Cristal — Peru

Every Peruvian football argument, family lunch, and plate of ceviche tends to have the same companion: Cristal, the pale golden lager Lima has brewed since 1922 and the closest thing Peru has to a national beer.

Its brewer, Backus, did something almost no beer company anywhere has done — it founded a first-division football club and named it after the beer. Club Sporting Cristal still plays in sky blue in Lima, which means Peruvians can cheer for Cristal while drinking one, a marketing loop so complete it's practically poetry.

Backus now belongs to AB InBev, and Cristal travels with the Peruvian diaspora wherever ceviche goes. One practical note for the atlas: this is the Peruvian Cristal, no relation to the Chilean lager of the same name — a coincidence that has confused travelers on both sides of the border. At the table it's drunk well chilled and shared: one large bottle, small glasses, passed in rounds.

Clear pale gold with a fizzy, fast-settling head. Gentle cereal sweetness, a clean neutral middle, and a mild, tidy bitterness that steps aside for food — which is the assignment, given how much of it is drunk against ceviche's lime and ají heat. Best well chilled, one shared bottle at a time.