Region & History

Who founded the Cervejaria Colorado? Marcelo Carneiro, a Carioca from Rio de Janeiro, opened it in Ribeirão Preto in 1996. He'd brought his ideas back from time spent in the United States. The plan was simple: every beer should carry at least one ingredient that tastes of Brazil.

This makes Colorado a pioneer of brewing with native ingredients. They've used coffee from the Alta Mogiana, rapadura (firm, unrefined cane sugar), honey, and mandioca, the cassava root. Ribeirão Preto lies inland in the state of São Paulo, right in the heart of sugarcane and coffee country.

In July 2015, a subsidiary of Ambev bought the brewery. Ambev was formed in 1999 from Brahma and Antarctica and belongs to AB InBev. Production and distribution grew substantially afterward, and according to press reports, the brand's core identity with its Brazilian ingredients was preserved. What had been an independent craft operation became a brand within a corporation.

Older than Colorado is the city's Chopp culture. The Choperia Pinguim, a house belonging to Companhia Antarctica Paulista, opened in 1937 in the Diederichsen Building of Ribeirão Preto, one of the great structures of the interior. Already in the 1910s and 1920s, the city of São Paulo had a Pinguim modeled on German tradition on Avenida São João.

The Antarctica brewery stood just a few streets away. From this grew the legend of the Chopeduto: a pipe, so the story goes, carried the beer directly from the brewery into the bar. It's never been proven, but it explains why the place became famous well beyond the city.

No protected designation of origin exists for beer from Brazil in the EU register. The Reinheitsgebot is German law, and Brazilian brewers are free to use other starch sources besides malt, such as corn or cassava.