[Richard]

In March I visited southern Argentina and spent a couple of days in El Chalten, a small town that was founded in 1985 to be a support town for technical climbers. One day we had lunch at Cerveceria Chalten, which the owner said is the southernmost microbrewery in the world (see https://www.google.com/maps/place/La+Cervecer%C3%ADa+Chalt%C3%A9n/@-49.3396904,-72.9601344,12.5z/data=!4m6!3m5!1s0xbdbd03e5b63cb2f3:0x5409746b8e8c1f78!8m2!3d-49.327702!4d-72.889474!16s%2Fg%2F11bbrkvd06 ). Her father founded it after coming from Czechoslovakia decades ago. They had 5-6 beers on the menu, and the owner gave our group a brief tour of the brewery. It is small and very low-tech, and uses malt and hops (mostly Cascade) from Argentina.  The local water is fresh glacial melt, very soft and good for brewing. The beer was pumped directly from the brewery to the bar/restaurant. There was no cold crashing or filtering or anything to clear the beer, so they were all murky.  The weissbier was disappointingly bland. The others were slightly better, but not really very good. Although the quality of the beer was disappointing it was the best local beer for many miles around --- because there is nothing else for hours in any direction. The food was great and the service and atmosphere were wonderful. I was glad to have visited.