November 4th, 2008
The Mexican Beer Conundrum
Today Bruce takes a break from his beach condo chronicles to do as promised in a recent post, explain what he has discovered in México about that most important of topics, beer.
I like to call it the Mexican beer conundrum. Beer is not the cheap commodity you would expect. A glass of beer in the nicer restaurants, here in the Mérida/Progreso area will run you between 20 and 40P, roughly the same as back in Minnesota. However, beer for the fridge, using the popular Sol brand for a benchmark, will cost about 110P, about $11 for a twelve pack. Now if you’re like me, beer is a basic staple of life, and I was used to buying midrange quality beer such as Hamm’s for about $12 per case, about half of the cost of Sol, here.
Most people know that México does not have a problem with monopolies. In the case of beer, it is a near monopoly with two large companies controlling virtually the entire beer market in México. These two companies are FEMSA and Grupo Modelo. And they play to win. We have heard story after story about some small regional brewery getting a little too popular, causing one of the two giants to swoop in, buy it up, shutter the doors, and go on about their business.
FEMSA is a general beverage company dating back to the 1890s and their brands are: Tecate, Sol, Dos Equis, Carta Blanca, Superior, Indio, Bohemia, and Noche Buena.
Grupo Modelo produces Corona, Negra Modelo, Modelo Especial, Modelo Light, and Pacifico. Ready or Not movies For the domestic market only, they also produce Victoria, Estrella, Leon, and Montejo brands. Grupo Modelo is 49% owned by Anheuser-Busch, but control of the company remains in Mexican hands.
Grupo Modelo’s well known Corona brand is basically an American style pale lager and although it is the number one imported beer in the world it is not the favorite of most expats. Two of the more popular brands, Dos Equis Ámbar and Negra Modelo were heavily influenced by 18th century German immigrants. These Vienna style lagers are not as heavy as most British Ales and are considered to be fuller bodied with a more malty sweetness and character than the pale pilsners.
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Mexican beers are typically served with slices of lime and salt and for the more adventurous beer drinker there is the Michelada beer treatment. The Michelada recipe varies from place to place but it is usually lime juice or wedges of lime, Worcestershire or the local Maggi sauce, hot sauce, and ice in a salt rimmed glass with your favorite cerveza. This is the way we drink our beers most of the time. We love the taste and as cheap as I am, I like the fact that it “stretches” our beer supply.
Despite any real price competition between these two beer giants, we have found ways to save money. First, we sampled the local beers, when we had the time. The premium beers such as the Modelos, Dos Equis Ámbars, and Bohemias are pretty darn tasty, but if you’re like us, even the mid and lower range beers such as Superior, Estrella, or even Montejo are a lot better than any beer we quaffed up north. I must admit, however, that even though Superior is our regular beer in the fridge, Bohemia Oscura is heavenly and my absolute favorite beer on planet earth.
We have discovered that if the bar scene is your bag, you’ll probably find happiness right in your own neighborhood. Chances are good that within walking distance of home you will find a “Bar” or a “Cantina” or a “Salon de Familia” that caters to the locals. Don’t worry, gringos are happily tolerated. The Bars will serve both genders but the Cantinas serve only men and can be a little raucous, but don’t worry, beer drinkers of the gentler sex, a Salon de Familia is usually connected to the Cantina and entire families are accommodated there. Cantinas are marked by their old west style saloon doors and sometimes Bars are too, but a Cantina always says Cantina above the door. Unless you came for just one beer, buy your beer by the litro, liter. These liters are actually 940ml except for the brand Victoria which comes in at, as advertised on the bottle, 27% mas, 1.2 liters. By the litro, expect to pay 30 to 35p for the low and midrange beers usually found here. Another feature we love at these neighborhood bars is the botanas, free appetizers, which the servers will generally keep coming until you say, “no mas.” The range of these botanas is from pretty good grub to, look out! It is true that every part of every animal is eaten somewhere in the world. Botanas are not exclusive to the neighborhood bars. Some of the finer bar/restaurants also feature higher quality botanas but you’ll pay a premium for your beers.
Through happy trial and error we found that a good way to stock your fridge is, depending upon where you live, by the litro, sold in returnable bottles. If you can find litros of beer at the The Truman Show on dvd corner store down the street as low as 15P or so, this is a good route to go. If you live in Mérida, an excellent buy is the Superior sold at the government subsidized ISSTEY grocery stores. These are sold by the can currently for 5.5P each or 8 packs for 48P. If you do the math, you will buy by the can. But the best buy in beer in all of Mérida and Progreso, at this time, is actually a Guatemalan import, Gallo. This beer is only available in the Wal-Marts and Wal-Mart owned Bodega Aurerras stores. The cost for this intrepid beer is 29P per six-pack. These three options put the cost of beer pretty close to the $12US Midwestern benchmark. As we discovered the hard way the night we arrived in Progreso, off-sale hours are 10:00AM to 10:00PM, Monday through Saturday and 11:00AM to 5:00PM on Sundays.
So the reality is, really cheap beer just isn’t available here, but at least we’re drinking Mexican beer and not Hamm’s, so, bottoms up!
Thanks for visiting, gentle reader. Bruce would love to hear from other Mexican beer drinkers and as always, all comments will be acknowledged, all questions answered, and all this in real time.
