Beer Styles

What is a Catharina Sour? It's a light, sour wheat beer with fresh fruit and is considered the first beer style to originate in Brazil. It takes its name from the state of Santa Catarina, where it was defined in 2015 at a meeting of professional and homebrewers.

The Berliner Weisse, also sour and low in alcohol, served as the model. The difference lies in the fruit: in the Catharina Sour it's mandatory, while in the Berliner Weisse it comes at most as a syrup in the glass. Cervejaria Blumenau, opened in 2015, is considered the style's birthplace.

In 2016, the brewers' association Acasc held a workshop with more than twenty breweries, who then began producing the style professionally. In 2018, the BJCP included it in its guidelines, as entry X4 among the specialty styles. There the beer is listed at 4 to 5.5% ABV with almost no bitterness.

The second signature style is the pale lager called Chopp. It's light, cold, and easy-drinking, without much hop bitterness, following the line of international pale lagers. It suits the hot climate and everyday life in Brazil.

The difference between the two is substantial: Chopp is a simple thirst-quencher, while the Catharina Sour is a modern craft beer with clean acidity and clear fruit. Both represent a country where beer is meant to refresh before it does anything else.

Neither style is a legal term, just a description. The Catharina Sour doesn't comply with the German Reinheitsgebot (purity law) because fruit is added. The beers may still be called beer, even in Germany, as long as they're sold as beer in their country of production.