Mexican craft beer: Coming from south of the border for your taste buds
While overall U.S. beer industry sales remain flat, Americans' thirst for craft beer continues to grow and Mexican beers such as Corona Extra and Modelo Especial have unquenched market appeal. Could craft beer made by Mexican brewmasters be the next big beverage trend in the U.S.? A trio of former Anheuser-Busch executives and a Mexican entrepreneur are betting on it with a new venture, Quest Beverage. The company has already introduced four beers into Houston and St. Louis and throughout Missouri, and the beers are now hitting markets in California, Illinois and Texas.
The beers currently being imported are a citrusy Crossover IPA and crisp Blonde Ale from Cerveza Urbana, based in Mexicali, Mexico, and a light, dry Kölsch ale and a malty, mildly bitter London-style ale from Monterrey, Mexico's Cerveza Rrëy.
A trio of trends points to potential success:
• A growing Hispanic population in the U.S. now makes up 18 percent of Americans.
• Mexican imports are hot. Corona Extra and Modelo Especial each owned 5 percent of the retail market last year, according to IRI, a Chicago-based market research firm. Modelo Especial sales rose 18 percent, dollar-wise, from 2017.
• Growth in craft beer, brewed by small, independent breweries, has slowed, but its share of the overall $111 billion-plus U.S. beer industry is expected to increase beyond the 23.4 percent it captured in 2017, according to the Brewers Association.
Related: Congress May Lower Beer Taxes, Sam Adams Could Cease to be "Craft Beer"
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Playing Small is Okay, Says Judge in "Craft Beer" Case
Asahi Buys SABMiller's Eastern European Beers for $7.8 Billion
Kelp in Craft Beer
(Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 03 2019, @12:21PM (33 children)
IPAs have become the soy latte from Starbucks of beers. Primarily consumed by pretentious dickhead hipsters, have a million gimmicky flavors to choose from, and serious connoisseurs of beer avoid them by default.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @01:55PM (6 children)
I drank beer after a hard days work, or to watch a game, or to get shitfaced... usually Budweiser. This whole gay beer thing is going to turn American Football players into tutu wearing fairies.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 03 2019, @02:00PM
They already have the tutu wearing fairies on the sidelines, just waiting for their chance to get out on the field. https://www.rt.com/sport/438309-nfl-male-cheerleaders-controversy/ [rt.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 03 2019, @02:10PM
If you're drinking beer to get drunk, go with a scotch ale. They have a shitload more alcohol. Big name American beers have their place but it's a niche not universal.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 03 2019, @05:10PM (3 children)
You want a straight beer? Grab a cold and refreshing Steel Reserve 211 with high gravity and 8.1% ABV.
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @05:23PM
Canadian Moosehead had more alcohol than the imported Moosehead. It was a quick way to get buzzed with a real beer taste.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday March 04 2019, @02:59AM (1 child)
211 is the police code for "armed robbery," and after drinking a couple of those that's exactly what you will do.
Source: drank that shit almost daily for a couple years.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 04 2019, @03:06AM
Ditto. It's really not as terrible as it could be. The Beast and Shitz are both worse.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 03 2019, @01:57PM (7 children)
Can't disagree with you, but almost ANYTHING is better than an American piss-water pilsener. I have sampled some "beers" that I didn't like much, but even the ones I don't like have more life and character than most pilseners.
That said - there have been a number of drinks on the market that were popular with the women around here. Seems like "Mike's Hard Lemonade" or something very like that was one of them. I picked up a can and read it - just another pilsener with some artificial flavorings added. I tasted it, and those flavorings and colorings just made the pilsener taste more like piss. Bleahhhh!
Of course, there are wines that are just as bad, or worse. Maybe I shouldn't complain about American beer so much.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 03 2019, @02:08PM (1 child)
You're just looking at it the wrong way. The big name American beers do have a useful purpose but should only be consumed for that purpose. Where they fit in is after doing hot, sweaty work. A just short of frozen Bud/Coors/Miller/etc... consumed right after working your ass off is a thing of beauty that no other beer can compare to in that situation. You damned sure don't want a room temperature stout at that point.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday March 04 2019, @03:03AM
Absolutely true. I'm an IPA scumbag but those are just horrible for such an occasion.
The best thing you can do for a crew working on your house is buy them a 6-pack of Bud or Corona...just be sure to give it to them after they pour the concrete.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 03 2019, @05:01PM
Mike's Hard Lemonade is an alcopop flavored malt beverage. It's trash, but fairly drinkable depending on the flavor, and exactly what you would give to men, women, and "children" who don't enjoy beer. Apparently the original formulation was vodka, carbonated water, and flavoring. So just mix a fruity cocktail or vodka lemonade instead if you don't need it in bottles... it's a lot cheaper. Bonus points if you use Everclear.
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(Score: 5, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday March 03 2019, @07:02PM (3 children)
Q: Why is Budweiser like having sex in a canoe?
A: Because it's fucking close to water.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday March 03 2019, @07:49PM
Some people will mod that "funny", but I thought it was "informative". ;^)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 04 2019, @12:24AM (1 child)
Come on you guys!
Stop modding that stupid comment Informative, it's a stupid joke.
I really don't mind if people want to drink Budweiser, or Coors, or any of those bland American style lagers, it's a free world, and come the revolution we won't be putting people against the wall because of their beer preference.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 04 2019, @03:26PM
Not to mention stolen from Monty Python. Who probably stole it themselves.
That said, it still causes a grin. ;)
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 03 2019, @04:51PM (10 children)
I happen to like the taste of hops. Well, and all of the other ingredients typically found in beers. And yeah, I like even the ridiculously hoppy or bitter IPAs. I'm not about to reject a beer or style because of weirdos who drink it, or a gimmicky ingredient (to be expected from thousands of craft breweries nationwide trying to carve out their own niche in local/regional/national markets). A serious connoisseur would drink whatever is offered to them, and then diss it. Maybe not seek it out, but not avoid it.
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 03 2019, @10:56PM (9 children)
I prefer my beer to taste like beer not Fruity Pebbles. The Fruity Pebbles thing was honest to Linus the sales pitch of a friend of a friend who brought a dozen fucked up IPAs over as his contribution to the evening's festivities. When I want a beer, I want a beer not some fucked up gimmicky bullshit designed to appeal to twentysomethings that mindlessly reject anything that's good in the world out of some idiotic, knee-jerk rebellion pathology.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday March 03 2019, @11:31PM (8 children)
I just don't think that's representative of the landscape. I think most IPAs that people are buying probably taste something like New Belgium Ranger [newbelgium.com] or a Lagunitas IPA [lagunitas.com]. Maybe mostly distinguishable by hop types, ABV, filtered/unfiltered. Then you have some imperial IPAs with higher ABVs, and then a minority of weird stuff. I had a key lime IPA [cigarcitybrewing.com] on tap once, and what do you know, it was good.
So your FOAF brought some crappy IPAs. "Craft" isn't a synonym for "good". We've seen hundreds of breweries popping up every year, but craft beer growth is slowing to a halt [brewbound.com] and plenty of these breweries are going to go bankrupt or get bought by the industry titans. But I would rather see breweries try new things and use weird ingredients than make carbon copies of beer styles. At the end of the day there is a lot more innovation and variety in beer than wine, and that is a good thing.
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(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 04 2019, @12:14AM (7 children)
Hipster nonsense aside, I still don't have much use for IPAs. I generally alternate between a nice Belgian pilsner or porters and stouts from the UK, though I do have a fondness for copper colored ales of the non-India variety. I've had entirely too many IPAs that just weren't worth drinking. Out of the many dozens I've tried, maybe two or three were worth buying a second time, so I can only assume it is fundamentally a sub-par variety of beer.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 04 2019, @12:28AM (5 children)
A few years ago the trend seemed to be to pack as much hops in as possible (as many hops as possible?) and IPA's tended to be often undrinkably bitter, but that trend seems to have subsided a bit, and there are a few really nice beers of that style where I live anyway.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 04 2019, @01:52AM (1 child)
It's not the bitterness itself. I can dig on bitter in a stout most any day that it's not sweltering outside. It's that they're almost universally very weak on the malt flavors, either because of the malt itself or because they overpowered the shit out of what flavors it did have to start with.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 04 2019, @02:19AM
That's fair. I have tried many IPA's that were all hops, and nothing else and I did not enjoy at all.
There are some available locally however that I think are pretty good. If you've given up on the style, I entirely understand.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday March 04 2019, @03:05AM (2 children)
Some people like their coffee strong and black. Some people like their coffee loaded with cream and sugar.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 04 2019, @03:09AM
I can't believe you said that without so much as a double entendre.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 04 2019, @06:55PM
Oh yes, for sure. There's a beer for everyone. (Well, not teetotalers, but you get my drift).
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday March 04 2019, @12:35AM
fair nuff
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(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @07:05PM (6 children)
Why is Buzzard and a number of ACs thinking of hipster dicks when the topic of beer comes up? or does every topic cause that to happen for them? do they visualize the 1000s of variations? (in color or black and white?) I'd hate to see a complete mindmap of these souls
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @08:04PM
"Thinking" is too strong a word.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday March 03 2019, @10:46PM (4 children)
Liquor stores stocking hipster beers directly impacts the number of decent beers on the shelves for me to choose from.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @11:25PM (1 child)
Learn to brew your own then. You'll have control over what beer styles you have available when. I have a schwarzbier in the keg and a bock ready for kegging next week. I'll be doing a pilsner after that to be ready for warm weather. And probably in a few months I will be doing an IPA, but it sure as hell will not taste like fruity pebbles since it will be a British style IPA because I don't like fruity pebbles.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday March 04 2019, @12:04AM
I don't have a thing against Fruity Pebbles in a bowl with milk, just in a beer bottle.
I know how to do the brewing thing, I just generally make cider instead. It's a lot more forgiving, simpler, and it's difficult to find a good cider in TN.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 03 2019, @11:49PM
This seems like your low point. Bitching about beer. Deplorable!
(Score: 2, Funny) by Ethanol-fueled on Monday March 04 2019, @02:58AM
I was drinking IPAs before they were cool. Fucking hipsters.