Beer.

Words of the Day:
microcervecería- micro-brewery
chela (Chile)- beer
cerveza artesanal- artisanal beer

There's nothing quite like a nice chat with friends over a really quality brew. I was sort of expecting Chile to be lacking in regards to beer, with maybe 1 or 2 generic tasting national brands and maybe the occasional Corona. These there definitely are: Cristal and Escudo are the two main beers you can get pretty much everywhere. However, (Thank you German Immigrant influence!) Chile has quite a few excellent microbrewery outlets offering "cervezas artesanales", several of which are conveniently located in a string near my house.

One of these fine locales is known as Budapest and consistently proves that I can get one of the nice aspects of studying abroad in Europe while still being in South America! They have a lovely rubia (blonde) ale with a light but full taste and a great negro (black) ale that has great flavor without being too heavy. Not totally sure why there are blonde and black ales instead of dark and light.
On Friday, I decided to go for a more adventurous drink, a dark beer and condensed milk combination. While this seemed sort of risky (ie won't the milk ruin a perfectly good beer???) it actually was kind of delicious. The sweetness of the milk contrasted really well with the slight bitterness of the beer perfectly: sort of like a beer milkshake. Go figure.

I still have yet to go to HBH, Ñuñoa's well known microcervecería, but friends who have gone rave. Good job pulling out the surprises Chile.