Brewery: Cervejarias Kaiser Brasil (?)
Location: Brazil
ABV: 4.6%
Version: Bottled
Source: Tesco

I’m not 100% of the provenance of this one. Based on the website at www.amazonbeer.com it looks like Xingu is brewed by Cervejarias Kaiser in Brazil, but the site hasn’t been updated for a few years so it might have moved elsewhere (there’s a new website under production at www.xingubeer.com which might shed some more light). In any case, I picked a bottle up from the World Beer section of my local Tesco, on the grounds that it looked interesting and you can’t really go far wrong with a decent black lager.

Xingu turned out to be unlike any of the black lagers I’d tried recently (BrewDog Zeitgeist, Herold Bohemian, Bernard Special Dark), but unfortunately not in a particularly good way…

Xingu poured nicely: an opaque black with a light head but from the first sup onwards it was sweetness all the way. There was a hint of herbs and honey, but it was mostly sugar that dominated, without even the burnt-toffee taste of treacle to harden the edges. As I understand it, most black lagers use roasted barley malt to give the beer its dark colouring. I think Xingu must use molasses instead. Or some other local sweetener (apparently it’s brewed to a Brazilian recipe). In the final analysis Xingu wasn’t undrinkable, but it was just too sweet for my palate – I definitely won’t be rushing back any time soon.