ON THE HOP
When I was a student, I had this terrible habit of chasing a cheap dumpy of Black Label with an even cheaper shot of off-brand tequila. I typically bought this combo at about 1am from Dirty Mike’s on New Street in Grahamstown. I never actually enjoyed doing it. It was more a thing I did to get drunk fast and look super-duper hardcore. It did the former far better than it did the latter, in retrospect.
Unsurprisingly, there are far more refined ways of combining tequila and beer. In fact, most tequila-flavoured beers are just that: a pale lager flavoured with agave or, rarely, with actual tequila, swirling around as an indefinable astringence in the absence of proper hoppiness. Good for sipping by the pool, but otherwise unspectacular.
Tequila is really a lot like whisky, not only because it can vary wildly in quality and style, but also because good examples of it are well worth savouring. Unlike whisky, however, most popular brands of tequila are too harsh to sip.
Probably the best tequila-laced beer you’ll buy in South Africa is Minerva’s ITA, imported from Mexico, and now widely available locally. It stands apart from many other tequila beers, because it’s an American strong ale — a vague, catchall name for high-alcohol American-style beers — that’s been matured in barrels that were formerly used to age tequila.
The ITA is, in effect, quite similar to an American IPA, and not just in name. It pours a clear orange with an off-white head, exhibiting light carbonation and a nose of muddled floral citrus and wood. There’s sweet caramel malt on the palate, offset with growing dankness from the hops, touches of oak, and a light lick of agave lingering in the background. It isn’t as bitter as a conventional American IPA, and is certainly more refined than you might expect it to be — in all, a well-balanced and intriguingly poised beer. Sure, it’s a bit more expensive than the Zamalek-Black Horse onetwo I favoured when I was 19, but it’s a good deal more delicious.