Drinks with beer – 11 suggestions for summer

As I have always belonged to the cold-weather crowd, I have never been fond of summer. As soon as the temperature exceeds 20 degrees, I start nervously looking around for flights to the far north. However, the reality is that we have had these several hot weeks in Poland, and you have to cope somehow. Drinks with beer are the answer to hot weather pains.

Air conditioning and cold beer help at first, but sometimes you want to spice things up in this daily life of ours, and that’s when you can indulge in beer drinks – or beer-based cocktails.

Here are some suggestions that everyone will make themselves at home. Most of them are strongly refreshing, but I have also included two original recipes of the heavier kind at the end.

Michelada

Michelada is a refreshing better than cold beer drink originating from Mexico, based on the country’s classic combination of salty, sour and spicy flavors. To make it, we need the following ingredients:

• Beer, preferably a light lager (although Macuiltochtli, or smoked gose with lime and prickly pear will certainly bring interesting notes here!)
• tomato juice
• Juice squeezed from two quarters of a lime
• Worcerstershire sauce
• soy sauce
• hot chili sauce
• salt
• chilli flakes

We use the squeezed limes to moisten the rim of the glass, which we then dip in a mixture of salt and chili flakes, so that these stick to the glass to form a rim.

Put ice cubes in the bottom of the glass and pour a few drops of sauces: Worcestershire, soy, and hot (if you like it spicier – you can use more). Pour the whole thing with the juice of half a lime, and then with beer to about 3/4 of the volume. Fill the rest of the glass with tomato juice and stir.

In addition to the dry spices, the cocktail can be garnished with lime, and for pastry lovers – add a little mango pulp. However, it is not necessary. Really.

Shandy

Thanks to beer concerns, it is perhaps the most popular beer drink, sold as a ready-made drink in a bottle. There is no need to prepare anything at home. However, it is known that everything tastes much better when you make it yourself.

The traditional shandy originated in the UK and contains only two ingredients:

• 1/2 lager
• 1/2 carbonated lime and lemon drink, 7Up or Sprite style

Yes, yes – the British call just such a drink lemonade, not what we and the Americans do – that is, a mixture of water, sugar and lemon juice. Therefore, shandy recipes that involve mixing beer and lemonade together are wrong and result from Americans’ misunderstanding of the British meaning of the word.

Of course, you can confidently use healthy, homemade lemonade instead of sweetened carbonated beverage, but be careful or you’ll piss off the Brits. However, you will obtain an excellent refreshing drink that does not ask for anything.

In Germany, the drink is called Radler, and in France it is called panaché. Drinks with beer, as you can see, have their local variants in terms of language as well.

There is also a version mixed with cola, which the Germans call Diesel.

Black And Tan

As early as the 17th century, beers were blended in England, obtaining various flavors unavailable offhand. Over time, a method was developed whereby pubs began to serve a two-layer drink with beer called black and tan. The ingredients for this cocktail are:

• 1/2 dark beer of the dry stout type (e.g. Guinness)
• 1/2 light beer (such as pale ale or lager)

Pour the light beer halfway into a tall glass, and pour the stout gently on top, on the back of a spoon. A properly poured black and tan consists of two layers, thanks to the difference in the relative density of the beer. Guinness as a light stout is lighter than a stronger pale ale.

Attention! In Ireland , the drink is called half and half, as black and tans are the name given to the paramilitary militias there that fought on the British side during the War of Irish Independence.

Don’t commit a faux pas and order black and tan in Dublin!

Irish Car Bomb

While we’re on the subject of politically incorrect names and Ireland, we can’t help but mention the Irish car bomb, also known more recently as the Irish shot or Irish slammer.

The name of this cocktail refers to the bombs exploded during the Northern Irish conflict that lasted from the 1970s to the 1990s(The Troubles) and is considered offensive in both Ireland and the UK. Of course, it was invented by the Americans. Even drinks with beer can spoil.

You will need three ingredients for this bombastic drink with beer:

• almost a full glass of Guinness
• half a shot of Baileys Irish Cream liqueur
• Half a shot of Irish whiskey (such as Jameson)

The method of preparation is trivial. Pour liquor and whiskey in a vodka glass in layers, then drop the liquor into a glass not quite filled with delicious Guinness (after all, we don’t want to spill anything, do we?). Be careful, because this cocktail can be really treacherous.

Snakebite

If you are an apple lover and are looking for something that refreshes as much as a cold beer, Snakebite is the answer to your needs. This cocktail involves mixing two ingredients in equal proportions:

• cider
• lager (UK) or stout (US) beers

The original recipe says simply: pour half a glass of cider first, then fill the rest of the glass with lager.

However, the Americans decided to mix things up, as usual, and created something in the fashion of black and tan (see above), complementing the cider with Guinness poured by the spoonful. Dark beer combined with cider has a similar visual stratifying effect.

Sometimes a pinch of black currant juice is added to the top, which trickles down to create a snake’s teeth effect, but this is not a characteristic of the traditional recipe.

Beer’s Knees

This is not a typo, but a variation on a cocktail called bee’s knees, which does not contain beer. In the beer version, we have:

• 35 ml of gin
• 20 ml of lemon juice
• 1.5 teaspoons of honey
• 225 ml of pilsner beer ( Social Lubricant from Golem Brewery will work)
• a few drops of Angostura Bitters
• Lime zest or pieces for garnish

Pour the gin, lemon juice and honey into a glass and stir nimbly to dissolve. To make things easier, you can make honey syrup beforehand. After the honey has dissolved, we then pour cold beer, add a dash of Angostura and decorate the glass with lime.

Moscow Mule

Calm. This drink has nothing to do with Moscow, so you don’t have to move to boycott. It owes its Russian name to the use of – and how – vodka. Here are the ingredients for a decent Moscow mule:

• 35 ml of vodka
• 15 ml of lemon juice
• ice cubes
• Ginger beer (I recommend making a variation with a good saison!)
• pieces of lime for decoration

Put ice in a traditional mug (pictured above) or tall glass, over which pour vodka and lemon juice. Stir to rehydrate the solution, then top off the dish with ginger beer, and garnish the whole thing with a lime particle or peel.

Well, and here the question arises: what is this ginger beer?

Anglo-Saxons call this sweetened ginger-based drink, which usually has no alcohol in it, although there are also versions with percentages.

However, I suggest that you modify the original recipe slightly and instead enhance the mule with a decent Belgian spiced saison . A cold beer native to Belgium will do just fine!

If your beer drink is not sweet enough, you can possibly spice it up with honey.

Beer Margarita

The name pretty much says it all. This is a classic margarita, only it comes with beer – also known by bartenders as beerita. Drinks with beer the Latin way – that’s it!

Since the margarita is one of those cocktails that has its own internationally recognized definition enshrined by the International Bartenders Association, let’s stick to the basics:

• 50 ml of tequila
• 20 ml of Triple sec orange liqueur (can be replaced with slightly sweeter Cointreau)
• 15 ml of lemon juice
• Salt to decorate the glass
• ice

To this we add, of course:

• A light lager (and for a more curious experience: an IPA!)

To make a margarita correctly we should take care of the salty rim of the glass. For this purpose, for example, we can use lemons from which we squeezed the juice. With one of them we outline the glass, which is then dipped into the salt scattered in the bowl. Thanks to the leftover lemon juice, the salt will stick to the glass and form a striking rim.

Then in a shaker combine tequila, liqueur and lemon juice together with ice and pour into a standing glass. The rest of it is supplemented with good beer. A regular pale ale appears in most recipes, but I recommend trying a version with a decent IPA.

Black Velvet

If mixing beer with cider, lemonade, cola, vodka or other beer is too plebeian for you – black velvet is a beer drink tailored perfectly for your tastes.

This beer cocktail includes:

• 1/2 dark stout beer (such as Bayraktar from Golem Brewery).
• 1/2 dry champagne (may be other sparkling wine, but not sweet)

The original recipe asks for the use of real French champagne, but I realize that we can rarely afford such exclusivity. On a daily basis, you can successfully replace it with prosecco or cava.

This beer drink needs no ice. Pour half the sparkling wine into the champagne flask, then top it off with an equal portion of dark beer. Voila. Bon appetit.

Lilith with plum brandy

At the Golem Brewery booth, drinks with beer are a staple. Usually for an additive it makes… distillate. I developed this beer drink, now legendary in some circles, on my own during the Poznań Beer Fair. We need two ingredients for this:

• 420 ml of Lilith beer from Golem Brewery (or other bitter, dry imperial stout or lighter dark beer)
• 80 ml of plum brandy

You can play with dropping plum bombs into a glass with our ris, but traditionally you should simply mix one with the other.

If you ever come across a freeze-dried version of Lilith, it will be even better. Those who have been drinking will confirm.

Plum brandy adds wonderful fruit and distillate notes to Lilith’s chocolate and coffee character, creating a true nectar of the gods.

Katastorfa on steroids

Drinks with beer are born in a variety of circumstances. I initiated this one during an event at Pub Spoldzielczy in Gdansk, Poland, when I decided to order a combination of peat-smoked imperial stout along with a shot of smoky Scotch whisky. The original recipe is:

• 460 ml of Katastorf beer from Beer Underground brewery
• 40 ml of Ardbeg whisky

The combination perfectly conquers the smoky notes and power of the cocktail, transporting us to an even more intense peaty experience. In subsequent releases, I used our Gehenna beer and a variety of peaty whiskies like Laphroaig and Lagavulin, which also perfectly complement the strong, sharp peaty stouts.