VENEZUELA: In Venezuela, Risk Buying Black Market Beer

Soaring inflation and a contracting economy have forced Venezuela to face shortages over the last few months: citizens have had restricted access to basic goods such as sugar, shampoo and toilet paper, as well as electricity and medicine. But now, Venezuelans can’t even drown their sorrows in cold beer, as the country’s biggest supplier of suds recently shut down the last of its four breweries and laid off 10,000 workers.

Cerveceria Polar, the brewery responsible for making roughly 80 percent of Venezuela’s beer, had to close up shop in late April because of the government’s constant delays in selling the company dollars to import necessary supplies for its operation. As part of a policy introduced by late former President Hugo Chavez in 2003 and continued by current President Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela restricts companies’ access to dollars and decides on which are eligible to receive them. Polar’s beer arm has been cut off, and the company says suppliers for ingredients such as malted barley have frozen its credit lines.

The Maduro administration claims Polar distorts its dollar needs and “hoards products as part of an ‘economic war’ by the business community, politicians and the United States aimed at undermining socialism in Venezuela,”. Additionally, officials have said Polar chief executive Lorenzo Mendoza should use his vast offshore wealth to purchase dollars if necessary.

But the company maintains that it must act in accordance with government regulations. “Without approval and a supply of foreign currency to the supplier, the company doesn’t have a way to operate,” Mendoza said last Friday. “The company cannot go out and buy currency anywhere because it’s against the law.”

Due to the country’s extraordinary inflation, which has reached 700 percent, a bottle of beer officially costs $15. But the official exchange rate is seldom used, and Venezuelans willing to break the law can buy a bottle of Polar for 14 cents on the black market. This is undoubtedly an attractive option for the swill-happy society: according to statistics compiled by Kirin Beer University, per capita consumption of beer in Venezuela, a country of 30 million, was 70.8 liters in 2014—the most in South America.

Still, the current situation is less than desirable for the average citizen. “What are we coming to when we can’t even buy a beer?” said farmer Luis Garcia. “This country is just falling apart.”