I just returned from five days in Portugal. While there I gave two talks about beer. The first titled ‘Drinking Beer in the Digital Age” was presented to a meeting of The Regional Science Academy, while the second titled ‘Changes in the Global Brewing Industry’ was presented to students and faculty of the School of Economics and Management at the University of Lisbon. This was my third trip to Portugal; with the most recent being in 2016. During my 2016 visit I spent some time in Lisbon’s Museum of Beer (Museu da Cerveja). You can read about my visit to the museum here.

Portugal is neither a large producer or consumer of beer. Among European countries it is fourteenth in terms of the volume of beer produced, and twenty-sixth when it comes to per capita consumption. And in keeping with trends in many other western economies, per capita beer consumption has been on the decline in Portugal; falling from fifty-six liters to forty-seven liters between 2010 and 2016 (a decrease of sixteen percent). Many Portuguese prefer wine to beer. In fact, Portugal leads the world in per capita wine consumption.

Not surprisingly, the Portuguese brewing industry has an oligopolistic structure. Two companies, Sociedade Central de Cervejas (SCC) and Unicer, dominate the market. Combined, they have an eighty-three percent marker share. (Note that in 2017, Unicer rebranded itself and became Super Bock Group). Since 2008, SCC has been owned by Heineken, while Carlsberg have a forty-four percent share in Unicer. Two beer brands dominate the Portuguese beer market.  Sagres, brewed by SCC has a thirty-six percent market share, while Super Bock, brewed by Unicer, has a thirty percent market share. I drank quite a bit of Sagres Pale Lager and Super Bock Original (also a pale lager), during my visit.

Despite the dominance of these two large breweries, Portugal does have an emerging craft beer sector. I would not call it vibrant. It exists, but you have to actively seek it out. You cannot walk into a randomly chosen bar and expect to find craft beer on offer; whereas in the United States the chances of doing so are increasingly high. The first modern-era microbrewery did not open in Portugal until 2011. By 2016, the country had eighty-nine microbreweries.

As this was a business trip, with a fairly intensive agenda, I did not have an opportunity to visit any of Lisbon’s craft breweries. In fact, I only spent three nights in Lisbon, with the other two being spent in the relative solitude of a sixteen century monastery, Convento de  Arrábida, thirty miles (fifty kilometers) outside of Lisbon. On my first evening in Lisbon, however, I did find time to visit one of Lisbon’s craft beer bars. Cerveteca is regarded by some as Lisbon’s primary spot for enjoying a craft beer. Opened in 2014, it is the city’s first craft beer bar. It has twelve rotating taps, as well as a number of Portuguese, European, and American craft beers available by the bottle or can. The decor is simple and rustic.

The evening I went there happened to coincide with a tap takeover by the English brewery, Brew by Numbers and the Portuguese brewery  Cerveja Musa. Thr first beer I tried was  ENEIPA 2000, a New England IPA, by Cerveja Musa. Cerveja Musa is a Lisbon microbrewery, established in 2016, by Bruno Carrillho and Nuno Melo. The rest of the evening was spent sampling beers by Brew by Numbers (BBNo). Brew by Numbers is a brewery in London, England. BBNo use a four-digit numbering system to identify each of the beers that they brew. The first two numbers indicate the beer’s style (e,g. Stout, Brown Ale etc.), while the second two numbers indicate the recipe within the style. So, for example, 05 indicates an India Pale Ale (IPA). Within the IPA style there are twenty-eight different recipes, which are based on the variety of hops used. For example, 01 is Amarillo and Citra, 08 is Mosaic, and 21 is Azacca and NZ Cascade. So an IPA made using Amarillo and Citra Hops is 05/01. While at  Cerveteca, I had two BBNo brews – 01/29 and 18/09. 01/29 is a Saison (01) with oyster and kombu (29), while 18/09 is a Farmhouse (18) Witbier (09). So while  my visit to Cerveteca did not deliver the range of Portuguese craft beers that I had hoped for, it did provide an unanticipated opportunity to sample some beers from a brewery (BBNo)  of which I had heard, but whose beers I had not tried before.

While in Lisbon, I also had an opportunity to visit Cervejaria Trindade, which bills itself as “the oldest and most beautiful Beer House in Portugal”. The site was the home of thirteenth century convent, which had to undergo significant reconstruction on three occasions (following a fire in 1794, earthquake in 1755, and fire in 1756). In 1834 it ceased to be a convent, and in 1836 was purchased by Manuel Garcia, an industrialist of Galician origin. Garcia turned the former convent into Portugal’s first brewery, the Trindade Brewery. In 1854 the brewery was designated a royal brewery, and provided beer to the Portuguese royal family. Today, the Cervejaria Trindade is owned by the brewery Sociedade Central de Cervejas. Alas, beer is no longer brewed on site and the beer choices are limited to beers brewed by SCC and Guinness. I opted for a light lunch of caldo verde (a traditional Portuguese soup) and Bohemia Puro Malte (a premium lager brewed by SCC). Inside, Cervejaria Trindade resembles a German Beer hall – large and spacious, with large trestle tables where you can sit with friends and enjoy some beers.

Portugal is some way behind other European countries when it comes to its appreciation of craft beer. However, slowly but surely, craft beer options are becoming more abundant. To go from zero microbreweries in 2010 to eighty-nine in 2016 is impressive. In discussing the future of the Portuguese Beer marker, Euromonitor International, make mention of “increasing consumer sophistication” and its positive impact on the future of the craft beer sector. To that, I say saude!