Portugal

Our Guide to Portugal

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A Baiuca - Fadio Vadio * Lisbon 6 7 10 8 6 9
Armazem de Cerveja Porto 9 7 7 7 7 8
Bonaparte Baixa Porto 8 8 8 7 6 8
Galeria De Paris Porto 6 10 8 7 6 8
City Guide

Lisbon

Pop. 504,718

Gritty, sunny and ‘authentic’, Lisbon has done a good job of preserving its distinctive character in the face of mass tourism and globalisation. Even down the main boulevards, the corporate chains seem distinctively absent, while the maze of alleys and hills off west and east provide the contours for what feels like a town rather than a city at its core. Then there is the urban sprawl of apartment blocks, the football stadia and the riverside.

A night out in Lisbon can come in many shapes and sizes, whether that’s fine dining with a professional, if trite Fado peformance at your table (5o euros later….) or enjoying one of the many drop-in cervejarias and cocktail bars in the alto barrio. Keep a look out for the tabernas where you can still enjoy local folk performances and cheap, decent quality wine and spirits – the ginjinjha of course being the most famous.

Porto

Pop. 214, 349

Porto is a city that punches above its weight. With a colossal riverside bridge as dramatic as they come, and south bank studded with Port Wine lodges and warehouses, this port throws history and culture at you. The architecture is ramshackle – for every beautiful painted tile there is a piece of corrugated iron, damp moss and rusty stanchion. The nightlife takes in a century’s worth of bar going. One can enjoy wine and dancing in belle-epoque venues, cheap as anything beers in local cervejarias, or craft beer in contemporary neighbourhood bars. It’s an enjoyable diverse, yet distinctly Portuguese offering.

Map

The Portuguese Bar Scene

Until very recently, you would have found beer enthusiasts struggling to muster much hype about beer in Portugal’s brewing scene, which in nearly all bars and pubs revolves around drinking Super Bock (pap) and Sagres (only marginally better) while occasionally choosing imported beer from Germany, Belgium and England. Even the Beer Museum in Lisbon struggles to impress with either the heritage or the current state of play for Portuguese beer (though their own brew is actually pretty good, a thick Vienna style lager). If you can find Sagres Bohemia on tap anywhere (relatively unlikely) hang around as that’s as good as it will generally get.

Beer is never going to be as big as wine or port, but I have been assured they are making some progress towards micro-brewing, very much a niche market at the moment but it’s clear these pockets of resistance will keep growing, because of how few Portuguese are switched on to any of the potential flavours and styles, and simply don’t associate it with anything else than mild refreshment on a hot day, or something to accompany a cig and a football match (though the latter probably applies to most European countries).

In the meantime there is still a reasonable amount to enjoy about the home spun nature of a lot of bars, many of which carry the near ubiquitous title “Cervejaria“. Don’t get over excited though! Although this signals beer will be on offer, get read for more Sagres and Super Bock.

In terms of atmosphere the traditional Fado bars are like enjoying a performance in someone’s kitchen or living room. What they are currently losing in beer choices they are compensating for in raw authenticity and the folk tradition of being entertained in a local pub. There’s a long way to go for beer, and it remains to be seen if the inevitable puncture through the glass ceiling by aggressively marketed craft beer keeps the vitality and down to earth nature of the bar scene or goes down the same soulless exposed industrial chic look.

  • 2018 Update: Porto’s bar scene has expanded to incorporate craft beer, and likewise Super Bock’s parent brewers have brought out a series of craft style beers to try and corner the market. An interesting moment for Portugal but certainly late to the party.