Waxing Brazil: Baden Baden, Part I

Cervejaria Baden Baden is small brewery located in Campos do Jordão, about 3 hours from São Paulo. Baden Baden hand crafts what is considered the beer from Brazil, their famous Red Ale, among other flavors. Following the advise of our all-things-fancy guru -Josh- Manuel, Rutul, and I embarked on this journey. Oh, Josh was there too. This is the story of our adventure to see this magical place.

We begin our journey relatively early (9am). Of course, no one made it to the car rental place at 9am, but it's cool; we're going to be drinking beer all day. After some complications in getting the rental (no availability of cars, no GPS, missing passport, missing people... the usual), we finally get our "car." Popularly referred to as the Clown Car. Our journey begins (closer to noon at this point).

Josh was pretty much sitting in the back seat...

Campos do Jordão is located about 175kms north east of São Paulo, in the mountains bordering the Minas Gerais state. It's easy to get there; pretty much a straight shot, but if it weren't for the GPS with English text and Portuguese voice, we would've probably never made it.

This place looks like it's straight out of the Swiss Alps! It was interesting to learn that this is where Paulistanos go to wear hats and gloves, since it gets pretty cold here in the winter.

We arrived at the brewery (after literally following one of the delivery trucks) and surprise! The brewery is closed! No tours today! We just happened to go on the ONLY non-national holiday that the brewery is closed. Turns out it was the town's anniversary. Happy Birthday Campos do Jordão!!!