Beer of the Week: Dos Equis!

Last time I mentioned I couldn't put Baltika #8 in the running for "Harrison's favorite beer" because there were a couple others I just love so much. Dos Equis is one of those beers. In fact, it's probably my overall favorite.

I'm talking Dos Equis Lager, not Amber. The Amber is good also. Really I'm a fan of all cerveza style beers, but this one is my fav.

Here is something interesting about this beer: I almost always prefer my beer on tap over bottled. I just think it tastes better that way. I don't know why this is. I do know that the recipes for sodas are slightly different for canned and fountain versions, so perhaps something like that is going on here as well. At any rate, Dos Equis is the ONE exception to that rule. I like it draft just fine, but I absolutely love it bottled.

Not too far back I discovered the Michelada style of drinking beer. It's a rich variety of methods in which a beer can be mixed with other ingredients to form a kind of beer cocktail. The most basic method, also sometimes called chelada style, is combining beer and lime juice in a salt rimmed glass.

I love salt and lime juice, so that is an obvious hit with me.

Michelada recipes can contain almost anything though, varying widely by region in Mexico. The concept is not entirely dissimilar to how people experiment and share their own take on the bloody mary. Some Micheladas even contain tomato juice, worcestershire, and hot sauce, making the similarity to a bloody mary more than just conceptual.

Clamato is a popular mix with beer for Micheladas as well. Budweiser sells pre-prepared Bud or Bud Light with Clamato. I've yet to try that.

At any rate, I've done up pretty much every beer I drink chelada style at least once. That includes a couple kinds of Sam Adams. My advice: don't repeat my mistake there. The beer I find works best is Dos Equis.

A personal tip: lemon juice works really well too in my opinion, and is often much cheaper than lime juice.

I learned an interesting history lesson on the side of a beer variety pack I picked up relatively recently at Costco. Dos Equis has been produced since the early 1900s, and was invented by a German immigrant to Mexico who combined the traditions of his homeland with local Mexican ones to create this amazing beer. Originally it was called "Siglo XX," with the two Xs representing the 20th century. So many people took a liking to the beer and just asked for "the one with the two Xs on it" that the company eventually just up and changed the name to "two Xs" which is, in Spanish, "Dos Equis."

Another interesting note about this beer: try as I might, I cannot get my mother to stop pronouncing it "Dos Ekwees" instead of "Dos Ekkies." My use of phonetic alphabet is, admittedly, made up.

Here's to you, Dos Equis. With ice and lime in a salt-rimmed glass or straight out of the bottle, you're an amazing drink, and this week belongs to you.

Cheers.