A friend of mine from Portugal remembers seeing a beer vending machine
there that would make the exclamation, "Yippee!" as it dispensed your
bottle, or can.
My question is, what is the name of the beer and where can I buy one
of the machines?

The Portugese beer sold by the beer-vending machine is called "Super
Bock."

"After you put money into a typical, overpriced Pepsi machine and push
the button, you get the unceremonious "Ka-Klunk" as it falls into the
tray. Well, the Portugese obviously saw a problem in this boring,
un-aesthetically pleasing presentation of the vended beverage and
decided to liven it up a bit, perhaps get the consumer a little
excited about their purchase. So, when you purchase a can or two of
Super Bock, you are pleasently surprised by a personified beer can
enjoying its fall from the top of the machine into the tray.
Yuuuuupiii! it yells with delight. It's the beer that enjoys being
drunk! (no pun intended)"

Homepage of Brett Padelford
http://www-scf.usc.edu/~brettp/super_bock.html

Here you can see a photo of one of the Super Bock vending machines in
action:

Homepage of Gary Varnet
http://www-phil.tamu.edu/~gary/portugal/miscellaneous.html

You can learn more about the beer on the English version of the Super
Bock homepage:

Super Bock (English version)
http://www.superbock.pt/English_Version/Index.asp

This beer can be purchased online at BevMo at a very reasonable price:

Bevmo: Super Bock
http://www.bevmo.com/productinfo.asp?sku=00000062194&area=beer&category=40020010&sid=03&catname=European

If you are interested in owning one of the Super Bock vending
machines, I suggest that you contact the corporate headquarters (in
Portugal):

MR. LUÍS MELO or MRS. CLÁUDIA COELHO
TELEPHONE: 351 22 9052100
E-MAIL: claudia_coelho@unicer.pt or info@mail.superbock.pt

The Super Bock homepage has a map of global contact points here:

Super Bock
http://www.superbock.pt/English_Version/Around_The_World/index.asp

If you're flexible about the brand name displayed on the machine, this
Ebay auction for a Budweiser vending machine might be of interest:

Ebay: Beer Vending Machine
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=730784817

My Google search strategy:

"beer vending machine" portugal
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22beer+vending+machine%22+portugal

"super bock"
://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22super+bock

I hope this information is useful. If anything I've said is not clear.
or if any of the links do not function, please request clarification
before rating my answer, and I will gladly offer further assistance.

Best wishes,
pinkfreud

---

Clarification of Answer by pinkfreud-ga on 03 Nov 2002 22:42 PST

Thank you *very* much for the five-star rating and the nice tip!

All I can say is...

Yippee! :-D

~Pink

Exceptional answer. I have been searching for months without success.

I was unable to post this comment before pinkfreud locked this
question, but I am posting it anyway since I put a lot of work into
the answer.

The name of the beer is "Super Bock".

here is a link to the Super Bock web site:
http://www.superbock.pt/index.asp

Here is an article in which a USC student purchased one of these
machines at World Expo'98:

http://www-scf.usc.edu/~brettp/super_bock.html

So you can purchase one at the next World Fair. Or you can contact the
Super Bock company for information on how to order one of their
machines. Here is their email address: info@mail.superbock.pt.