Die Brahma-Brauerei und die Modernisierung des Getränkehandels in Rio de Janeiro 1888 bis 1930

Abstract

This study by German historian Edgar Köb is about beer and other beverages in Greater Rio de Janeiro between 1888 and 1930. Köb’s general description of the consumption market for beer and other beverages in Rio and his specific analysis of the Brahma brewery’s marketing strategies are solidly grounded in archival material and other primary documents. He considers beer production, marketing, and consumption an important component of Rio’s modernizing process. This process started, according to Köb, with the end of slavery and the monarchy in 1888 – 89. He suggests that 1930 — when the nationalist military broke down the “Old Republic” and the world depression stagnated Brazilian economic development — marked another transition.Köb sheds light on the urban-development process and its parallels with changes in beverage consumption patterns. Cariocas consumed alcoholic drinks like wine, aguardente, cachaça, and beer. Whereas aguardente enjoyed consistent popularity during the nineteenth century, demand for beer rose only starting in the 1870s. He concludes that as consumers drank less Portuguese (and sometimes also French and Italian) wine, demand for beer increased. However, Köb fails to prove his substitution thesis. Did former wine drinkers now prefer beer, or did the increase in beer consumption reflect emerging new social or cultural groups? While beer was imported from Great Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century, German imports rose in the second half, and increasing quantities of local product slaked the thirst of the lower classes. Beer was a leisure beverage for all social groups. Men drank beer in bars, cafés, brothels, theaters, and restaurants, whereas they drank aguardente, cachaça, and cheap Portuguese wine in traditional small shops (vendas) and general stores (armazens). Breweries tried to penetrate these drinking places using credit programs.In the third and last chapter, Köb describes the rise of the Brahma brewery, founded by a Swiss engineer in 1888 and from 1894 onward owned by German immigrants. The German owners modernized production, especially after an expert’s disastrous hygiene report in 1908. Here, it seems to me that Köb underestimates the problems of access to high-quality drinking water and other inputs. Yet, the quality of the production process became a selling point in ad campaigns. In the second decade of twentieth century, the Brahma brewery started to penetrate the popular classes successfully with secondary products. The management of this enterprise tried to promote different sorts of beer with posters, calendars, postcards, ashtrays, and so on. But although the company spent a considerable amount of money on these campaigns, it still did not function as a fully modern and professionalized commercial venture.This is, no doubt, an important study on the rise and transformation of a beverage consumption market. Students of Latin American history and investigators of Rio de Janeiro’s consumption history will find it rewarding. However, it is troubling that Köb’s work is neither clearly focused on the development of the beverage market in general nor on Brahma beer in particular. It remains unclear whether he wants to show a general development using the Brahma enterprise as an illustrative example or wants to present his overview of Rio’s beverage consumption market as background for his study on Brahma. Nonetheless, I agree with Köb’s judgment that his book is just the beginning of a very intriguing field of investigation.