Beer Styles

What is Chopp? In Brazil, this is the name for draft beer, as distinct from bottled or canned beer, called cerveja. It almost always refers to a lean, pale Pilsner-style lager, served very cold from the tap. As with all Brazilian mass-market beers, a portion of corn is typically part of the recipe.

This beer style falls, in the BJCP competition guidelines, under internationally brewed pale lagers. They're mild in malt, restrained in hops, and built for drinkability. The opposite of a beer meant for contemplation, but that's exactly the point at thirty degrees Celsius in the shade.

Alongside it stands the style Colorado has made its own: beers built around a Brazilian ingredient. Indica is an India Pale Ale made with rapadura. Demoiselle is named after the aircraft of the Brazilian Alberto Santos-Dumont and uses coffee from the Alta Mogiana. Cauim combines barley malt and mandioca with German yeast and Czech hops.

These beers don't constitute their own fixed style. They're a concept that works through ingredient and idea, and each is classified under a familiar style depending on its recipe. So when you taste Colorado, you're not comparing it to a standard, but asking how much Brazil is in the glass.

Unlike Kölsch or Kentish Ale, no register protects these names. Neither Chopp, nor Cauim, nor Colorado Indica carries a protected designation of origin, and anyone can use the term Chopp for a draft beer. The ranges on the right apply to the pale lager as a style framework.