten years ago. The historic London pub – as Des de Moor rightly points out in London’s Best Beer Pubs and Bars was built in 1546 but remodelled a lot since with a 1930s Tudor pastiche remaining – is where it all began for Eyherabide after he had one sip of London Pride.
“I discovered cask ale,” he says. “Because I love the culture of the UK.”
But it wasn’t easy for him to set up a cask ale ‘pub’ in Argentina. First, Eyherabide sought out information from CAMRA on how a cask cellar would work in theory and obtained a book published by this organisation, which he then had to translate himself into Spanish. He then bombarded CAMRA volunteers with emails hoping for practical tips on how to get himself up and running in a hot country with no history of cask beer. He also had to work with breweries that weren’t producing cask ale as no one else was dispensing it in the country.
But Eyherabide didn’t give up and he found an organisation in the US that could offer similar help to CAMRA – NERAX, which organises the longest-running real ale festival in the US, as well as providing the practical hands-on training he craved. They invited him to the festival in New England and then encouraged him to take a cellar managing course in Boston, Massachusetts.
He now is the only qualified cellar man working in Argentina. This process took four years which shows how much of a labour of love it was to bring cask to his country. But problems remained – he had to contend with the heat of Argentina not being conducive to ensuring live beer stayed palatable and the issue on how he could source casks from various local breweries who hadn’t any experience of cask.
“People here love cold beer,” he admits. “And we have a tradition for great wine. People started to be interested in craft about six or seven years ago but if they’ve never travelled to the UK they wouldn’t know what cask ale is. The first objection they have is the temperature as they are used to drinking lagers, like Quilmes.
“But I love to speak to people about cask ale and making the cellar work is a very romantic pursuit.”
To make people appreciate the wonders of real ale he serves it at 10C-13C and will have the same beer on cask and on keg – Eyherabide loves doing this as he gets to see first hand how many people prefer former to the latter. He even spent a long time sourcing the right pint glasses (festival-style over size ones familiar to CAMRA members) as Argentina often has importation issues. The only problem that remains is getting the type of beers he wants to serve as he’s beholden to North and South American beer styles and whatever the breweries can give him.
“We have a more of culture of American beers,” he says. “Like APA. The English-style beers aren’t as popular so it’s very difficult for a brewery to give me a bitter, stout or porter. But we have good hops here because of Patagonia which has the similar weather as, say, Australia. It’s not like American hops but they are very natural.”
Six years after his cellar course, Eyherabide says it is a big success and they are even able to run a beer festival where eight cask ales are offered at once – the first event started with two lines and that was followed by six a year later, so the growth is evidently there and very encouraging. Usually, the pub has one or two cask ales at the weekend and two during St Patrick’s Day which is one of Notre Dame’s busiest days.
Because of this relative small output – the bar is in a basement after all – Eyherabide has to do a lot more work that the average publican to ensure a steady stream of real ale is a constant feature. When he first started trying cask he had to explain in detail how he wanted the beer placed in the firkins to the breweries and, fortunately, they now understand his needs. But he still has to clean every barrel out, return them and then collect his new order.
“It’s a lot of work for me,” he says. “Because I have to do everything. The brewery is one hour away in Buenos Aires. I had to buy the old kegs from the internet and then modify them because they weren’t set up for cask – the guy from NERAX said ‘wow!’. It’s very heavy – 50 litres – so a lot of beer.”
This backbreaking work – the only staff Eyherabide have are a few volunteers during the festivals – has paid off and his pub attracts a surprising varied demographic. The people who like cask the most are young people (particularly women) which shows what happens when you serve a decent beer without any of the baggage or cultural associations that we’re used to in Britain.
“In the UK, old people like it,” he says. “But here it’s young people. People who want to try something different.”
The style of beer he serves will be familiar to those in the North of England, and perhaps the Midlands, as he uses a sparkler when he pulls a pint. The reason is Argentinians are used to Guinness and like the smooth head. I’m agnostic on the sparkler issue – I’m from Bedfordshire but lived in Leeds when I was a teenager – but I often like it when a sparkler is used to with darker beers. Notre Dame though is serving a lot of cream-flow IPAs and although I’m not sure about that approach it works for Eyherabide and his young Instagram-savvy clientele.
“People here love that part,” he says. “It makes for a more beautiful picture.”
That said Eyherabide does admit there is a demand stouts and “English-style” IPAs – I’m presuming this would be more of a bitter akin to Greene King rather than the ones shipped to India in the 19th century – according to beer writer Pete Brown these original IPAs would have tasted more like champagne.
But he does not cater for conventional beer tastes and the food he serves – considering he’s such an Anglophile – might surprise you. He doesn’t like burgers – maybe because high-quality beef if so plentiful in Argentina and, therefore, steaks and patties would be common fare in bars. Instead he believes in pairing his cask beers with cheese especially those from France and Italy.
“Cheese and beer are a great combination,” he says. “My pub is a combination of the English and the Basque country. I have a lot of Spanish tradition when it comes to food – my family is from there.”
The food it seems is the only departure from Britishness as Notre Dame has all the accoutrements you’d normally associate with a local pub – from crisps to drip trays and beer mats. The music, cask drinkers listen to is also very British, think Stone Roses or Oasis. For me this sounds like home from home.
It’s admirable too because Britishness might not be something you would think would thrive in a country that we have been in conflict with over the Malvinas (for purposes of international diplomacy let’s revert to the archipelago’s name before Britain invaded them in 1833). It’s a country that this country fought in 1982 and killed 649 Argentines, as well as causing the deaths of three civilians in ‘friendly fire’ as these Malvinas residents were classed as British.
And Argentina is a country where we have a huge footballing rivalry – my first real experience of adult unfairness (outside of my family interactions) was aged eight when I just couldn’t comprehend that a footballer (Diego Maradona) could win a match in a World Cup by handling the ball. At that age I didn’t know the context of the 1986 game but it showed how the Malvinas conflict caused a deep seated hatred of Britain in the Argentine psyche.
“It’s in the past,” Eyherabide says. “I was only aged one years old when the war ended. It was not our problem but the government’s, especially as a lot of young people died. Twenty years ago people didn’t want to talk about it but the [Argentine] government started the war because it had problems [Leopoldo Galtieri invaded the Malvinas due to a decline in popularity from civil rights abuses and an economic crisis].
“We have no problem here with you. Two months ago a couple of young British men came to our pub and we talked about the war like this. It’s in the past and the UK is a great country and I love its culture. Also the British are very fun people.”
When I think of all the reasons I love cask beer: its unique taste, its freshness and the rituals that go along with it, I never thought that I would add “international diplomacy”. Whatever your political viewpoint on events like the Malvinas it shows that great beer can bring people together and show a country in a good light – something which we’ve sorely missed of late.
But maybe this is the work of one man: Eyherabide’s toil to bring cast to his countrymen is really inspiring especially when he tells me how much he charges for a pint. (Remember he cleans the firkins, schleps them to the brewery and back and them taps them in all on his own).
He charges only a £1 a pint.
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