BEER? WHAT ELSE YA GOT?
Hey, Listen!
As the weather warms, and as we shed our winter coats for shorts and sleeveless tees, most of us are liable to drop those gnarly doppelbocks and double IPAs that kept us warm in the cold months for lighter fare. Some take this logic the extra mile, though, and skip right past middle-strength pale ales and lagers and directly into frosty pitchers and cans of all manner of beer cocktails, be those radlers, shandies, or micheladas. Seltzers take off too, naturally, but that’s another post, to paraphrase Alton Brown.
It may not shock you to learn, though, that the history of adding non-beer things to beer is centuries old, and the twin craft beer and cocktail movements have yielded an explosion in renewed interest in beer cocktails in recent years, so today we’ll be going over these summery delights, and while you may be most curious to take a peek at some new recipes, we certainly won’t judge you for cracking an egg into a pint of porter!
A Brief History of Adding Stuff to Beer
We’ve been brewing beer for a hot minute as a species, and we’ve been adding all kinds of stuff to beer for just as long. It behooves us to make a distinction at this point, though: while the Egyptians would sometimes add dates and honey to beer, and while artificial colorings were added to “Porters” in the 18th century, these items are arguably ingredients in the beer itself, and not distinct additions (along the lines of the distinction between spiced rum and a rum/allspice dram tiki drink), so for the sake of simplicity, we’ll skip right past any such “ingredients.”
Similarly, we’ll ignore the fascinating world of beer blending, since the mixture of multiple beers to create a new one, while valid and often transformative, is another topic.
Nonetheless, these restrictions still leave us with a number of historical curios, the most stunning of which is the flip. In brief, during the dawn of cocktails in the late-18th and early-19th centuries (roughly speaking), Americans in particular made virtually every possible combination of rum, brandy (grape, peach, and apple mostly), sugar, molasses, lemon, and sometimes eggs and cream that you can imagine. Occasionally, even beer was tossed into the mix, and one resulting cocktail was dubbed the Hot Ale Flip, which is a type of Flip, a drink that combines eggs, an alcohol source, sugar, and optionally spices, in general. One typical recipe reads as follows:
“To make an ale flip, beer and rum were mixed in a pitcher, often along with eggs or cream to thicken the drink and a few spoonfuls of sweetener like molasses, cane sugar, or dried pumpkin.”
Wild, right? And while there aren’t many other “ancient” beer cocktails, one vivid example hails from Germany: the classic Berliner Weisse mit Schuss (with a shot). The idea here, if you’re not familiar, is simple: Berliner Weisses are typically quite tart and dry (especially the traditional examples, though the US’s modern takes are often far more balanced, or at least drinkable in and of themselves), and to cut that sharpness, Berliners often add a shot of Raspberry or Woodruff syrup (red or green, rot oder grün), in order to add body, flavor, and balancing sweetness. The success of this combination as a concept is evident in the explosion of fruit-based Goses and Berliner Weisses on bottle shop shelves for the last ten years or so - think of this as the OG Fruit Smoothie Sour. And as for its age as a practice, I couldn’t find any specific numbers, but it seems like the 19th century is a decent bet.
Less-Ancient Beer Cocktails
There have been a myriad of reasonably well known beer cocktails in the last century, and I’d argue they fall into two rough categories: shandies, and pseudo-cocktails.
The former grouping consists of those drinks that combine, quite simply, beer and either a fruit juice or a beer-friendly soda (so, no Pibb Extra), which lowers the overall ABV of the drink while contributing interesting flavors to the base beer.
The traditional British version usually involves Ginger Beer and any of a number of pale or amber beers (so, Pale Ales through Bitters; I suspect Golden Ales would be perfect for this treatment), while the most common German version that I’ve seen, the Radler, pairs a Vollbier (think Helles, or a malty Pils, basically) with Grapefruit Soda to exquisite effect. The story for the Radler in particular goes, in short, that a tavern owner, confronted with a sudden onslaught of cyclists (Radlers) and a shortage of beer/excess of grapefruit soda, decided to combine the two, to the delight of the cyclists. And if you’ve had one, they’re obviously quite good, so thank goodness for that happenstance combination! (Oh, and the base beer, which is purchasable these days via Stiegl, is quite good!)
The latter grouping contains a number of pseudo-cocktails, but by far the most ubiquitous are the michelada and the margarita- or lemonade-flavored, mass-produced flavored beer. The former is massively popular here in LA, and consists, for anyone who somehow hasn’t heard of them, of light lager, a spiced tomato-based sauce essentially, and usually lime juice, all in a tajin-rimmed glass; tamarind occasionally makes an appearance as well. The second example can be found in any number of low-tier bottle shops and grocery stores, and I admit with some sadness that I’ve only ever tried the lemonade version (and I’m sure you can guess that I adore that stuff). Now that hard seltzers have hit the scene, though, the market for these has probably shrunken somewhat, but I doubt they’re going away any time soon.
Oh, and a technical last entry: boilermakers. These insane, wonderful dive drinks entail dropping a shot of whiskey or other spirit into a glass of beer, and chugging the combo. One of life’s greatest joys, without a doubt. Of all of the dive world’s twisted beauties, I’m far more partial to the classic whiskey-pickleback combo, but there’s something deeply charming about the power and cost efficiency of these wicked chug-fests.
The Modern Scene and Some Recipes
Finally, we have a vague class of “modern” beer cocktails, which with one exception are too elaborate, distinct, and untested to be worthy of mention. That one exception, which it pains me deeply to admit I haven’t been able to find the name of, is a child of the amaro boom, and is quite simple: take a pale lager, drink a sip, add some Aperol and Campari, et voilà. Simple, easy, fantastic.
Beyond this, I’ll toss you a few links that seem like reasonable collections of recipes, but for the sake of argument, and in a vain channeling of my past as a cocktail guy, here are my broad recommendations for paths to explore:
Amaros are a solid playing field - I can see these working with lagers and wheat beers, possibly sours, though steer clear of hoppy beers, since the bitterness will likely be unbalanceable
Along these lines, one of my favorite drinks is bitters, seltzer, lime, and St. Germain (an Elderflower Liqueur), and I suspect you could recreate that one for one in a lager, golden ale, or wheat beer
Citrus is a classic direction, and for lime or lemon, again, the lagers make a great foundation, but you could also play with either lemon and simple in a hoppy beer, or one of the oranges in a hoppy beer
Toss in some orange liqueur and you’re in “margarita” territory
As for fruit, the amount of fruit-laced beers on the market implies their versatility - for every beer lighter than a dark amber, there’s certainly a fruit puree out there that would pair well, particularly all manner of berries (whose tartness provides excellent sweetness balance)
Spice-wise, you start to open the dark beer door - I think a chipotle-Schwarzbier combo would work wonders, though Stouts and Porters famously take heat well. An oz of Whiskey and a few dashes of hot sauce may just pair well with your dark beer of choice
Finally, you’ve got the classic - College Freshman Jungle Juice (that term, while the only one I’m aware of for the drink, feels weird to use - is it? Let me know, and if you have an alternative, by all means). This is a combination, at its core, of a light beer, a citrus element, and a fruit punch element, usually with a clean spirit (rum, vodka) to bolster the ABV. So good.
And here are some decent-looking links: one, two, three
Conclusion
We’ve been adding stuff to beer more or less since we’ve all had pantries diverse enough to have the ability to do so (think triangle and spice trades), and the range of options has only expanded over the years with our diversifying pantries, and while plenty of us are content with the insane variety in the craft beer world these days, feel no shame if you’re tempted to toss some OJ into your Van ICE this summer (there’s the plug!)
Cheers,
Adrian “I’m More of a Hard Seltzer Guy” Febre