We have worked very hard to capture the Latin American beer market, and we feel that the current recovery in these economies will continue to provide Benthos with a growing business opportunity. It is sometimes said that Polar is the best Latin American beer found in the United States. Brewed and bottled in Venezuela by Cerveceria Polar Del Centro. The United States followed by China are the world s largest beer producers. Brazil is in the fifth place with over 8 billion liters per year in 1997.
Beer is as old as mankind s development.
Over 10,000 years ago, prehistoric man discovered the process of fermentation and managed to produce in smaller scale alcoholic beverages. From earliest times, some 5,000 years ago, Sumerians and Assyrians produced using cereal grains a fermented beverage. Their malting process was very similar to the one being used nowadays. Hieroglyphics and bas-relieves from 4,000 years ago indicate that the Egyptian civilization produced several kinds of beer, such as the Beer of the Notables and the Theban Beer. In the ancient times, the presence of beer in Central Europe could have resulted from the local evolution of primitive methods or know-how brought from Northern Africa and Iberian Peninsula to Galicia and Germany.