Last month I suggested it would be fun to conduct a Miller Chill Challenge, having participants taste Miller Chill, drinks (such as Chelada) with recipes Corona is promoting and the new Budweiser (and Bud Light) pre-mixed Chelada’s.
The tasting has been postponed, and likely canceled, due to lack of interest.
The people I hang out with – including many who seldom drink beer and some who drink light beer – are not members of the target audience. Almost every one I suggested this might be fun simply said, “Why?”
And they were right. Quite obviously there is a market for these mixtures – newspaper food sections that would carry stories about beer should be conducting this test – but we are talking about blends built on light lagers.
If I worked for one of them I might feel obligated to do this. I don’t, and there are too many better topics to discuss.
Stan,
I work for a newspaper with a food section.
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this idea myself.
I’m always looking for reasons to drink beer in the line of duty…
Yeah, well…I was writing a story on the whole phenom for my Conde Nast Portfolio column, so I did have to taste them. And as it turned out, the A-B Chelada was actually a pleasant experience. I might try the Corona-distributed recipes too, although I’ll probably use something like Victory Lager, just cuz. Chill, however…left me cold. Chilled, in fact.
Thanks for taking the Chill hit for all of us, Lew.
I like the idea of trying Victory Lager with the recipes. The cultural part of Chelada has always interested me, wondering if it dates back to when German brewers were making full-flavored Mexican beer.
I’d say I was happy to help, Stan, but I’m not really; I’m sure you understand. Just one thing. As I told my friends over fifteen years when I jumped on the grenade that was Ed’s Cave Creek Chili Beer: don’t waste my sacrifice.
I’ve been looking into the chelada thing. There’s a piece NYT foreign correspondent Tim Weiner did while he was in Mexico City (in August of 2001, which maybe explains why everyone forgot about it) on the origins of the michelada that’s revealing, as in maybe this thing ain’t so old as all that. Take a look: http://www.habagallo.com/html/dining_in___out.html
The archive site is a company, Habagallo Foods, that makes a michelada mix.
Speaking of the Times, they did a review of Belgians in today’s paper. Now THAT’S a tasting you wouldn’t mind doing.