Fine aromas and intense golden color, it is a Club Premium beer created in 1966 by the German Walter Schneider as an alcoholic drink. stock with European style.

This product is part of the Cervecería Nacional portfolio and is one of the most important, along with Pilsener. The taste of Club Premium comes from ingredients such as the use of noble hops and selected malted barley, as well as a longer maturation time to maintain quality standards.

This drink is in position 20 on the bitterness scale and has three variants: classic Club Premium, platinum and double malt.

which contain?

José Pérez-Vargas, Vice President Marketing National breweries, indicates that the idea of ​​Club Premium’s presence on the market is a beer standard. “The club was born to push the boundaries of brewing mastery a little and we were first born with Club Premium, with the regular one, which is the one that everyone knows as green, and then we expanded that standard to explore and bring to Ecuadorian consumers new varieties, for example, we had platinum, pure malt, double malt, red, and in some years wheat,” explains Pérez-Vargas.

Water, hops, rice and malt are some of the ingredients for making beer. Photo: Jorge Lozada

Pérez-Vargas points out that the process of creating this beer is not much different from other well-known brands like Pilsener. Ensures that different inputs are used. “In terms of the process, it’s the same, where There is variation, it is basically in the inputs. We do everything here, the development of our liquids is done internally, it is done by our brewers and they are tested with Ecuadorian consumers to know which ones have a higher profile. For example, Club has a slightly bitter, stronger taste with a little more alcohol,” says Pérez-Vargas.

Ecuadorians eat 19 million Pingüino ice creams a month: how is the exclusive and creamy Magnum ice cream made?

Club Premium is Cervecería Nacional’s most exported alcoholic beverage, followed by Pilsener. The highest consumption of both is at the national level.

Club started this export process in June 2022 to the United States with the classic variety Club Premium. It went to Florida, New York and New Jersey, and as of October 2022 it is sold in 53 stores in California, through two supermarket chains such as Vallarta and Northgate.

How is Club Premium created?

Pérez-Vargas explains that there are three moments for the production of Club Premium. “The first is cooking, where the must is made, which is nothing more than a kind of soup, like vegetable water,” says Pérez-Vargas.

So, in that phase of boiling, according to Erick Cabrera, Brewing Manager at Cervecería Nacionalthere is a step of precipitation or separation of solids that may have remained after boiling.

“Then we move to the sedimentation stage, where we would be ready to start cooling the wort and we will start our second block of the general process, which is the cold block. When we send the wort for fermentation, we dose the yeast that is actually in charge of making the beer,” he says, adding that the yeast will begin to consume the fermentable sugars of the wort.

The mashing pot at Cervecería Nacional. Photo: Jorge Lozada. Photo: Jorge Lozada

And that’s how alcohol and CO2 are created. “So, when we talk about beer as a carbonated drink, it is precisely because of the CO2 created by the yeasts. The fermentation process lasts approximately seven days. During this entire process, sugar is consumed. After those seven days, the maturation process begins,” says Cabrera.

In this phase, the goal is to lower the temperature below zero degrees Celsius in order to achieve physicochemical and sensory stability.

“When the maturation phase is over, we are ready to start filtering the beer, the alcohol levels are clarified and adjusted, according to the brand,” says Cabrera, and finally he goes to the packaging area.

Recognitions

In April 2021, Club Premium received two awards from the Monde Selection Institute: Gold Quality Award for Club Premium platinum and Silver Quality Award for Club Premium classic. These seals of quality are obtained for taste and aroma.

The quality labels awarded by Monde Selection, an institution founded in 1961 in Brussels, Belgium, can be compared to hotel quality stars or those from the Michelin guide.