On every wilderness trip by boat that we have ever done, either by raft or sailboat, beer provisioning turns out to be a major topic. First, there is the question of how much beer to take. Then, what kind of beer. Then, how to keep it cold.
The primary reason for carrying a cooler on Valdesca is to keep the beer chilled. Well, it’s also for vegetables and cheese and milk and eggs. But there are other ways to keep those products cool—storing then in the lazarette, for example. The beer, however, is decidedly better well chilled on ice. Those last few days before resupplying, even the cooler has reached equilibrium with the surroundings and everything inside it is no colder than the temperature of the water, about 60° on this trip.
How much beer? As you might imagine, we have limited space for beer, especially if we are provisioning for 16 days, as we have several times this year and last. The cooler first gets more than half filled with block ice. Then, in go the other perishables. And lastly the beer. At first there is only room for about 4 beers. As the ice melts, and we eat the vegetables, more beer fits in the cooler. In the meantime, we store the beer in rock-sample bags in Valdesca’s side lockers. For 16 days, we decided we could allocate one beer each per day, meaning we had to store 32 beers, which is 3 gallons and weighs 25 pounds. When we resupplied in Santa Rosalia, I discovered 10 beers in a side locker. We hadn’t even consumed our allocation! Tim says this always happens. Everybody gets uptight about having enough beer and people keep track of everyone else’s consumption and in the end there is always beer left over. Well, not always. While Jane was with us, she told us about a Grand Canyon river trip on which there were serious concerns about running out of beer. Then one might, three of the trip members sat up late drinking all of the beer. The next day, they hiked out because there was no more beer left.
Cans are really the only packaging that works on a boat like ours, so we’re limited to beer that comes in cans. Generally speaking, no good beer comes in cans. And generally they are lagers. Sometimes, we can get some decent beer in cans in the US (by "decent" I mean hopsy or dark or at least well-crafted). I have to say, though, that every Grand Canyon trip I’ve been on, there has been an overabundance of Tecate, Rolling Rock, and Carling Black Label. I’ve consumed enough of those to never need any more. There’s nothing like a can of Tecate that spent 18 days in the bilge of a raft and then ended up in the refrigerator at home with almost no lettering left on it. I'm actually kind of surprised we don't have one at the back of the liquor closet. I must have given the last ones to somebody for Christmas.
So another question is where to buy the beer, in the US or in Mexico? Well, no sense taking Bud to Mexico. Mexico, after all, produces a lot of beer. But Mexican beer is really not very good. It’s all produced by two giant brewing conglomerates. One of the conglomerates, Cervecería Modelo/Grupo Modelo, makes Corona Extra, Corona Light, Negra Modelo, Modelo Especial, Estrella, and Pacifico. Of these, only Negra Modelo is a dark beer and it only comes in a bottle; the rest are lagers. The other conglomerate, Cervecería Cuauhtémoc-Moctezuma, makes Tecate, Tecate Light, Sol, Dos Equis, Carta Blanca, Superior, Bohemia, and Noche Buena (a Christmas beer). Bohemia is a dark and Dos Equis and Noche Buena have “body” you could say, but none of them come in cans. The others are lagers. The light beers live up to what we used to say about Coors, “Freaking close to water.” In fact, the Mexicans won’t even drink them; they export them to the USA. Mexico also has almost no microbreweries and their microbrewed beers in any case have small distribution.
Before we left for Baja this time, we read a fortunately-timed article (by Josh Noel) in our local newspaper (reprinted from the Chicago tribune) rating Trader Joe’s beers. The ratings were: The Good, The OK, The Less OK, and the Ick. Of course, the only canned beers were in “The Ick” category. Tim, who bought the beer, chose “Simpler Times Lager” (“too malty”) and “La Playa” (rated “even worse” than “Name Tag Lager,” which was rated “terrible). The only consolation, after getting kicked around all day by Baja weather, was being able to say things like, “I think I'm ready for some Simpler Times…” La Playa was indeed awful, even cold, even with lime. It assumed the bottom-of-the-barrel status compared to all other beer. Ironically, La Playa is made in Mexico, so we did nothing for our carbon footprint by buying Mexican beer in the USA and taking it back to Mexico.
On Valdesca, there was a decided order in which we drank the beers. The Modelos were the best. So they were for special occasions or when we really felt we deserved a decent beer (even though they are only a middling beer, IMHO). Then, the Pacificos. Then, La Playa. Sometimes, as we sipped our beers, we got to wondering about which of the not-so-great Mexican beers is the workingman’s beer. Opinions garnered from the Internet, and judging by general availability, suggest that Corona is the winner (inexplicably called “Corona Extra”). Or maybe Tecate or Modelo Especial. In the USA, Corona Extra had a 28.4% share of the imported beer market in 2008, with Heineken in second place at 17.8%. Including domestic brews, Corona ranked sixth in 2008, outselling even cheaper beers like Busch, Michelob and Miller's High Life and Genuine Draft brands. I guess Corona is the workingman's beer in the USA, too.
The beer in Mexico may not be the best, but a nice cold one with lime really does satisfy on a hot day. And you can’t beat the price, same as a fish taco--$1.25 (even in a restaurant). The only thing cheaper than a beer (and a taco) is a lime.
