On a typical weekend at the Pinguim alehouse in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil, waiters race from table to table checking off squares on customers’ chopp (draft beer) scorecards, while futbol plays on five TVs. Wooden barrels and antique taps adorn the walls and customers, age 18 to 80, overflow the main salon onto the patio.
The legend of the Pinguim in São Paulo state springs from a Depression-era myth of a “chopeduto,” or draft-beer canal, extending 200 meters underground from the former Antártica brewery directly to barroom taps. Today, the 74-year-old saloon hall is famous throughout Brazil.
In a good month, the chopperia dispenses 25,000 gallons of beer from its four bureaus: the original downtown location in the Edificio Diederichsen on the Cuadrao Paulista strip, Ribeirão Shopping, Santa Ursula Shopping and Belo Horizonte, the newest outpost and the only one outside of Ribeirão.
Known as the Brazilian California for its fecundity, industry and sunshine, Ribeirão Preto might be better nicknamed the Brazilian Milwaukee. Situated in the shadow of megalopolis São Paulo (200 miles to the southeast), Ribeirão — thanks to Pinguim — has become to beer what São Paulo is to business, Rio is to beaches and Brasilia is to bureaucrats.
Sílvio Natal Dinardo has been serving at Pinguim for three decades. (photo Josh Miller)
“Everywhere you go, people know about the chopp here,” said Daniel Teixera, a business traveler visiting from Iguaçu, Brazil. “Pinguim has the best chopp in all of Brazil. It’s because of the creamy consistency.”
Celso Gozlousks rode his motorcycle three hours from São Paulo just to experience the famous froth of O Claro, the Pinguim’s most popular brew. “Everybody in São Paulo talks about this place so I had to try it for myself,” he said.
Beer slingers here are extensively trained. “There’s a specific technique that is not easy to learn,” explains weekend manager Pedro Donisete Damascene. “The result is chopp that is one-half degree [Celsius] and approximately 30 percent foam.”
To become a Pinguim waiter, aspirants undergo three months of orientation, learning Pinguim’s history, menu and techniques. The chopp house then enlists seminar graduates as apprentices. “I was born in Ribeirão and when I moved back here some years back I knew I wanted to work at Pinguim,” said Matheus Borges, who has been working for three years as a Pinguim probationer. “The Pinguim name is respected here and has a long tradition.”
The only remaining step between Borges and the emblematic black vest and bowtie worn by full-fledged Pinguim garçons is a promotion to choppero, or tapster. The sportiveness of Pinguim’s stalwart senior servers lends the historic Pinguim a Cheers-like conviviality.
With more than 30 years in a Pinguim suit, Sílvio Natal Dinardo is the institution’s most veteran steward. He and his colleagues attend to nearly a million visitors per year. Dinardo says the Penguim is a popular stop for Brazilian celebs such as musician Caetano Veloso and Formula One driver Helinho de Castro Neves. Even Luis Lula Ignacio da Silva, the president of Brazil, stops in for the occasional brew. “We get so many celebrities that serving them has become commonplace,” said Dinardo. “There’s not competition to wait on them. Everybody attends to everybody.”
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