Beer in Argentina
The annual consumption of beer in Argentina is about 33 litres per person. German Argentines. There had been German immigrants in Argentina, since before 1871, but a change of immigration policies along the Volga and the imposition of military service caused a mass exodus of ethnic Germans to Catholic Argentina. In the 1881 census they were the fourth largest ethnic group in the country. There was money to be made from land purchase and parcelling, and the families were expecting home comforts. All the early breweries had owners with ethnic German names. List of breweries in Argentina . Major distribution companies. Compañía de las Cervecerías Unidas Cerverceria Bieckert. This was the first beer to be brewed in Argentina. (1837-1913) was of Alsatian origin, the border region between Germany and France, both countries with a strong beer tradition. shows he was selling Bock beer, a strong beer developed by the monasteries in Bavaria, and Pilsner a lighter beer of Czech origin. Pilsner needs low temperatures to ferment correctly. A few years earlier Bieckert had opened the first ice manufacturing plant in the country. Cervecería y Maltería Quilmes. Quilmes is an Argentine brewery founded in 1888 in Quilmes, Buenos  Aires Province, by Otto Bemberg, a German immigrant in the early 1880s. By the 1920s it was the iconic Argentinian beer. Quilmes was the largest beer maker in Argentina in 1993. In the 21st century it was owned by a Luxembourg holding company, which holds franchises for overseas beers and soft drinks, and in 2006 control passed to the Brazilians. Craft Breweries in Argentina. There has been a considerable boom in microbrewing in Argentina since the start of the 21st century. As of 2019, there were 4,000 microbreweries in Argentina. Some of the most notable Argentine craft breweries have their  roots in the wave of German and Swiss immigration to the southern provinces of Río Negro and Neuquén in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The city of Bariloche is a particular hotspot for craft brewing.