Beer cocktails made with alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages are a great way to mix up your roster of summer drinks.kzenon/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Thanks to the craft beer boom there’s a dizzying array of styles on tap, in bottles or cans waiting to be discovered. Blending beer with alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages is your chance to create new flavours and enhance their refreshment factor. These three beer-based cocktails count as favourites for hot days and warm nights.
Chelada
An elevated expression of adding lime to your Corona, this mixed drink features your favourite Mexican or light beer mixed with lime juice (one to one-and-a-half ounces depending on the desired level of tartness) and a dash of salt. Rimming the glass with salt or tajin seasoning adds to the experience: rub a lime wedge around the outside lip of the glass before dipping it into a saucer filled with two tablespoons of salt or tajin. On a really hot day, I’ll serve it over ice. For grab and go events, Moosehead Brewery has ready-made Chelada, made with its lager combined with lime juice and salt that’s a great introduction.
Shandy
Classic shandy recipes suggest that the original drink was beer mixed with ginger ale or ginger beer, usually in equal measure. Most modern recipes call for lemonade or lemon-lime soda to take the place of ginger ale, while there’s a growing fashion for experimentation with other sodas and fruit juices. An IPA with some bitterness or fruity wheat beer can work here, but crisp and refreshing blond lager is my go-to. Non-alcoholic lagers are perfect for this, too. No matter how you mix it, this low- or no-alcohol cocktail is always refreshing on a hot summer’s day.
The Spaghett
Credited to Wet City Bar in Baltimore, this three-ingredient cocktail was popularized by a Bon Appetit article in 2019. The quirky recipe of a bottle of Miller High Life, a splash of Aperol and a squeeze of lemon juice is on the way to becoming a summertime staple. Tiktok tutorials and other social media posts about the easy to make, easy to appreciate pinkish coloured spiked beer have increased with the summer heat. Swig or pour out a neck’s worth of the beer, add an ounce of Aperol (or another amaro like Campari or Select Apertivo) and an ounce of lemon juice directly into the bottle. As a finishing touch, you can push a wedge of lemon into the bottle. The combination of cold beer, fresh citrus and the tartness of the amaro make for a flavourful and refreshing beverage. At home, I build it in a pint or pilsner glass, tailoring it to my taste, with more amaro and less lemon juice, served over ice and garnished with a lemon wheel.