Feliz Cinco de Mayo !!

[LosMediasBlancas]

The day the Mexican army defeated the French in the battle of Puebla in 1862....and we celebrate it in the U.S.....because.....um.... we hate the French and .....um we love burritos.......and oh yeah Margaritas.....

 

[Goldmember]

the day that gives gringos an excuse to get drunk on mexican beer...

[LosMediasBlancas]

Interesting that the 4th of July is more of a family type, cook out, laid back kind of celebration. Shouldn't that be our huge drunk fest? Instead, St. Patty's and Cinco de Mayo are.

[southsider2k5]

the day that gives gringos an excuse to get drunk on mexican beer...

 

To Dos Equis

 

Now we need the Flaxx Mexican beer lesson

[DBAHO]

Yep, time to get loaded on the Corona's today.

[southsideirish71]

Interesting that the 4th of July is more of a family type, cook out, laid back kind of celebration.  Shouldn't that be our huge drunk fest?  Instead, St. Patty's and Cinco de Mayo are.

 

 

Its a conspiracy to keep the mexicans and Irish from ruling the world.

[LosMediasBlancas]

Its a conspiracy to keep the mexicans and Irish from ruling the world.

 

Now THAT would be a party of epic proportions.

[SoxFan1]

The real independence day is like September 16th. And this is the US isn't it? LOL.

[southsider2k5]

The real independence day is like September 16th. And this is the US isn't it? LOL.

 

Guadalupe Day IIRC

[FlaSoxxJim]

To Dos Equis  

 

Now we need the Flaxx Mexican beer lesson

 

And an interesting lesson it would be as well.

 

Mexico makes a number of better than average beers, and one or two that are near -world class from a stylistic standpoint.

 

Better than 90% of the beers are loosley in the pilsner tradition, meaning they are adjunct beers with a substanmtial part of the grain bill being corn (rather than all malt). Corona is the prima example, and I think it's actually pretty well balanced for being an adjunct megabrew pilsner. Not the first thing I'd reach for, but not the worst lawnmower beer by a longshot. For the sake of the holiday, it is what I will be drinking tonight. For the record, I like mine with lime in it too.

 

Beware of the skunkies, however. The clear bottles allow Corona and several other Mexican pilsners to be "light struck," in which UV from the sun physically alters the beer at a molecular level and makes it taste like Green Giant niblets corn gone bad.

 

The much better beers (from the standpoint of stylistiic fidelity), are the ones in the European lager tradition, such as Negra Modelo (Flaxx gives high marks) and Dos Equis Amber. These are clearly in the Vienna lager style, if on the dark (Munich style) end of the color spectrum. Their authenticity is not accidental, but rather is trecable to a very brief time Mexico was under rule by the Austrio-German emperor (mid 19th centure) who liked his beer. He actually brought his brewmasters with him when he traveled. European rule and an influx of German residents at the time made the startup Vienna style breweries both necessary and possible.

 

The big concern for the future of Negra Modelo from a quality standpoint is that Anheuser-Bush is a 50% owner of Group Modelo (Group Modelo also owns Corona). So even though brewery ops are still locally managed, there s always concern that the bean counters at megabrew corporate headquarters will start "improving" the brewing process (read: f*** it up by going on the cheap).

 

The pre-European indiginous Mexican beer was made from corn as far back as Aztec and Mayan times. Since the intrinsic diastatic (enzymatic starch conversion) efficiency of corn is practically zero, the corn was most likely first chewed up by the village women and then spit into fermenters to take advantage of the natural amylase (starch converting) enzymes in human saliva. The practiuce is still carried out by several indiginous Central and South American peoples.

 

Pilque is another indiginous Mexican fermented beverege, but is not technically a beer because it comes from fermented fruit (agave) rather than grain (fyi, that is why Japanese saki IS techhnically a beer, because it comes from a grain and not fruit). It's basically the undistilled wequivelent of tequilla.

 

End of Mexican beer lesson.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Its a conspiracy to keep the mexicans and Irish from ruling the world.

Or a reason to keep blaming the damn foreigners and their foreign holidays for the big drunkfests we turn them into.

[LosMediasBlancas]

No 'Drinko de Mayo' is complete without my Tecates.

[Soxy]

All this is making me hungary for some homemade corn tortillas.

 

Mmmmmm.

 

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

[longshot7]

Cinco de Mayonnaise I call it.

 

What a useless holiday. I'm so sick of drunk holidays (I hate St. Patrick's Day too.)

[kapkomet]

The KIDS GET OUT OF SCHOOL IN TEXAS FOR THIS s***! Do you believe that? What a joke.

[YASNY]

Nice job, Jim. I'll just say I like Dos Equis in the green bottle with lime. That works for me.

[FlaSoxxJim]

Nice job, Jim.  I'll just say I like Dos Equis in the green bottle with lime.  That works for me.

 

Nice and refreshing, but more often than not I'll take the amber (brown bottle).

 

Though I like Negra Modelo, Dos Equis has the more authentic pedegree. Group Modelo was founded about 80 years ago by a South American bisiness with mexican ties. In contrast, Dos Equis was actually founded by a German immigrant in the 1880s.

 

Good drinks all around.

[SleepyWhiteSox]

I had to try Sol, Victoria, and Estrella when I went just because I always saw them on Mexican league soccer jerseys...

[FlaSoxxJim]

I had to try Sol, Victoria, and Estrella when I went just because I always saw them on Mexican league soccer jerseys...

 

All adjunct lagers with that distinct whiff of corn in them. They won't kill you, but they're no religious experience either.