Even when summer temperatures reach the triple digits, most beer enthusiasts think of ice as something you put beer on, not something you put in beer.
Ice—or anything else one might add to beer—dilutes the flavor, traditionalists say. And taste is increasingly important to American beer drinkers, as the growing popularity of craft beers would seem to indicate.
But adding other flavors to beer actually has a long tradition going back to those beer-loving Germanic cultures. The “radfahrer,” or “radler” as it’s commonly translated, which means “cyclist” in German, is a mixture of beer and lemonade or beer and lemon soda.
The legend is that an Austrian innkeeper had a large group of cyclists arrive and had to stretch his limited beer supply by cutting it with lemon soda. The mixture became popular in warm weather, especially among young and active imbibers, and is now sold all over the world in some form or another.
Today, beer companies and bartenders go beyond the radler to offer a wide variety of “untraditional” ways to enjoy a cold one. Here are four creative ways to cool down or add summery flavors to beer:
#1. Frozen foam. Kirin introduced frozen beer foam in 2012 and enthusiasm for the iced delight spread through Asia, Europe and Canada. Los Angelinos were the first Americans to sample the frozen beverage at Dodger’s stadium, where it became a hit and inspired a slew of “beer slushie” recipes. In 2014, Kirin introduced a consumer version of the commercial machine, but that did not stop enthusiasts from experimenting with methods for creating and freezing foams to top off beer and other beverages.
#2. Ice cream: While specialty creameries like Frozen Pints have recently carved a niche by churning craft beer ice cream (their motto is “have your beer and eat it, too”), beer-flavored ice-cream is nothing new. Guinness-flavored ice cream has been popular for years, and beer shakes and floats have been gaining a fan base. The shakes are showing in bars as posh as Hollywood’s Powder Room and as ubiquitous as Red Robin. The floats are even simpler to make—just add a scoop of ice cream to a craft beer to create a sweet and savory experience. To find the best flavor pairings, start with basic combinations: vanilla and coffee ice cream compliment brown ales; caramel ice cream works best with porters; chocolate or banana ice cream bring out the flavor in stouts; and vanilla enhances the flavor of hefeweizens.
#3. Liquid nitrogen: Liquid nitrogen is gaining traction in the food and beverage community as a freezing mechanism. It can be used to make ice cream, flash-freeze products like herbs, or to instantly freeze alcohol. Using liquid nitrogen to cool beer is fast, bringing the beverage from room temperature to below freezing in a matter of seconds, and can add a little showmanship to any bar or restaurant. Booker and Dax, the bar at Momofuku in New York’s East Village, has earned a reputation for using liquid nitrogen to make their cocktails.
#4. Citrus. The radler has come a long way since that Austrian innkeeper allegedly mixed beer with lemon soda. Today the radler has many incarnations, but all involve adding citrus to beer. At the Wunderbar located inside Kansas City’s premier Austrian restaurant, Grünauer, bar manager Scott Beskow always has some creative version of the traditional radler on his drink menu—and his recipes always call for fresh-squeezed fruit juice. Another way to add a little summery flavor to any beer is to garnish it with a fresh or frozen citrus wedge, which takes but a cool second.
Recipe for Wunderbar’s Fresh-Squeezed Radler
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