Beer cocktails are fun. Don’t overthink them.

Beertails, a.k.a. beer cocktails, such as Spaghett, Lime Shandy and Piña-chelada, use the carbonated beverage as the canvas for flavours savoury, spicy, citrusy or whatever your palate imagines.

Author of the article:

Washington Post

M. Carrie Allan

Published Sep 01, 2024  •  9 minute read

Beertails, a.k.a. beer cocktails, such as Spaghett, Lime Shandy and Piña-chelada, use the carbonated beverage as the canvas for flavours savoury, spicy, citrusy or whatever your palate imagines. Photo by Rey Lopez and Lisa Cherkasky /The Washington Post

For my sister and me, running across childhood objects stockpiled in boxes or stuck into books around our parents’ home is a source of sweetness, a reminder of their affection: Shabby stuffed animals, globby daubs of poster paint with blobby creatures of indiscernible species frolicking over flat green fields, certificates of academic or athletic achievement (“Most Improved in the Far, Far Outfield Where We Put Her So She Couldn’t Screw Up Too Much” is a softball trophy I could have won multiple times). My sister and I count our folks’ loving support of our most trivial accomplishments as one of our lives’ great fortunes.

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Now and then, though, they could probably be more aggressive about throwing stuff away. Like a few years ago when Dad mentioned that I’d left some beer in the basement fridge that I might want to take home to drink. Investigation revealed that the bottles in question were the remainders of a six-pack of Tequiza.

Some of you may recall this late-’90s-era beer brand, juiced with “the natural flavour of lime” and sweetened with agave nectar, a brand that lots of people in flannel shirts and Doc Martens used to consume while listening to Pearl Jam and waiting for our dial-up modems to connect to the internet. The portmanteau name was supposed to suggest a marriage of tequila and cerveza, but for me also called to mind Ibiza, the famously party-oriented island in the Mediterranean.

I won’t be so gender-normative as to call it a girly beer, but it was certainly a gateway beer for this particular college girl, who then regarded the Fuzzy Navel (a cloying mixture of peach schnapps and orange juice) as peak-cocktail. My palate hadn’t evolved to appreciate the hoppy IPAs that I eventually gravitated to, and Tequiza helped me survive many a college party where the options were to BYOB or risk the “punch” that some guy had mixed in a Hefty bag and was serving out of a trash can, over near the chair you were invited to stand on to converse with the 6-foot bong.

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To be clear – when I say “a lot of people” were drinking Tequiza, it apparently wasn’t enough of them: Tequiza was discontinued by the late ’00s, and I’d stopped drinking it well before then. So while these bottles in my folks’ basement may not have been old enough to serve as the archaeological MacGuffin in “Indiana Jones and the Anheuser-Busch Marketing Ploy,” they were a good 15 years past their prime. Beer, especially that of the crisp lager and pilsner variety, has a short shelf life, and the one bottle I cracked open smelled like a skunk family had romped through a grove of rotting limes.

Still, I thought about Tequiza recently when I was contemplating the overall poor reputation of beer cocktails, a category I generally avoid the way I avoid religious pamphleteers. I’ve had far more bad “beertails” than good, and find most to be more a pairing of fish and bicycle than chocolate and peanut butter. The beers I drink are brews like Bell’s Two Hearted or Dogfish 75. They’re not beers that I want to add to – they’re big in flavour, complete on their own.

But some whiskey geeks would doubtless argue the same about mixing with their preferred spirit, and plenty of complex Italian amari are delicious solo but have become core ingredients in the cocktail compendium. And while roasting on an Alabama beach recently, I thought of those dumped bottles from my folks’ basement fridge with yearning. My recollection is that cold, unskunked Tequiza was pretty darn drinkable.

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Basically, I reason, Tequiza was a beer cocktail of sorts. And it had common ground with the few other beer mixology examples I’ve liked. Most have been lager or pilsner-based. These beers are not a blank slate, exactly. They don’t have the neutrality of vodka, but their soft, malty foundation doesn’t come in swinging, and can provide a base for a refreshing summer sip that can go in several directions, depending what other flavours – bitters, umami, citrus or some combination – you decide to add.

For example, one of my favourite beertails is a cheeky little number called the Spaghett, in which Baltimore bartender Reed Cahill, working at Wet City Brewing back in 2016, riffed on the growing popularity of drinks like the Aperol Spritz, pairing the bittersweet orange Italian liqueur with beer. Not only do I love red Italian bitters, I love it when “fancy” things put on cozy clothes, so a drink that you make by chugging a slug of Miller High Life – itself a longtime embracer of fancy European beverages, via its famous “Champagne of Beers” tagline – and build in the bottle pretty much had me at “Yo.” It’s exactly what you want from a drink you’ll throw together to sip on a weathered sun-warmed deck – low fuss and high reward, the colour of sunsets.

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Then you’ve got Mexico’s Michelada, and if your tastes run to the savoury (Bloody Mary and dirty martini fans, this may be your beer-tail) it’s a concoction you should be exploring. At its most basic, the Michelada is beer, lime and hot sauce, but there are all sorts of regional variations around Mexico, many of which include tomato juice and a highly savory element such as Maggi seasoning – if you haven’t tasted it, think of it along the lines of soy or Worcestershire sauce – or Clamato juice, speaking of portmanteaus. I ended up playing around with a more Asian-flavour-inflected version here, one with both umami savoriness from sriracha and soy sauce and sweetness from pineapple-ginger juice. You can adjust both the spice level and the savoury factor by playing with the amounts of sriracha and soy. (I promise I didn’t just concoct this because I wanted to call it a Piña-chelada, but I may have my fingers crossed behind my back.)

And then there’s one of the longest standing beer cocktails around: It’s a shandy in England and a radler in Germany, but when you order it at a pub, you’re getting a mix of beer and lemon soda (though the Austrian brand Steigl makes a canned grapefruit radler that’s eminently drinkable). I’ve had the drink in both England and Germany, but what I was craving was a shandified version of what people do with Corona and other Mexican lagers already, dropping a squeezed lime wedge into the neck of the bottle. A little agave syrup added appeal for those with a sweet tooth (and throwing in a smidgen of blanco tequila is not a bad option either).

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In the cocktail world, there’s a well-known anecdote about the invention of the Jasmine (a mix of gin, lemon, Campari and Cointreau) back in the 1990s. Per Robert Simonson’s book “A Proper Drink,” when bartender Paul Harrington first mixed one up and presented it to a friend, the friend congratulated him for having invented grapefruit juice. I thought of that story when I took a sip of my Lime Shandy, pleased to have reinvented Tequiza.

The Spaghett beer cocktail adds a splash of Campari to a Miller High Life bottle. Photo by Rey Lopez and Lisa Cherkasky /The Washington Post

Spaghett Cocktail

Essentially a beer spritz, this cheeky drink conceived by Reed Cahill at Wet City Brewery in Baltimore is a great option for those who like bitter red Italian aperitivi. You can use your favorite red bitter here, but sweet, orangey Aperol is the standard. Feel free to try different kinds of citrus. The traditional way to serve this is in the bottle of the Miller High Life you’re using, a bit of a wink at its high-brow/low-brow fusion, but you can certainly pour it into a glass or scale up to pitcher format, if you prefer.

Total time: 5 minutes

Serves one (one drink)

INGREDIENTS

One (12-ounce) bottle chilled Miller High Life beer

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1 ounce Aperol or other red Italian-style bitter aperitif

1 lemon wedge

DIRECTIONS

Pour off (or drink) 1 to 2 ounces from the beer bottle.

Carefully pour the Aperol into the bottle – it may help to use a funnel or small liquid measuring cup to do this – then squeeze the lemon wedge in as well. Wait for any fizzing to subside, then give it a gentle swirl. You can stick the lemon wedge into the bottle as well – it will continue to add flavor to the drink as you sip it.

Nutritional facts per drink | Calories: 212; Fat: 0 g; Saturated Fat: 0 g; Carbohydrates: 23 g; Sodium: 7 mg; Cholesterol: 0 mg; Protein:1 g; Fiber: 0 g; Sugar: 10 g

This analysis is an estimate based on available ingredients and this preparation. It should not substitute for a dietitian’s or nutritionist’s advice.

Adapted by Spirits columnist M. Carrie Allan from Reed Cahill at Baltimore-based Wet City Brewery.

Piña-chelada plays with the idea of Michelada, but takes it in a savoury Asian-inspired direction. Photo by Rey Lopez and Lisa Cherkasky /The Washington Post

Piña-chelada

While the classic Mexican michelada is made with beer, tomato juice, hot sauce and other savoury elements, this version swaps out the tomato for pineapple, and leans on Asian-influenced ingredients such as sriracha and soy sauce. Michelada preparations vary regionally and by personal taste (including one’s degree of heat tolerance!), but the drink should be a bright, spicy flavour bomb.

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Total time: 5 minutes

Servings: 2 (makes 2 drinks)

Where to buy: Tajín can be found at well-stocked supermarkets, Latin markets and online.

INGREDIENTS

Chili-lime salt, such as Tajín, for garnish (optional)

2 lime wedges, plus an optional lime wedge if using the chili-lime salt

Ice

3 ounces (6 tablespoons) fresh lime juice (from 3 to 4 limes)

2 ounces (1/4 cup) pineapple-ginger juice, such as Lakewood brand

2 ounces (1/4 cup) sweet Thai chili sauce, such as Thai Kitchen brand

1/4 to 1 teaspoon sriracha, to taste

1/4 teaspoon soy sauce

Two (12-ounce) bottles or cans chilled Mexican-style lager, such as Modelo Especial, Pacifico or Corona

DIRECTIONS

If using the chili-lime salt, make a little pile on a flat surface, such as a cutting board. Run the inside of a lime wedge around the rims of two pint glasses to moisten them, then dip and rotate the edge of each glass in the chili-lime salt so it sticks to the rim (see Notes).

Fill each glass halfway with ice.

In a mixing glass, stir together the lime juice, pineapple-ginger juice, chili sauce, sriracha and soy sauce until combined.

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Use a strainer to divide the mixture between the two salt-rimmed glasses, then top with the beer. Once the fizz subsides, stir gently to combine, garnish each glass with a lime wedge, and serve with the remaining beer so each drinker can continue to top off their drink.

Note: If you have agave or simple syrup handy, those can be used in place of lime juice – they are more effective at making the salt stick.

Nutritional facts per drink | Calories: 218; Fat: 0 g; Saturated Fat: 0 g; Carbohydrates: 35 g; Sodium: 338 mg; Cholesterol: 0 mg; Protein: 1 g; Fiber: 0 g; Sugar: 18 g

This analysis is an estimate based on available ingredients and this preparation. It should not substitute for a dietitian’s or nutritionist’s advice.

From Spirits columnist M. Carrie Allan.

Lime Shandy relies on fresh lime juice to add bright acidity to a Mexican-style lager. Photo by Rey Lopez and Lisa Cherkasky /The Washington Post

Lime Shandy

Shandies (or radlers, if you’re in Germany) are traditionally a mix of beer and lemonade, a great summer sip that balances a lager’s mild hoppiness with sweet citrus – a refreshing low-ABV option for beach drinking. For this lime and agave variation, use a Mexican-style pilsner such as Modelo Especial, Pacifico or Corona. See Variations for a pitcher-sized version.

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Total time: 5 minutes

Servings: 1 (makes 1 drink)

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 ounces (3 tablespoons) fresh lime juice (from 2 to 3 limes)

1/2 ounce (1 tablespoon) agave nectar

One (12-ounce) bottle or can chilled Mexican-style lager, such as Modelo Especial, Pacifico or Corona

1 lime hull or wedge, for garnish

DIRECTIONS

In a chilled pint glass, stir together the lime juice and agave nectar until well combined. Top with the pilsner and stir gently once the fizzing has subsided. Garnish with a spent lime hull or lime wedge and serve.

Variation: For a pitcher-sized version, mix 6 ounces of fresh lime juice and 2 ounces of agave nectar in a pitcher, then add four (12-ounce) cans/bottles of chilled pilsner. Divide among pint glasses, garnish each with a lemon wedge and serve.

Nutritional facts per drink | Calories: 198; Fat: 0 g; Saturated Fat: 0 g; Carbohydrates: 28 g; Sodium: 21 mg; Cholesterol: 0 mg; Protein: 1 g; Fiber: 0 g; Sugar: 10 g

This analysis is an estimate based on available ingredients and this preparation. It should not substitute for a dietitian’s or nutritionist’s advice.

From Spirits columnist M. Carrie Allan.

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