A pint of Kunstmann please…
…I asked in Spanish.
Paraphrasing a little…
“Do you want the dark variety (called Bock), the light one (called, rather unimaginably, Light), or the near-as-damn-it-English Ale (called Torobayo)?” came the reply from the waitress in a funky bar in Vina del Mar.
“What?” I said in my polite spanish. “Oh, Torobayo please”.
“Pally Ally?”, she confirms with me.
“What?” I said again in disbelief.
Yes, that’s right. Kunstmann Ale, possibly the finest (or only) product to come from Valdivia, about 12 hours south-west of Santiago, has a variety of Ale called Pale Ale. And the Chileans pronounce it Pally Alley!
Scandelous. “Escandeloso!” (in spanish). Maybe I should stick to being a stupid Gringo- if I just ask for a Pale Ale in english in future I won’t run the risk of asking for a pint of Pally Alley in Britain one day!