Chelada
Mexican lager, fresh lime and salt over ice. The simplest beer cocktail there is, and the one that turns a cold lager into a drink for a hot afternoon.
Built to the standard modern spec; not yet tested in our kitchen. How we test.
The recipe.
Scaling adjusts quantities only. Prepare shaken drinks in individual portions.
Let’s make a good drink.
Rub a lime wedge round the rim of a tall glass or beer mug and dip it in kosher salt.
Fill the glass with ice and add the lime juice.
Pour in the cold beer slowly, down the side.
Garnish with a lime wedge and serve.
A thoughtful finish
- Everything cold: the glass, the beer, the ice. It is a drink about temperature.
- A full ounce of lime is right. The drink should taste sour and salty, not like beer with a wedge.
- A pinch of salt stirred in, as well as the rim, if you like it saline.
Common mistakes
- Warm beer or no ice. The whole point is cold.
- A craft IPA. The bitterness fights the lime; a clean light lager is the recipe.
- Confusing it with a Michelada and adding hot sauce. That is a different, also excellent drink.
A few good questions.
What is the difference between a Chelada and a Michelada?
Spice. A Chelada is beer, lime and salt; a Michelada adds hot sauce, Worcestershire and often tomato or Clamato. The names swap by region in Mexico.
Which beer?
A light Mexican lager — the kind in a clear bottle. It is the only beer the drink wants.
Can I skip the ice?
Mexicans mostly do not. Ice keeps it cold through a hot afternoon; purists who skip it drink faster.
Is it a cocktail?
Barely, and that is its charm. It is beer made better with two ingredients.
Variations
- Michelada — With hot sauce, Worcestershire and tomato.
- Black and Tan — Stout layered over pale ale.
- Shandy — Beer and lemonade.
- Ranch Water — Tequila, lime and mineral water — the spirit version of the same idea.
Where it comes from
c. 1940s–1960s · Mexico
Contested. More than one origin is claimed for this drink. We show the competing accounts rather than pick one.
Lime and salt have been added to Mexican beer for as long as there has been Mexican beer, and the Chelada — from ‘mi chela helada’, my cold beer — is the simplest expression of that habit: lager, lime juice and salt in a chilled, salt-rimmed glass over ice. Its spicier sibling the Michelada, with hot sauce, Worcestershire and sometimes tomato, is often credited to a Michel Ésper at a club in San Luis Potosí in the 1960s, but the names shift by region and some parts of Mexico call this drink a Michelada and the spicy one something else. There is no inventor, only a thirst.
Sources
- Difford's Guide, Chelada and Michelada, 2015 (reference)
- Garrett Oliver, The Oxford Companion to Beer, 2011 (book)
- Saveur, 'The Michelada', 2012 (article)
Strength. About 0.9 US standard drinks at an estimated 3.6% ABV, estimated from the ingredients and technique, not measured. What that means.
A little character in every sip.
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