Michelada
Lager poured over lime juice and hot sauce in a salt-rimmed glass, with nothing to cloud the beer's own colour.
The same lime-and-hot-sauce build lengthened with tomato juice and Worcestershire, closer in shape to a Bloody Mary.
CC BY-SA 3.0 · Cropped, white-balanced, graded and re-encoded to WebP by eXir.
A Michelada in a pint glass with a chili-salt rim and a lime wedge garnish
Serving
Drink spec, per drink
Every figure above is per drink and does not move with the count, which is what makes the two service modes comparable. Sugar per litre, strength and standard drinks stay in the units their own authorities publish, because they are figures for comparing rather than for pouring.
Many beers are fined with isinglass, made from fish swim bladders, for clarity; unfiltered and vegan-labelled beers are not, and the label is the only way to tell for a given bottle.
Diet and allergen labels are computed from the ingredients listed on this page and nothing else. They cannot account for cross-contamination or for the particular product you buy, and they are not medical or safety guidance.
Ingredients
2 g salt
15 ml fresh lime juice
3 dashes hot sauce (2.7 ml)Proprietary
355 ml lager
- 2 g salt
- 15 ml fresh lime juice
- 3 dashes hot sauce (2.7 ml)Proprietary
- 355 ml lager
Glass
Vessel
373 ml of liquid, served without ice, inside the 570 ml the glass holds. The build fails if a recipe ever exceeds its stated vessel.
A batch needs a vessel that closes and fits a fridge shelf.
Drink spec, per drink
Every figure above is per drink and does not move with the count, which is what makes the two service modes comparable. Sugar per litre, strength and standard drinks stay in the units their own authorities publish, because they are figures for comparing rather than for pouring.
Fermented anchovies are a named ingredient of the standard recipe and are what give it its savoury depth; there is no fish-free version of the reference bottle.
Many beers are fined with isinglass, made from fish swim bladders, for clarity; unfiltered and vegan-labelled beers are not, and the label is the only way to tell for a given bottle.
Diet and allergen labels are computed from the ingredients listed on this page and nothing else. They cannot account for cross-contamination or for the particular product you buy, and they are not medical or safety guidance.
Ingredients
- 2 g salt
- 15 ml fresh lime juice
90 ml tomato juice
4 dashes Worcestershire sauce (3.6 ml)Proprietary- 3 dashes hot sauce (2.7 ml)Proprietary
- 300 ml lager
- 2 g salt
- 15 ml fresh lime juice
- 90 ml tomato juice
- 4 dashes Worcestershire sauce (3.6 ml)Proprietary
- 3 dashes hot sauce (2.7 ml)Proprietary
- 300 ml lager
Glass
Vessel
412 ml of liquid, served without ice, inside the 570 ml the glass holds. The build fails if a recipe ever exceeds its stated vessel.
A batch needs a vessel that closes and fits a fridge shelf.
Method
3 steps · 45sRun a lime wedge around half the glass's rim and dip it in the 2 g salt.
Add the 15 ml fresh lime juice and the 3 dashes hot sauce (2.7 ml) to the chilled glass.
The 15 ml fresh lime juice and the 3 dashes hot sauce (2.7 ml) go into the glass before the beer, so the first sip through the foam is already seasoned rather than plain lager with seasoning still settling at the bottom.
Top slowly with the 355 ml lager, tilting the glass to keep the foam down.
Common pitfallA wet, over-poured rim washes the 2 g salt straight into the glass and salts the whole drink at once; the rim is meant to be tasted a sip at a time, not stirred in.
Keeping and make-ahead
The beer is always opened and poured at the glass for its carbonation; there is nothing here worth pre-mixing.
Method
3 steps · 50sRun a lime wedge around half the glass's rim and dip it in the 2 g salt.
Add the 15 ml fresh lime juice, the 90 ml tomato juice, the 4 dashes Worcestershire sauce (3.6 ml) and the 3 dashes hot sauce (2.7 ml) to the chilled glass.
Top slowly with the 300 ml lager, tilting the glass to keep the foam down.
Common pitfallThe 4 dashes Worcestershire sauce (3.6 ml) carries fermented anchovy, which is easy to overlook on a beer drink that reads as a seasoning shortcut rather than a fish product.
Keeping and make-ahead
The beer is always opened and poured at the glass for its carbonation; there is nothing here worth pre-mixing.
About
Lager built over lime and hot sauce in a salted glass, evolved from an older, plainer beer-and-lime drink and credited to a disputed 1970s story from a tennis club in San Luis Potosí.
The Michelada grew out of an older and simpler drink, the chelada: beer served with lime and salt, a habit said to have started with drinkers wiping the rust from bottle caps with a lime before squeezing the juice straight into the beer 1. "Chela" is Mexican slang for a cold beer, and "chelada" itself is read as a contraction of cerveza helada, iced beer 1.
The more elaborate Michelada is usually dated to the 1970s, in a story centred on Michel Espér, a member of the Club Deportivo Potosino in San Luis Potosí, who is said to have ordered his beer with lime, salt and hot sauce after a tennis match; other club members began calling the order "Michel's iced one," which shortened over time to Michelada 2. This is described as the most widely repeated version of the story rather than a confirmed one 1. A rival, purely linguistic account treats the name as a portmanteau of mi chela helada, "my ice-cold beer," with no named inventor at all 2; the two explanations are not reconciled by either source.
Clamato-based variants developed alongside the plainer lime-and-salt style and are closer in shape to a Bloody Mary: a version sometimes called Leon Rojo combines lager with Clamato, Worcestershire sauce and other savoury seasoning, served in a chilli-salted glass 1. The Cubana style served on this page follows that same tomato-and-Worcestershire direction rather than the plain lime-and-hot-sauce original.
- 1It's Not Your Chelada, It's Micheladabeer52.com
- 2Micheladaen.wikipedia.org