Argentina's Craft Beer

El Chaltén is Argentina's youngest city, placed near the Chilean border in 1985 by the government to beat its rival country to the land claim. The place still feels like a frontier town, with packs of wild dogs patrolling the streets, but in one key way it's very urban: La Cervecería. The female brewmaster here crafts two types of beer (bock and pilsner) using traditional Bohemian recipes and techniques. After hiking to nearby Laguna Torre at a grueling pace, we stopped in for celebratory brews. The bock was malty and slightly sweet—light for a bock but still a little heavy for me, post-hike—while the pilsner clearly hit the spot: light and refreshing.