![]() ![]() In 2013 the law was changed to allow bars to sell craft beer even if they’d previously signed an exclusivity contract. Before then, bars had to pay up to $50,000 to serve beer, but they could get an interest-free loan if they signed a contract agreeing to carry the Big Beer brands exclusively. The country’s earliest craft breweries and brewpubs like Sierra Madre Brewing, Cerveceria Minerva and Baja Brewing (owned by American expats no less) began to appear in Mexico at the start of the 21st century, but it wasn’t until around the mid-2010s that craft beer began to take off in Mexico, and only because the government had finally eased restrictions. The country’s Big Beer duopoly also made distribution virtually impossible for the small guys Grupo Modelo and Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma own the two biggest convenience store chains in the country, Extra and Oxxo. and Canada grows-but there wasn’t exactly a Mexican consumer willing to pay five to six times the cost of a macro beer. Not only was it hard to produce an artisanal beer here-Mexico doesn’t grow its own hops, and its barley production is far less than what the U.S. The craft beer boom began in America in the early-1980s before spreading to Canada, South America, Europe and Asia, but it would take a bit longer for Mexico to capitalize on the trend. Today, Mexican beers account for 80% of all beer imported into America. Whatever the case, Mexican beer had become a dominant force. Corona became America’s number one imported beer in 1998, but by 2018 Modelo Especial had taken the crown. “ Corona-mania” ensued with Americans throwing back beer from so many silk-screened bottles that it led to a glass shortage. (Due to anti-trust legislation in 2013, Constellation Brands distributes Grupo Modelo in America.)Ĭorona was first imported to America in 1981 where it was seen as a luxury product. Grupo Modelo offers Negra Modelo, Modelo Especial, Victoria, Estrella and, of course, Corona. Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma (now a subsidiary of Heineken International) has Tecate, Sol, Dos Equis and Bohemia. Most brands Americans know today are owned by these two giants and, the Vienna-style lagers excepted, most all of these beers are extremely light Pilsners. By the second half of the 20th century, there were only two major brewers left, Grupo Modelo and Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma. Monterrey’s Cervecería Cuauhtémoc bought Tecate in 1954. ![]() Cervecería Toluca became Cervecería Modelo in 1925 and start snapping up smaller breweries. The beginning of America’s Prohibition a couple years later would only help the Mexican beer industry, with many residents from the States crossing the border to drink.Īs with the beer industry in many other countries, competition would lead to consolidation and closures. ![]() Yet, by 1918, there were 36 beer producers in Mexico. He brought with him his own brewer, who produced the sorts of Vienna-style lagers that no longer really exist in Austria today, but have become synonymous with a certain type of Mexican beer, most notably seen in the present courtesy of Negra Modelo and Dos Equis Ambar Especial.Ī burgeoning railroad system allowed Mexicans to import brewing machinery and malt from the United States-as well as American beer, a new competitor to their homegrown stuff. As colonial restrictions waned, beer production and consumption began to rise.īy the latter portion of the 1800s, German immigrants had begun to immigrate to Mexico as part of a Second Mexican Empire, which was led by Austrian archduke Maximilian I of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. But it did give locals a taste for the stuff. It was heavily taxed (in favor of native intoxicants) and expensive to make, due to the lack of native wheat and barley. The first official European-style brewery was opened in New Spain by one of Cortés’ soldiers, Alfonso de Herrero, in the 1540s, probably in the what’s today south of Mexico City. The arrival of Hernán Cortés in 1519 and the ensuing Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, however, took beer in Central and South America in an entirely different direction. Its history goes back quite a long way: Evidence suggests that Mesoamericans had already discovered fermented beverages before the 16th century, and, according to The Economics of Beer, the Aztecs made a sort of beer produced from sprouted kernels of maize. ![]() What Is Mexican Beer?Īs with many countries’ brews, Mexican beer was created and developed through an amalgam of cultures. A cerveza you can drink a lot of.īut there’s a lot more to Mexican beer and brewing history than those simplifications. Decorative Wine Racks & Modular SystemsĪsk a modern American what Mexican beer means to them and they’ll reply not by explaining a flavor profile, but by describing a feeling. ![]()
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