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Most beers are named after a place, a founder, or a style. This one is named after a feeling: the joy of following a Carnival street parade, block by block, through a Brazilian city. On August 12, 2026, in Norwich, England, Atrás do Bloco, a hazy IPA brewed by Cervejaria Landel in Campinas, São Paulo, was crowned World's Best IPA at the World Beer Awards, one of the most prestigious competitions in the industry. It beat entries from Canada, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom, and it did so in a year when, as Forbes observed, not a single US brewery took home a World's Best IPA title. For anyone who still thinks of Brazil only as a caipirinha country, here is the news: Brazil brews some of the best beer on the planet, and you can taste it at the source.
Born at Carnival
The story begins in early 2023. Landel, the oldest brewery still operating in Campinas, had a batch scheduled to be ready for Carnival, and brewmaster Bruno Oliveira Cardoso developed a bright, aromatic hazy IPA to match the season. He named it Atrás do Bloco, roughly "behind the parade," the Brazilian expression for following a Carnival street band as it moves through the neighborhood. The first batch sold out, customers kept asking for it, and the seasonal beer became a permanent fixture and, in the brewer's words, the brewery's darling.
Medals followed at Brazilian competitions, including a gold at the 2026 Concurso Brasileiro de Cerveja in Blumenau. That gold opened the door to the World Beer Awards, and Landel made a bold decision: rather than entering a portfolio, it entered exactly one beer.
How a Single Entry Won the World
The World Beer Awards, part of the World Drinks Awards, received 8,166 entries from 1,644 breweries in 50 countries in 2026, all judged blind by panels of brewers and industry professionals. Atrás do Bloco climbed four rungs: gold at the national round, where it was named the best IPA in Brazil; then, in Norwich, the World's Best Milkshake / New England IPA title; and finally, against the winners of every other IPA style, the overall crown of World's Best IPA.
What's in the Glass
Atrás do Bloco is a New England-style hazy IPA at 7.5% ABV and a gentle 30 IBU, which means low bitterness and a juicy, refreshing character. It is double dry-hopped with Mosaic, Cascade, and Citra, American hop varieties that deliver the tropical and citrus aromas the style is known for: mango, passion fruit, peach, and pineapple. Oats and wheat in the grain bill give it a velvety, full body. The intentional haze is part of the style's signature.
Brazil's Craft Beer Moment
The Landel title was the headline, but not the whole story. Brazil claimed seven world titles at the 2026 World Beer Awards, four of them in the IPA category alone: alongside Atrás do Bloco's double win, Therezópolis Jade, brewed in the mountains of Rio de Janeiro state, was named World's Best English Style IPA, and Orange Kush, from Cervejaria Unika in Santa Catarina, took World's Best Specialty IPA. Forbes framed the results as a significant shift in the global IPA landscape, with the top honors going to breweries in Brazil, Japan, Germany, Canada, and China.
It is a remarkable result for a country whose beer culture was, until recently, defined internationally by light lagers on the beach. Over the past two decades, a wave of craft breweries has transformed the scene, from the German-heritage brewing towns of the South to Rio's mountain region and São Paulo's interior, and the international recognition is now catching up.
Tasting It on a Brazil Journey
For travelers, the good news is that Brazilian craft beer is easy to build into a trip. Campinas, home of Landel and its tap house, sits about an hour from the city of São Paulo, making a brewery visit a natural add-on to a São Paulo stay. In the South, Blumenau, the German-heritage city that hosts the Concurso Brasileiro de Cerveja and Brazil's largest Oktoberfest, anchors a beer route through Santa Catarina. Closer to Rio de Janeiro, the mountain towns of the Serra Fluminense, where Therezópolis Jade is brewed and where Brazil's oldest beer brand was born, offer cool-climate brewery visits an easy drive from the city.
Photo: Fernando Maia / Riotur
And then there is Carnival itself, the celebration that named the world's best IPA. Experiencing a Rio street parade, or the parades of the Sambadrome, remains one of the great travel experiences on Earth, and pairs naturally with the city's food and drink scene. Blumar designs these journeys for individual travelers and builds brewery visits, tastings, and Carnival experiences into incentive programs and group itineraries, with the on-the-ground expertise described on our company profile. For more on the city that hosts the world's most famous Carnival, see our guide to Rio de Janeiro's must-see attractions.
Brazil, Poured
A beer created for Carnival, brewed by the oldest brewery in Campinas, entered alone against the world and came home with the crown. It is a very Brazilian story: joyful, ambitious, and better experienced in person. To plan a Brazil journey with the country's food, drink, and celebrations built in, visit the official Blumar DMC website.
