Yankees Are Coming: American Tourists Provoke Shortage of Beer in Cuba

According to the Guardian, the producers of Cuba’s most popular brands of beer Bucanero and Cristal cannot meet the soaring demand amid the deluge of American tourists to the island. Many bars, cafes and gas station across the country have simply run out of beer.

The Bucanero Company, run by the Cuban state along with the Belgian Brewer Corporation, has faced the necessity of building a new plant on the island to fulfill the rapidly growing needs of tourists and to compete with private restaurants.

“Private bars can go out and find supplies where they can, I can only sell what the government gives me,” a manager of one of the state-run bars told the Guardian.

According to local media, despite the fact Cuban breweries have inked this week contracts for production of 33 million cases of beer for tourism business purposes, they do not actually have a capacity to fulfil the contractual provisions.

Earlier in February US president Barack Obama eased travel restrictions with Cuba, triggering a spike in the number of US citizens visiting the island state. The numbers of American tourists is expected to get a major boost as air service and maritime traffic between two countries will be fully resumed.

For instance, in May hundreds of Americans will arrive to the country aboard of a cruise liner in a first voyage of its kind since 1959.