What is beer like in Loja, Ecuador? Corner store mass produced ‘tienda’ beer reviews.

The Spanish word for beer is cerveza. Beer lovers coming to Loja will want to add this noun to their vocabulary as soon as possible. The Spanish name is derived from the Gallic French word for “cervoise,” which was an ancient brewed drink made from barley or wheat but without hops. Our visitors and clients have told us that things would have been much easier upon arrival in Loja if they had some idea of the kinds of beer on offer in the many corner stores or tiendas of every neighborhood. This is why Life in Loja reviewed a selection of very basic ‘tienda beers’ commonly available in our city. We will taste and discuss well-known brands like Pilsener, Club, Biela, and Latitud Cero. These are not the full range of beer you will find in Loja’s corner stores, but they are Life in Loja’s preferred picks of the pack for widely available, mass produced Ecuadorian beer. Loja has recently become the home of a number of excellent craft beer breweries that also deserve our attention. Rest assured, beer lovers will not go without a brewski in the city. A cold one is within easy walking distance of every residence. If you are lucky, your tienda will also stock some microbrews.

Pilsener, our first taste-test, is the name of an Ecuadorian brand of beer, as well as a variety of beer, that has been produced by Cervecería Nacional SA in Guayaquil since the 1880s. Guayaquil is Ecuador’s largest city, largest port, and has been home to the largest number of immigrants. Ecuadorians of European descent in the 19th century acquired an ice factory in this sultry city and began producing what has become a ubiquitous beer brand sold in every store and listed on nearly every restaurant drinks menu in the country. Making and selling beer meant to be served cold was no mean feat in the tropical port.

The variety of beer from which Ecuador’s Pilsener brand takes its name is the world’s most popular type of beer. Typically pilsner beer is light in color and texture and best served cold. Pilsener brand’s popular no-nonsense 600-plus milliliter size bottle, roughly equivalent to a 22 oz. “bomber” in the US, assures that you and your friends will have a great time!

For our tienda beer tasting, Life in Loja chose one of Pilsener’s limited time labels usually having to do with a big music promotion or holiday celebration where beer is a central ingredient. North Americans know the kind of budgets brewers spend on ads, often enjoying the resulting commercials as much as the televised sporting events they sponsor like the US’s Super Bowl, for example. It wouldn’t be the same without the ‘Bud’ commercials. Ecuador is no different with their favorite carry-out corner store beers. If there is a big game or holiday, Pilsener will be pushing out splashy ads. Pilsener is inexpensive, chilling at the corner store, has a medium to light taste with low acidity, and is perfect for a hot night enjoying Lojano fast foods, seafood favorites, and popular chicken or pork barbecues.

The cervesas at your local tienda are subject to a strong distribution monopoly. Fridge display space in corner stores and small markets that is not taken up by yellow label Pilseners in the brown bottle will have green bottle gold label “Club” beer using up the rest of that real estate. Sometimes referred to affectionately as “verde” or green because of the bottle color, Club is also a blonde pilsner-style beer and another product of the massive Cervecería Nacional SA brewing company. Club has a little higher alcohol punch and a crisper feel. Life in Loja’s tasters think that the best variety of Club, given a choice, is Club ‘platinum’ with the silver label. This formulation uses a higher grade of hops and 100% barley with no lower quality fermentables in the recipe  such as rice. Any beer that is not in a dark bottle can have defects from being exposed to light giving it a skunky or cat litter vibe. We leave it to you the drinker to decide about that because clearly beer in light colored bottles, such as Club or Corona, do not seem to be missing any business in Ecuador because of their container. If you happen upon Budweiser, Corona, Becks or other beer labels you recognize, those are also distributed by this 900lbs gorilla of a beer company, Cervecería Nacional.

If you are more of a lager fan when it comes to beer, then try Biela. Not every corner store in Loja has it like the Pilsener and Club, however, it has a wide enough distribution in Loja making it easy to locate. Once a small Ecuadorian brewery making basic beer, it was acquired by the global conglomerate that owns Heineken. This means that if you find Biela, you will likely find a few Heinies parked alongside it in your Lojano corner store along with other Dutch favorites like Amstel. Lager beer is a fuller bodied brew that ranges from medium dark to amber. It is ‘bottom’ fermented with a special yeast variety and left to mature in cold storage. In Europe, that process would have taken place in cellars or caves underground. Biela is a lager on the lighter side with medium carbonation, an expected hoppy smell, malt flavor, and slight astringency. Other reviewers do not like its fruity pear-like sweetness as an aftertaste, but Life in Loja wasn’t put off by it. We found it acceptable as corner store beer goes. The beer is available and drinkable. Expectations can never be that high for mass produced beer and the hope of finding a genuine Ecuadorian beer rests with the microbreweries. Not only is Biela owned by Heineken after being passed around like a party favor in a number of acquisitions, but it now has SABMiller, the company that owns Cervecería Nacional (the Pilsener and Club brewers), as a majority stockholder.

Last but not least, Life in Loja tastes Latitud Cero. This is the “little microbrewery that could,” so to speak. Growing out of a mid twenty-teens startup in Cuenca, Loja’s urban Andean neighbor to the north, their brand is now easily available almost anywhere you shop for beer in Loja. If you want a cold one from the corner store with personality and don’t have time to chase down local microbrews, we recommend trying any (or all!) of LC’s eight varieties. They brew and distribute Belgian wheat beer, IPAs that pack a punch, and Marzens brewed specially for Oktoberfest. Life in Loja’s picks are Latitud Cero’s amber ale, a cararmely malt, and their IPA, hoppy-tasting ‘India pale ale”, amusingly named ‘Reventor’ after the unpredictable Reventador volcano near Ecuador’s capital in Quito. If you still haven’t had enough of LC, you can visit their brewery in Cuenca and their gastropubs in Cuenca, Quito, and Guayaquil.

There you have it. A mini crawl through the beer section of Loja’s corner stores or tiendas. If you have any beer-related questions or questions about any other Loja topics, please contact Life in Loja. We will be happy to help! If you have thoughts about these beer brands or any of the other brews for sale in Loja, leave us a comment below. Until we meet again, ​​”Salud!”

Life in Loja is dedicated to exploring all things Ecuadorian in this special region at the end of the Andean rainbow. If you’d like to explore the tastes of Loja and many of our other cultural and natural wonders, or if you would like more information about visiting or relocating in Loja, contact us by email, or phone/WhatsApp at 593-098-674-5994.

Life In Loja is registered under Ecuador’s department of intellectual rights as of 2022.