Cranberry Shandy to Cranberry Bock
After making a Broadway (aka Diesel, or to coin a new term, Shandicola), I recalled just how much I like Shandies. I have peculiar way of mixing Shandies and I write a whole series of articles this coming summer on the subject, but when I’m in a hurry for a refreshing, low alcohol drink, I’ll mix a lager half and half with ginger soda. I love this concoction. Well, you probably see where this is going. I’ve got some bog-standard American-style lager and I have a fridge full of these R.W. Knudsen’s fruit flavored sodas or “spritzers“. What would happen if I mixed American Standard Lager with Cranberry Spritzer?
Not so surprisingly, the resulting mix tastes a lot like cranberry soda, but a little watered down because the American Standard Lager doesn’t taste like much of anything. It’s a perfectly reasonable drink and I slurped it right down, but the wheels in my head were still turning. How could I take this Cranberry Shandy to the next level?
Obviously, I don’t need to mess with the cranberry soda. Cranberry soda is cranberry soda right? (Maybe not.) But one thing I am sure of is that some beer is better than other beer. But instead of reaching for the Chimay Cinq Cents immediately, I decided to take a more incremental approach to improving the Cranberry Shandy. What if I used a beer with just a little more flavor, but not enough to really throw things out of balance? What kind of beer would that be?
At this point normal people would have to run to the beer store, but I not a normal person.
I have converted my basement into a beer cellar and I keep a stock of beer on hand that would make most beer store owners weep. So all I had to do was go downstairs and see what I had when I spotted bottle of Shiner Bock. Perfecto!
Shiner Bock is marginally more flavorful than an American Standard Lager and its darker in color — a step in the right direction, but not a giant leap. I marched back up stairs and mixed Shiner Bock half and half with Knudsen’s Cranberry Spritizer to produce Cranberry Bock!
Cranberry Bock is a much more interesting combination than either the Shandicola or the Cranberry Shandy made with American Standard Lager. What have we learned? That more flavorful beer makes a more flavorful beer cocktail (sometimes). Now if anyone tells you not to ruin a good beer by pouring cranberry soda in it, just fire back with “Don’t ruin a good cranberry soda by pouring American Standard Lager in it!”
