In a superbly fitting way, as I celebrated the significant seven-years-in-Portugal milestone, last weekend brought together a few of my favourite things – coisas portuguesas – to coin Julie Andrews’ phrase. With the autumnal evening temperatures in central Portugal, I could have certainly used a pair of her “warm woollen mittens”, and had there been any rain, it would have certainly formed drops on the sweet chestnut trees that surrounded me, not so much on roses.
I was headed to Castanheira de Pêra, or thereabouts, for the now annual ‘Cerveja na Aldeia’ craft beer festival, and more about that and its excellent range of ales and amigos in due course.
Craft beer is certainly one of my favourite things, and blessed we are to have such a burgeoning indie brewing scene here, across the whole country it would appear. Add to my list of partial pastimes: driving in Portugal (especially on ‘IC’ roads), meeting up with far-flung foreigner friends, making new Portuguese friends, immersing myself in the interior or ‘outback’ of this country, as well as visiting old stomping grounds – and you can see why this weekend was so wonderfully enjoyable.
After a family conference, it was thought that this trip was best made alone, where dad would – after a few, and ultimately unaccounted-for ales – be laughing loudly and gabbling incoherently with his beery pals, and not the greatest fun to be around next morning. So off I set solo, on a beautiful September Saturday morning, choosing ‘avoiding tolls’ in my Google Maps settings.
Alcobaça was the first memory-evoking settlement that I was to pass, with my right elbow tanning nicely on my opened car window frame, traditional and sustainable aircon activated. Home of “one of the most magnificent Gothic monuments in the country”, and where Portugal’s own ‘star-crossed lovers’ Pedro and Inês have their tragic tombs. Alcobaça was the first Portuguese city to be commended to me before I left, by a fellow Brit, who was quite taken by it and, when finally there myself, I could quite see why.
Next nostalgia prompt on my IC9-IC2-IC8 road trip down memory lane was Fátima, which in that first year of arrival, 2017, was where we chanced upon the centenary celebrations of the ‘Apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima’ to the three little shepherds. We just happened to be ‘in town’ as thousands of intentioned and devoted pilgrims were headed that way too. It was quite the atmosphere, where a joyous hubbub filled the air on every street, and guitars with accompanying voices rang out with reverential spontaneity.
Ourém next (pronounced “oh-reng”), with its castle high and imposing on the hill, clear to see but at rest these days, though no less impressive as it was in times of invasion and self-defence, like many Portuguese wonders of this kind, thoughtfully visible and inviting from the nation’s major highways. Here, when once new in Portugal, we had our first awkward attempts to engage with the bureaucracy of immigration, causing confusion as well as friendly connections in local government offices, with French as a mutual medium of communication alongside Google Translate and improvised theatre.
All aboard now, and from “older than Portugal itself” Ourém, on to Alvaiázere (for which I do not have the teaching qualifications to give you a pronunciation guide). Since living near there, where I simply, and hereinafter, referred to it as Al-viagra, I am not sure it’s safe to stop too long for fear of upsetting the no-doubt upstanding locals. It’s a fine place nonetheless, and a great example of a Portuguese provincial town that has done a great job, blending tradition with modernity, showing itself proud of its past and ready for the future too.
With just Figueiró dos Vinhos to go, and reminisce upon, with its charming narrow lanes and shaded avenues, where we also fell deeper in love with Portugal in our early days, I have Castanheira de Pêra in my sights and cast my mind forward to beer-quaffing logistics. I figure I will check into the delightful Casa Ribeira, where super-helpful and hospitable host Ruth awaits, leave my bicycle there (which has been bundled into the back of the car) and park my car in the village of Pêra, where the ale-based action takes place.
It’ll be a taxi ‘home’ for me, just like ‘carriages at midnight’, as you might see on a gilt-edged, gala invitation, and then I’ll return ‘the morning after’ on two wheels, refreshing alpine air in my face, mostly down-hill all the way thankfully, with Maria shrines along the route, resounding the energies of Fátima and Ourém, like an informal Sunday mass, blessing my dehydrated body and reconstituting my soul.
With plan in place, I park up and in Pêra, where my senses engage with joyful sights, sounds, and hopefully soon the tastes and aromas of painstaking and thoughtful brewing. Here, nestled in the Serra da Lousã range, four regional (Beiras) brewers – Cerveja Candal, Cerveja Epicura, Cerveja Açor and Cerveja Táboa – are proudly pouring, and I take my place in the queue, bumping into old friends as I wait.
From the first sober taste, to the last boozy ‘one for the road’, the brewers do themselves proud with IPAs, Weiss, Blonde and many other specialities to try and to suit every taste, including pina colada and mint innovations, or abominations, depending on your craft beer credentials. The BBQ is roaring as well with bifanas, burgers and bratwurst to fill empty stomachs and/or soak up the mildly mind-altering fermentations that grace this place for one day only.
Here, in the social, psychological and spiritual ballast of Portugal, we feel the interior and inner life of a nation whose outer, more cosmetic layers are more familiar to the rest of the world.
If you want to truly know Portugal, come to an event like this, in a place like this. Around me, friends I’ve made along the way pepper the crowd, those who I met in year one, those I’ve met since and those who I met and bonded with, who are my new old friends in the new country.
“We are all running away from something,” said one of them, in a moment of deeper reflection that humanity’s favourite and most acceptable drug can induce, on the road to possible oblivion via slurred words and blurred vision. And of course, he is correct. The foreigners here have left something behind to embrace that which is clearly beautiful and timeless, in this shared moment.
Some of their stories will be told today, perhaps not for the first time, ‘under the influence’ and unguarded, as we tend to become in an easy-going atmosphere like this. Other stories will never be heard, left where they were made, not to be mentioned here, where we have reinvented and reimagined ourselves, with a new social circle that now drinks in the dappled shade and cool air amid the chestnut and plane trees.
All of life is here then, fine, frail and everything in-between, and it feels like much of my Portuguese life so far is here too. This is a textbook representation of Portugal’s convivial culture that I love so much, gifted to us by national tradition and enjoyed on this special day by locals and migrants alike, with a uniting “Cheers!” or “Tchin-tchin”.
And just as the beer we are enjoying is a ferment made of many factors, so is our lived life. Like crafted beer (and not the corporate same-every-time stuff that’s about rigid perfection), it’s best when it’s about the magic that comes from honouring both process AND product – enjoying the journey, the adventure of our lives, that we might taste, savour and even be intoxicated by, in all its complexity and glory.
By Carl Munson
Carl Munson is host of the Good Morning Portugal! show every weekday on YouTube and creator of www.learnaboutportugal.com, where you can learn something new about Portugal every day!
