From Vienna to Mexico City

At Iron Springs Pub and Brewery in Fairfax, brewer Christian Kazakoff has become a great fan of the Mexican-style lager—an easy-drinking beer characterized by flavors of rice, corn and breadcrust—and routinely brews his own version. Kazakoff labels it the “Vienna lager” for its historical roots in Europe, but it’s similar to the lager style that has gained fame from breweries south of the border, where Austrian and German migrants settling in Mexico in the 1800s began making the beers they were accustomed to drinking back home.

“They were making beers that were flavorful and not too heavy,” Kazakoff says. As it happens, the beers, he added, were “also climate-appropriate.”

These days, the Mexican-style lager—more accurately categorized as a pale lager, rather than Vienna-style—is marketed as a summertime perfect-for-the-beach beer, since Mexico, it would seem, is one giant beach. These beers are also said by many thoughtful writers to be the “perfect” accompaniment to Mexican food. Anyone who tells you this has forgotten that you’ll enjoy your fish tacos regardless of what is in your glass.

Oh, but just listen to me go! I’ve digressed into my hatred of beverage-food pairing pretenses.

Back to the beer: The best Mexican lagers are crisp, clear and clean-tasting, according to Kazakoff. He explains that the lager yeast used to make these beers creates little extra flavor, the way that ale yeasts do. Belgian-style ales, for example, get their fruity, banana-and-citrus scents largely from esters created by the particular yeast strains used to make them—sloppy, clumsy yeasts that, so to speak, leave a stink in the air after they’ve had a meal. It just happens that people like these smells.

Lager yeasts dine with comparatively impeccable table manners, leaving little trace behind —except, of course, alcohol.

“So these lagers are tricky to make,” he says. “They can highlight a lot of flaws because the yeast is so clean. You’re really putting yourself out there when you make one.”

The best-known Mexican lagers are made by Pacífico, Modelo, Corona and Dos Equis. As an ale drinker primarily, I find it amusing and mystifying that these big companies, which I would categorize with Bud, Coors and all that swill, are gaining applause right now from some craft beer fans in America. I am reminded of how Pabst Blue Ribbon became trendy about a decade ago among urban hipsters, who apparently felt—or pretended to feel—some sort of trucker-cap-and-flannel kinship with the brand.

But now we have skilled, no-nonsense brewers praising mass-produced Mexican lagers, and I am beginning to think I need to take a case of Modelo Especial to a beach and experience the magic everyone is so jazzed about.

Actually, I think I’ll skip the big brands and go small. Nor Cal examples of the style come from Iron Springs, as well as Adobe Creek Brewing in Novato. El Sully by 21st Amendment has gained widespread acclaim as one of the best Mexican lagers around. Even Sierra Nevada has an offering, Sierraveza—billed as “golden and crisp, with a balanced malt flavor and a hit of floral hops”—that is very crisp and flavorful (smells and tastes of toasted grains) and currently available in its 12-bottle, four-beer “Party Pack.”

This style is on the rise in the craft world, but only time will tell if Mexican-style lagers have the staying power of other trends that have become staples, like sours, saisons and those mighty IPAs.