BetterBeerBlog

This month’s Session is hosted by Joe and Jasmine from Beer at Joes. The topic for the month: beer cocktails. When I first heard of this topic, I raised an eyebrow in interest. I felt this the topic was interesting because beer cocktails are rarely talked about. Sure, there’s the famous Black & Tan and all its variations, but what else were there? A quick check on Wikipedia shows that there are a lot more beer cocktails than I ever thought.

But why even concoct a beer cocktail? If the beer is good enough to stand on it’s own then it shouldn’t need to be mixed with anything else, food coloring or otherwise. With the exception of a Cuba Libré (rum, cola with a splash of lime juice), I don’t even like cocktails. Cocktails do nothing but to make bad liquor palatable. Still, if I am to participate in this month’s Session, I reckon I should give it a shot.

The beer cocktail I chose really isn’t a true beer cocktail. A true beer cocktail, you see, is a mixture of beer and a distilled spirits. The beverage I chose to imbibe is actually more closely related to a shandy. More specifically, it’s a cerveza preparada. Yep, my beer cocktail is the infamous Michelada.

Well, what is a michelada? Simply put, a michelada is a Bloody Mary made with beer instead of vodka. The name itself is interesting as it’s a portmanteau. Without going into too much detail, michelada means My iced beer. “Mi” is “mine”. “Chelada” is a shortened form of chela helada, or iced beer (chela is Spanish slang for cerveza). American Macro breweries have come in on the act and have produced their own versions of cerveza preparadas you now know as Miller Chill and Budweizer Chelada.

Here is a basic recipe for a michelada taken from Wikipedia:

• Pour 11.0 U.S. fl oz of tomato juice or Clamato into a chilled salt-rimmed mug or glass. Clamato is becoming more common
• A few drops of hot sauce, such as Valentina, Bufalo or McIlhenny’s Tabasco sauce
• A few drops of Worcestershire sauce
• A few drops of Maggi seasoning or soy sauce
• Squeeze a lime wedge (lemon would neither be strong nor sour enough).
• Mix the ingredients in the glass.
• Slowly add one 11.0 U.S. fl oz Mexican beer (preferably a light beer like Tecate or Dos Equis)

To be completely honest, I didn’t make my michelada. Despite the various news reports of the potentially pandemic swine flu, the missus and I braved a trip to a local taqueria. You can always tell an ethnic restaurant is good when both the staff and the patrons are of that particular ethnicity.

The michelada comes to me in a glass I would’ve normally expected a margarita to come in. The rim is salted and there’s lime as well. The actual beverage is a muddy reddish brown that is speckled with spices and ice cubes. The aroma is primarily that of tomato juice, lime juice and hot sauce. I asked for a Modelo Negro and you can barely tell its there, you know there’s a beer in the drink but the flavors and aroma of the Vienna lager are all subdued by the other ingredients. The flavor of the beer is pretty much like that of a Bloody Mary only with some beer characteristics. It’s medium-lo/medium bodied with medium carbonation.

By the end of dinner, I polished of the beverage, but only because I don’t like wasting things I’ve paid for. I thought it was tastey but, were it not for this post, I probably wouldn’t actively be looking for this cocktail. I still believe that if a beer is good, it doesn’t need anything added to it but if all you’re drinking is light lagers, then okay, I can kinda see why you’d want to add something, anything, to make the beer taste better.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 1st, 2009 at 1:00 am and is filed under The Session. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.