10 Mexican-inspired beers for your Cinco de Mayo celebration
Published 1:30 am Wednesday, May 3, 2017
Mexican cervezas aren’t just for breweries south of the border anymore.
In recent years, many craft brewers have taken on the challenge of brewing something that can compete with a cold Pacifico on a hot beach. What they’ve conjured is as diverse as the food that often accompanies it. We’re talking far more than run-of-the-mill pale lagers.
I went to the store and made a few calls to local brewers to get my hands on as many Mexican-inspired beers as I could. Then I got some friends together and we tried them … over a heaping helping of tortillas, mole, queso, salsa and chips. Here’s what our research yielded:
Beerito
Oskar Blues, Longmont, Colorado
One of the best beers we tried, Beerito is a well-balanced amber lager that is crisp and refreshing while also being complex. The beer seemed to stand up against all of the spicy food we ate, as well as also being the type of lager you’d want to enjoy on a beach.
Cactus Red
101 Cider, Los Angeles
Pouring a beautiful shade of pink, this is a complex cider that doesn’t overwhelm the food. Made with agave nectar and cactus, this is closer to a tart sparkling wine than a cider. One downside: The only place I could find it is Bellingham’s Elizabeth Station.
Cerveza Chukis
Mollusk, Seattle
Possibly because we’re a bunch of Northwest hop heads, this one was our favorite. It’s like a Mexican beer made for the Northwest. Mollusk brewed the beer to celebrate the opening of a second location of a Seattle taco shop and the beer is a dry-hopped Mexican-style lager. It’s refreshing like a Mexican lager should be, with a substantial hop finish that begs for another quick sip.
El Gose
Avery Brewing, Boulder, Colorado
Germany meets Mexico. A true German gose (goes-uh) is traditionally soured via lactic fermentation and flavored with coriander and salt. Instead of coriander, Avery used lime, giving this beer a citrus twist to its usual tanginess. Possibly the most complex beer we had, El Gose isn’t for everyone, but if you like sours it’s a great match with spicy food.
El Sully
21st Amendment Brewing, San Francisco
This was the lightest cerveza of the bunch. Though it had a thin mouthfeel and a slight malt backbone, the bitterness from the Magnum and Northern Brewer hops was more distinguishable than in most mass market cervezas. A perfect match to cool the palate after a spicy meal.
Jalapeno 7
Scuttlebutt Brewing, Everett
This was one of a few “spicy” beers that we tried. Scuttlebutt has been making Jalapeno 7, a take on its popular Tripel 7 Belgian-style ale, for many years. Using jalapeno and serrano peppers, the beer has a dramatic nose of heat, but the flavor is more Belgian than Mexican. The beer cleaves closer to the fruit and clove flavors than the heat of the peppers and manages to extinguish the heat rather than pour fuel on the fire.
La Raza
Farmstrong Brewing, Mount Vernon
While researching this beer I found a video of Farmstrong head brewer Mike Armstrong sucking on a lime and dashing this beer with salt before shotgunning the whole thing. We didn’t perform that same trick, instead opting to slowly sip it. Unlike most Mexican lagers, this is more of a light-bodied amber lager. Crisp with solid malt character, this beer stood toe-to-toe with the intense mole.
Margarita
Elemental Hard Cider, Woodinville
Made with jalapeno, lime and cilantro, this cider promises to give drinkers the same sensation as drinking a margarita. I had trouble conjuring that same feeling. Though crisp and refreshing, the lime and apple flavors didn’t blend well and it had an aftertaste that was too sweet for me. That said, it did go well with Mexican food.
Porter Diablo
Lazy Boy Brewing, Everett
Unlike most classic cervesas, there’s a lot going on in this beer. It turned out to be a crowd favorite. Possibly because it was far different than anything we were drinking, the porter had a slight heat at the finish that seemed to grow stronger as it lingered. The porter was made with cinnamon, cocoa nibs, peppers and vanilla, and that complexity comes through. A well-balanced porter that isn’t too overwhelming in any one direction.
Who the F is Larry?!?
Middleton Brewing, Everett
Middleton owner and head brewer Geoff Middleton was heading out of town for a bit so he decided to try lagering a beer for the first time. The lagering process takes up to a month, so for a small brewery like Middleton that can take up precious resources. The result is a crisp and refreshing lager with very subtle hints of citrus. My only quibble is it seemed to be under carbonated, but that could be due to the fact Middleton gave me a fresh pour a week before it was set to go on tap.
Here are a few Cinco de Mayo events at Snohomish County breweries:
Cinco de Melvin: Bothell’s The Hop and Hound is hosting a Cinco de Mayo event from 4 to 9 p.m. May 5 at the taproom, 18116 101st Ave. NE, with a number of Mexican-inspired craft beers, including Melvin Brewing’s HeyZeus Mexican lager.
Cinco de Mayo Everett Pub Crawl: Everett’s Lazy Boy Brewing, 715 100th St. SE, Middleton Brewing, 607 SE Everett Mall Way, and Crucible Brewing, 909 SE Everett Mall Way, are hosting a Cinco de Mayo pub crawl all day on May 5. Visit all three breweries and win a prize.
Cinco de Mayo at Lazy Boy: Everett’s Lazy Boy Brewing is celebrating Cinco de Mayo from 7 to 9:30 p.m. May 6 at the brewery. There will be live music courtesy Who’s Your Daddy and two Mexican-inspired beers: a porter made with cinnamon, peppers, cocoa nibs and vanilla, and a Vienna-style lager infused with limes and pepper.
