The Beer Belly: Cinco de Mayo Cervesa

Superior is not among my favorite Mexican beers, and I can’t say that I’ve ever gone out of my way to buy it before. I don’t avoid it either.

Most of us have seen Tecate. Most of us have not tasted it, though. It’s the beer in the ugly red can that someone at the table across from you is drinking in the Mexican restaurant. Starting to ring a bell?

Negra Modelo is one of the richest tasting, most robust beers in Mexico. A complex beer, redolent with caramel and chocolate flavors from the malt, the beer is perfectly balanced with a bit of spiciness or nuttiness in the hop aspects of its flavor profile.

Light and spritzy with just the barest hint of grassy hops and a very slight tingly mineral scent that’s probably from the carbonation (carbonic acid). Generally clean with nothing offensive, but neither is there anything enticing.

Dos Equis Amber is actually classified as a lager, but it has the body and bouquet of a fine amber ale. It’s something like a Newcastle Brown Ale mixed with Sam Adams. Most interestingly it seems to have less carbonation and/or gas than your average lager.

A lot of folks who either don’t know much about beer, or who don’t care much about flavor or the quality of what goes into their mouths, seem to have stuffed the ballot box so to speak, with dozens of glowing reviews of what is, in fact, one of the worst beers brewed in Mexico.

This is a very light-bodied American style pale lager (an offshoot of the pilsner style). This is, in my view, probably the blandest, least interesting style of beer on the market, although it probably accounts for 90% of beer sales in the U.S.