With my head throbbing one fine Sunday morning, I walked the chubby chihuahua to the local Anaheim bodega (which ironically is in No Doubt’s Sunday Morning video) to pick up the fixins to make my favorite hangover cure: a spicy michelada. “You’re into craft beer, right?” asks the older guy behind the counter, TV blasting the Mexico vs. Germany World Cup game. He points to the open ice cooler with sweaty tall boy cans and pulls out an Estrella Jalisco Golden Road Mango Michelada with a grin. “This is new.”
My two functioning brain cells fought internally. “But those are both Budweiser products!” said one. The other devilish one fired back, “how bad could it be?” whipping a crinkled $5 on the counter before stumbling home in a Stefani-like daze.
What happens when you mix a fruited wheat ale with a Corona clone, Clamato, natural flavors and “certified color?”
On the pour, Mango Michelada pours like a mothers day strawberry bath bomb, the color matching the pastel red on the can…lacing like a less pulpy V8. On the nose is a familiar sweet stank, sort of like if you walked into the wake of a friend’s fresh burp after eating Takis chased by Orange Crush. On the sip, I was hoping for delicious chili-covered dried mangos, but instead, it drinks like Bud Chelada with a fruity sweetness that seems out of place. Although I think there’s a time and place for all beers, this one is just a bit too cloying and unenjoyable. It’s fun to see the world’s first macro beer collab, but I give this a 2/5 stars on Untappd. No mames.
Greg Nagel has been writing about beer since 2011, is an avid homebrewer of wine, cider, and beer, is a certified Cicerone Beer Server, level 1 WSET in Wine, a podcaster with the Four Brewers Show, and runs a yearly beer festival called Firkfest happening on June 29th in Anaheim!