La Cerveza Cubana (Cuban Beer)

Cubans love a good beer. They love "una buena cerveza fría" (a good cold beer). Most of my childhood memories of Sunday dinners or backyard BBQs involve women in the kitchen cooking, gossiping and men sitting at a table playing dominoes ingesting "chicharrones" (fried pork grinds) and beer until dinnertime. I love those memories. Growing up in the US I saw my dad and uncles drinking Heineken or Budweiser. I never knew that Cuba also had their own beer and that it was actually good. It wasn't until my teens when my mom brought home Hatuey beer that I was introduced to "la cerveza Cubana." In fact, there are about 2 fairly well known Cuban beers. Here they are:



HATUEY BEER pronounced "ah-tway", was launched by the Santiago Brewing Company (part of the BACARDI Company) in Cuba in 1927. The beer was named after a Dominican Indian chief known as "El Cacique de Guajabá", who headed a local resistance to Diego Velazquez in Cuba's Oriente Province in the early sixteenth century and had ultimately been burned at the stake in Baracoa, Cuba in 1514. Throughout Cuban history, his name has been synonymous with the struggle for Cuban independence from the Spanish. Hatuey beeer is perhaps the best known of the
Cuban beers. By 1959 Hatuey controlled 50% of Cuba's beer market. It was so popular that in 1956 Earnest Hemingway featured the beer in his book For Whom the Bells Toll. But after Castro's regime confiscated BARCARDI's assets in 1960, the popularity and quality of Hatuay beer began to fade. Today, you can find the Hatuay beer in Spanish markets across the US. If you want to read more about the history of the Hatuay beer go to their website www.hatuey.com


CERVEZA TROPICAL was born in the late 1880's in Cuba by the Blanco Herrera family in a small brewery. In time, La Tropical as it was known, became Cuban's largest brewer, producing 58% of the island's beer production with brands such as La Tropical, Cristal,Tropical 50 and Maltina. But everything came to an end when in 1960, Castro's Communist regime confiscated and nationalized La Tropical. For more than 38 years La Tropical disappeared from the world's beer market. But in 1998, a Cuban-American named Manuel J. Portuondo and Ramón Blanco Herrera (grandson of La Tropical's founder) reintroduced it to the world market. Learn more about La Tropical at www.cervezatropical.com

I'm sure there are other Cuban beers that I've missed. But these are the two that stand out in my mind and my memory. Next time you have a party try some Cuban beer instead of the ones you are used to. Throw on some Beny More or Buena Vista Social Club and have "una cerveza Cubana."