Beer is no longer the cloth coat of beverages, once associated with fast food and cheap dates, acceptable only at the beach, on the foul line, or in front of the television, according to Hal Rubenstein in Elle magazine.
Beer has become as fashionable as high-topped sneakers. Currently, the most popular new beer in California is a light, spicy Mexican beer called Corona. What is unique about Corona, however, is how it often is served - with a wedge of lime pushed down the neck of the bottle.
If you have any entrepreneurial spirit, said Rubenstein, you can guess the next step - mixed drinks with beer. Should you scoff at such folly, he said, consider that the British have been drinking lager and lime (beer and lime juice) and shandy (beer and lemonade or 7-Up) for years.
Remember, too, all those oenophilic cries of sacrilege when wine companies, in hope of salvaging the sagging wine market, introduced wine coolers to California.
Mixed drinks made with beer can be far more refreshing than wine punches, said Rubenstein. But if you want to invent your own elixir, take note of certain distinctive qualities of beer.
* Beer doesn't mix well with many hard liquors; and horribly with most liqueurs.
* Beer and pineapple juice will taste like soap no matter what you do to the drink afterward.
* You generally will have more success with lighter beers, as opposed to darker beers.
* Beer doesn't belong in a blender unless you have live-in help.
* Because they will go flat quickly, serve beer drinks immediately. Put away the punch bowl.
