Cusqueña Roja
Brewed by Backus y Johnston (AB InBev)
Style: Red Lager
Cusco, Peru
In the ancient ruins of Macchu Picchu, Peru, thousands go every year to experience the spiritual lands of the ancients in the hope they to can drink some special beer from the brewery Backus y Johnston, at the the seat of the Inca empire. Using pure mountain water sourced from the nearby Andes this beer was founded in 1911. Ok not quite way back in time, but good enough for me and for the general masses who have made it Peru’s number one beer.
On October 1, 1908, Ernesto Günther, and a group of investors, founded the Cervecera Alemana in the ancient city of Cusco. Their bottled brew proved a hit. Over time they changed their name to reflect local traditions, increased production and grew in popularity. By 2000, Backus and Johnston, the largest brewery in Peru, came a calling and took over the company.
Backus and Johnston, the big daddy of brewing in the country, with its headquarters in the capital Lima, is the largest brewery in Peru, and also produce bottled water, soft drinks and other alcoholic beverages. They have taken over many smaller breweries in the country, and run what some have called a monopoly in the beer market with complete ownership of all the most popular brands in the land.
Cusqueña beer comes in four main varieties that are sold throughout Peru: Cusqueña Dorada, a regular lager and the most popular beer in the land, a Cusqueña Roja, a red Lager, a Cusqueña Trigo, a typical Wheat Beer, and a black lager a Cusqueña Negra.
Review: 33cl reddish Bottle of Cusqueña Roja: ABV: 5 %
Coming in a narrow reddish bottle, with the image of the ruins of Machu Picchu in yellow on a label around the head of the bottle. Not a stand out look though it has to be said, would easily pass by it on the supermarket shelf.
On pour I get a dark orange colour with a reddish hue, with no real head to speak off. All fairly flat and not great. Dead in appearance.
The smell is malty and faint, not much to smell. Got a whiff of caramel.
On taste, oh its not great, tasteless, I am not getting anything substantial at all. A slight taste of the barely and caramel, on the initial taste, but that’s basically it, flavourless and has no bite to it with only the slightest bit of an aftertaste. Very dry in the mouth too.
Got the malts and the grains alright, and it certainly is very easy to drink, but not one I will be buying again in the future.
Ok for a light beer, drinkable, but not anything brilliant, quite the opposite in fact!. Perhaps it didn’t travel very well.
On the second bottle things picked up a bit for the beer.
The white head decided to stick around that bit longer, and its appearance wasn’t as flat looking as the first beer I had.
Ok got generally the same tastes, but this one was a little better to sip at, more to savor, and over the time it became a bit more manageable. The caramel and the malts came more to the fore. Still though, won’t be searching for it in the beer shop anytime soon!
SAB over time came to dominate not just South Africa, but most of the continent of Africa, and through a series of acquisitions and joint ventures throughout the 1990s, SAB gained a foothold in various countries in Africa, Eastern Europe (Hungary and Czech Rep.) and Asia (China and India). This was a definite process of a company from a “developing nation” buying breweries from countries that had similar geo-political, infrastructural and business issues. Success in these emerging markets showed that SAB could venture into the “Developed world”, such as in Italy and the US. Working in South Africa and in developing countries first was very beneficial as it helped the company come up with numerous innovative ways to deal with lack of infrastructure, supports, and skill shortages. It also made the company more open to take risks. The company also invested in other lucrative markets, such as running hotels and casinos, and diversified into the food industry (coffee, tea, and food products), manufacturing and retail (including green grocers, furniture factories and stores, shoe factories and stores, and clothing stores). This was a company that had its nose in every nook and cranny of SA society!
Back to Castle Brewery. Castle Lager sponsors a host of sporting teams and events, from the main sponsor of “Bafana Bafana”, the national football team, to the South African Cricket Team, the South African Rugby Team, ie, the “Springboks”, and a host of others. 
Has a nice piercing smell of sweet corn, and a lager type aroma, very malty, grainy and lemony. Ok on the nose.
A beer from Ethiopia??? Yeah you bet ya I’d like to try that. Apparently Ethiopia has a thriving beer industry. Well you learn something new everyday, eh!?
The beer has an interesting cover on its bottle. We get to see a medieval type knight slaying a dragon. Well of course that knight is St George, the geezer that slayed that big old dragon back in the day and I think might also have something to do with the Knights Templar (See my article on 
Aroma is faint but I got a sweet malty smell and some barely, bit tinty and lagery as well. 
The Nigerian product is very different to the stuff you would buy back in Dublin. The product essentials are the same, branding and trademarks, but the inside of the bottle is different. Instead of barley, it’s typically brewed with locally harvested maize or sorghum, producing a more bitter taste which is more suited to the African palate. It is also sold in ice-cold liter-sized bottles with a 7.5 percent alcohol content boasting a higher content compared to the roughly 4-5 percent found in Guinness draught and Guinness Extra Stout.
Comes in the well known dark bottle, Guinness Special Extra Stout is a beer with its own unique taste. Can I find the classic Guinness taste in this Foreign Extra version?
