Enia is a 21 year old girl from Pueblo City, Mexico, a passionate lover of beer and good food. Among other things, she is a student of foreign languages and business management, polyglot, and photographer amateur. In beer is interested in the Slow-Beerr campaign that has been going on for several years in Mexico, exactly in the city of Pueblo City. Why did Enia choose beer, not tequila, as their national drink. As she told us herself on one occasion from our first meeting in Turin 2 years ago, the Terra Madre Salone del Gusto 2016 – because you yourself know the passion for beer as a drink but also as a producer, because of its varied tastes and the subtle of beer as a healthy and clean drink. Today is an event organizer and has a blog for food. Cooperates with Slow Food Mexico in the campaign for Slow Beer. The interview was made immediately after the Terra Madre Salone del gusto event in 2018 in Turin
Mexico is a country which gave to the world most recognizable beer brand Corona, as the largest industrial beer producer in the world, and also before craft beer revolution the similar styles of beer producers like Negro Modelo, Dos XXX, Sol. which gave a recognizable taste of beer who come from your country. How today is organized and do you have some collaboration between big breweries and small breweries?
I think that recognizable taste is because those beers are easy to drink, they’re very refreshing and light there’s no complexity to be honest. Actually this year Grupo Modelo and Heineken with 14 craft breweries such as Calavera Beer, CruCru, La Silla, Cerveceria Nevado, Concordia, Minerva, Tulum, Colima, Allende, and Ceiba made a collaboration,and they created this beer called Cerveza Colectiva in English Collective Beer a vienna style beer but they didn’t launch. Nowadays i think there’s no competition between small and big breweries, they respect their market.
How craft beer revolution begin in Mexico? How many craft breweries you have today? How is a legislation in Mexico for small breweries? do you need to have some extra certificate and other bureaucracy document to start with business?
All started in 1995 with Cosaco a small brewery here in Мexico created by Gustavo González who was brewing an Ale beer in his house, then his friends started to taste this beer and recommending it, but it was until 2003 when this movement started to grow with breweries like Minerva and Primus (which are very known here in Mexico). Nowadays there are approximately 600 craft breweries in Mexico that represent a great economic factor for our country. All the brewers who want to sell their beers have to ask for permission in COFEPRIS a governmental organization in Mexico and the certifications are optional but if you want a good quality in your craft beer, you better have this certificates or at least someone who has it, so they can help you such as: BJCP, Cicerone or Doemens
Mexico is one of the few country who have a dedicated presidium for beer in Slow Food and started a campaign in Slow Beer Mexico. What motivated you as Slow Food Mexico to begin with this project?
We are compromised in educate the taste of our people, also we want to spread and support this movement of good quality craft beer, and motivate our local brewers, because of their beers we can taste a whole new world, they put their effort and dedication in every beer, so that means that there’s a story behind every brewer and their creations.
I know that Mexico have a large production of barley special for big breweries, how are you dealing with the monopoly of large industrial corporations that have almost appropriated the entire production of barley, how in this view are the raw materials handled by small producers? Do you have importer for ingredients and which is your favorite? What kind of malt u use for beer, which kind of hops are popular in craft beer?
It’s not a problem at all because the industrial amounts of it create a low quality barley, so that’s the reason why small breweries take advantage of that and they try to find the best type of barley and the ingredients are from a good quality. There’s a enterprise called DIFUSA and they provide small breweries. The malts are Pilsner, Pale Ale and Magnum and hops are Cascade, Citra, Simcoe, Chinook and Centennial
As a Slow Beer Mexico do you organize campaigns to educate and promote the spread of a culture of consuming good local and quality craft beer and what kind of workshops have you organized in your country up to now?
Yes, i do organize campaigns and events to promote this movement’ at first it started as a hobby but today is part of my life, and I’m very compromised in spread the culture of craft beer, i have organized and coordinate the third edition of the Slow Beer Competition 2018 and Process hygiene control in beer production ran by Randy Mosher, I’m trying to be more involved in more events, also internationally.
Which kind of local ingredients are most used by craft breweries from Mexico?
Luckily, Mexico has the best weather and this helps the production of coffee and cacao, so the most used ingredients are coffee from Chiapas, Cacao from Chontalpa (located in Tabasco), Vanilla from Papantla. Also some brewers have experimented with pulque and honey from Yucatan or Cuetzalan. This year in Terra Madre the winners of Slow Beer Mx 2018 brought beers with those ingredients, for example: Huerfana(Brewery) the first place of the Agave/Maguey category brought Maguey Beer, Ramuri(Brewery) the winner of best of show brought “La Porter del tiempo” made from vanilla from Papantla and La Brü brought “Pulque pale ale sour”, we’re very proud of our country and the products that our land produces
How much interest is shown by the campaign Slow Beer and how many breweries are under your protection, how is the cooperation with them and with the international slow food network. what are a proposition to have a beer under Slow Beer Mexico in general?
There are a lot of brewers that are very interested in participate with Slow Beer, they have the same idea as us to preserve our indigenous culture and products, we have beers from La Brü and Beer Factory which are under our protection, they are part of the bastion of Slow Food and that gives it a certification of quality
What are other interesting products which you have this year in Terra Made Salone del Gusto, i have tasted some very chili spice, great tekila, and some kind of water as i know, i bye also some chocolate from Maya and a lot of great food and other things from mexico.
We have a lot of products which are very particular like: honey which is made by bees without sting from Yucatan, mayan chocolate from Oaxaca, pulque which is a beverage made from the Maguey (a plant), smoked salt from Zapotitlan, spicy sauce from Puebla and nacho chips made of blue tortilla. All those products represent our roots, our history and we want to preserve this culture of gastronomy.
Објавено на: 06/10/2018
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