flavored beer?

November 1, 2008 2:53 AM

Is the practice of putting flavored syrup in beer common all over Europe? Also: why?

I'm in France and I keep seeing people with brightly colored half-pints of beer. I thought I was going crazy and that maybe the beer in France was just somehow normally that color or the plane ride has distorted my vision. But then! I saw the option of adding syrup to one's own beer on several menus and now infer that it is a relatively common thing.

So, what's the deal? Is this just a France thing or do people all over do it? And why (I mean, I know it's probably sort of similar to adulterating one's coffee with all that flavored crap, but beer has so many flavors that one would think it not to be necessary to dump in syrup)?

posted by mustcatchmooseandsquirrel to food & drink (30 comments total)

It's not at all common. I think it must be a regional habit in the part of France where you are staying. Frankly, it sounds borderline barbaric.
posted by NekulturnY at 3:16 AM on November 1, 2008

On second thought, might it be related to Halloween-like festivities? It's that time of the year when otherwise reasonable people put pumpkins on their doorstep.
posted by NekulturnY at 3:17 AM on November 1, 2008

For clarification: I'm staying in Lyon, France (second or third largest city in France) and this has been going on since I got here. Not anything to do with Halloween!
posted by mustcatchmooseandsquirrel at 3:20 AM on November 1, 2008

It's actually pretty common, although not among beer aficionados. Here in Poland it's pretty much seen as a "chick" thing though, akin to fruity drinks in the US.
posted by jedrek at 3:20 AM on November 1, 2008

It doesn't happen in the UK at all, even at halloween, AFAIK....
posted by Chairboy at 3:20 AM on November 1, 2008

in Ireland and the UK, it has been known to mix blackcurrant cordial with clear alcoholic cider. Its very sweet, so more of a teenagers/college students drink than anything else.

However, there's a big trend in belgium and elsewhere for flavoured beers, but they're usually flavoured before they are poured out.
posted by iamnotateenagegirl at 3:33 AM on November 1, 2008

The marketing people of beer companies come up with sweet flavoured beer drinks to attract drinkers, often girls/women, that don't like the bitter taste of beer.

A similar line of reasoning, maybe beer was the only affordable alcoholic drink since wine used to be expensive and upper class, has led historically to beer+sirup concoctions: in Berlin there's the Berliner Weisse that's drunk with red or green sirup. In München there's a similar tradition as I noticed on the Oktoberfeste with a beer+sirup+mineral water combination.

I've never heard about this practice in the Netherlands.
posted by jouke at 3:34 AM on November 1, 2008

Snakebite and Black - beloved of Goths
posted by mandal at 3:41 AM on November 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

Mixing raspberry syrup with fizzy water in lieu of drinking soda is really popular here in Austria, so mixing it with beer isn't all that unthinkable.
posted by dunkadunc at 3:53 AM on November 1, 2008

Is the practice of putting flavored syrup in beer common all over Europe?

I'm in Sweden. I've never heard of it.
posted by martinrebas at 4:02 AM on November 1, 2008

I had one such beer in France many years ago. It was in Bayeux (home of the famous tapestry) and I think it was called a Monaco. It is such a vivid memory as I was 15, on a school trip and it was my first ever beer in a pub. It was bright red in colour.

Aha, wikipedia is our friend. See the with grenadine section.
posted by ClanvidHorse at 4:10 AM on November 1, 2008

UK bars will usually have some bottles of cordial to hand - blackcurrant, lime, orange and sometimes peppermint.

You can add this to your drinks, but there are associations.

Cider and black is - as iamnotateenagegirl said - a young person's drink. It's also heavily associated with goths.

Lager and black is a bit girly and not very classy.

Guinness and black is an acceptable drink for either gender, but considered bad form by those people who genuinely believe Guinness is a world-classstout, (rather than an indifferent stout with a world-class marketing department.)

Lager and lime is slightly girly, but still acceptable for men. Some guys will have lager and lime for their first drink of the evening, then have it straight thereafter. Guys are more likely to order lager and lime in hot weather.

All the other uses for cordials involve either diluting them with water to make a non-alcoholic drink or using them in mixed drinks. (Which have their own stereotypes. Vodka, lime and soda is for girls watching heir weight. Rum and peppermint is for old men who've served in the navy. Vodka and orange is for people to cheap to buy real orange juice.)

Oh we also add lemonade to beer too. A half and half mix is a shandy. A small splash is a lager spot if you add it before the beer, a lager top if you add it after.

All the above only applies to mass-produced, beers which won't be spoiled by the addition of the cordials. You would never use them for fruit flavored real ale or cider. Those tend to have actual fruit used in the brewing process and aren't improved by the addition of the fruit flavored chemicals in the cordials.
posted by the latin mouse at 4:10 AM on November 1, 2008 [7 favorites]

It's common with Belgian lambic beers, usually cherry or raspberry flavouring. Also with the German radler (what we'd call a shandy) and potsdamers (pretty much the same as a shandy, but with a shot of raspberry syrup).

These aren't new, though what you're seeing in France might be.
posted by The Monkey at 4:12 AM on November 1, 2008

What do you mean by syrup? Like the kind you would put on pancakes? I've never heard of that.

But I see you wrote "brightly coloured" and I wonder if you mean stuff like ribena ? Putting soft drink syrup like blackcurrant or lime cordial into lager (or more commonly cider) is sometimes done in the UK. Diesel and cider and black have a bright purple appearance. I'm sure if there are any fifteen year old goths on metafilter they could give you more examples.
posted by theyexpectresults at 4:18 AM on November 1, 2008

French syrup (sirop) is thicker than ribena; they're usually called cordials in the UK, though it's not quite the same stuff (sirop is sweeter and thicker).

The cordial+lager or cider thing so well described by the_latin_mouse (barkeep in the house?) seems to be largely a southern thing in the UK, and is often seen as effeminate and/or 'essex-girl'. Lager top is not quite as bad, and can be rather refreshing on a hot day.

There's the well-known Monaco in france, which is shandy plus grenadine. Strawberry, peach, lime are added to lager on occasion, and I know my other half loves aniseed sirop diluted. It's a pretty regional thing though.
posted by ArkhanJG at 5:16 AM on November 1, 2008

Oops, I see ClanvidHorse beat me to the Monaco.
posted by ArkhanJG at 5:19 AM on November 1, 2008

Here in Poland, it's quite common (according to my Polish friends and my own observations) for women to order a bit of juice or syrup with their beer and then to either mix the two, or to consume it with a straw. This is most common with the more popular "normal" draft beers like Zywiec or Tyskie - never seen it with a bottle or a more artisanal brew.
posted by mdonley at 5:20 AM on November 1, 2008

Common enough in the UK to add cordial but in Czech, where the beer is good and taken seriously, I've never seen it and you'd probably be considered a barbarian for asking. (The Czechs do however have a tendency to mix cola with red wine.)
posted by Gratishades at 6:17 AM on November 1, 2008

the_latin_mouse's comments on the UK pretty much cover Ireland too. Blackcurrant or lime, absolutely.
posted by jamesonandwater at 6:56 AM on November 1, 2008

I spent a couple of weeks in Eastern Berlin in 1994, and I had it then. What it was was Berliner Weisse (a very light, not-very-alcoholic beer) with raspberry syrup. I was told that it was a refreshing summer drink, rather than a girly thing.
posted by craichead at 7:10 AM on November 1, 2008

It's common with Belgian lambic beers, usually cherry or raspberry flavouring.

Please refrain from using blasphemic language. The cherry and raspberry beers do not have grenadine or syrup in them. Rather, the fruit is added before/during the brewing process.
posted by NekulturnY at 7:25 AM on November 1, 2008

Everyone seems to have this fairly well covered, but the boyfriend's mom, who is French, introduced him to the idea of mixing lemon-lime soda with beer, which I can only assume is sort of a budget version of mixing in a cordial. We tried it one night at the bar and proclaimed it not nearly as a terrible as we thought it would be (it ended up tasting a lot like cider).
posted by darksong at 7:28 AM on November 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

There is of course the Berliner Weisse (served in Berlin). It's a sour white beer served with raspberry or woodruff syrup.
posted by bluefrog at 8:01 AM on November 1, 2008

Why don't you try it ? Ask for a demi citron (lemon syrup). You should also give a try to Picon bière, which is a boosted demi.
posted by nicolin at 8:15 AM on November 1, 2008

There's definitely a wide variety of shandies and other mixed-beer drinks around, but how popular they are - and what kind of mixture they are - depends on where in Europe you are. The only mixtures I've seen much of in Bavaria are half lemonade (German lemonade), half beer. These're called a Radler if you're mixing the lemonade with a Helles, and a Russ'n if you're mixing the lemonade with a Weißbier. I've heard of the Goaßmaß, but never seen anyone drink it (a Dunkles or Dunklesweißbier mixed with some sort of cola and a shot of Kirschlikör). Same goes for the Neger (beer and cola.) These are all plain shandies, though, no adding weird-colored syrups. I suspect there are limits to what the good people of München consider acceptable to do to beer.

(Incidentally, the name "Radler" means cyclist; the drink was supposedly invented by a tavernmaster trying to stretch his beer supplies when visited by a great many cyclists, who claimed that diluting the beer would keep the cyclists from getting drunk and falling off their bikes. Given how widespread shandies are, I'm sure it's at least partially an apocryphal tale, but hey.)
posted by ubersturm at 9:56 AM on November 1, 2008

We were recently at the Sam Adams brewery in Boston, where they served us a sample of one of their "experimental" beers- ones that the brewmasters are just playing around with and which probably aren't going to be developed as a product. The SA people called it a Berlinerweiss. It was a very light, sharp beer with citrusy overtones.

Anyway, a German couple that was there told us that in Germany they frequently drink a beer like that with raspberry syrup in it. Based on the taste of the beer, that sounded pretty good.
posted by MsElaineous at 11:51 AM on November 1, 2008

Info about Berliner-Weisse. It's a great thing to drink on warm nights. My favorite is Berliner-Weisse grun, with woodruff syrup.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:47 PM on November 1, 2008

You can often pick out the designated driver in the UK because he will order a lager shandy at the start of the night and then switch to just plain lemonade for the duration. There are other similar Irish variations.

It is important for the purposes of this discussion to understand that shandy is not made with US-ian lemonade, which is flat; this is carbonated and far closer to 7UP. You are mixing two carbonated beverages, not taking beer and making it half flat.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:57 PM on November 1, 2008

Nthing the Berliner Weisse. Flavored syrup--various berries seems to be popular--and a very light (lager?) beer. A summer drink for lazy weekend afternoons.
posted by zardoz at 1:20 AM on November 2, 2008

Oh, I forgot about this gem: there is indeed a semi-populair Belgian mixture of soda (usually coke) and lager, called "mazout" (which is also vernacular for petroleum used to warm houses as opposed to "naft" - the petrol which goes into your car). It's definitely frowned upon though, mostly a thing for youngsters who don't like the bitter taste of lager.
posted by NekulturnY at 6:56 AM on November 2, 2008