The Vice Blog

Tecate

4.5% ABV from a can

My earlier lambasting of Corona resulted in me getting a flurry of angry e-mails, texts, and carrier pigeon missives.  I always knew there was no way that Corona was the official beer of Mexico, but who know that swill was the official beer of American douchebags and pre-pubescents?  (“d00d how can u hate on korona??!”)

Most people simply wanted to know if not Corona, what was my favorite Mexican beer?  What would I order while grubbing on some fajitas or quesadillas?  To that I answer…can I opt for a frozen margarita instead?

Well, Negro Modelo is the only good to great Mexican beer that I know of, but there are a several I enjoy.  Pacifico is pretty good and at least doesn’t come in a clear bottle.  Dos Esquis has several bottlings that ain’t bad and seem to at least be brewed with more ambitions than to simply make you piss a lot. And, of course, Corona is a terrific bottled water as you at least you know it’s been purified.

All things considered, though, my favorite would have to be Tecate.  A beer that is prohibitively cheap, even in NYC where a sixer of cans will set you back like $3 (age 29 and I still enjoy ripping beer cans from the plastic ring) and a tallboy checks in at like a buck.  It doesn’t taste that great I will admit, but there’s just something that makes me like drinking and getting drunk on Tecates.  And, if it’s a beer that’s good enough for the hard-nosed bordertown rancher played by Tommy Lee Jones in “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” then it’s one that is good enough for me.  Sometimes you just need to pound a few cans of Tecate to make you feel less like a cosmopolitan northeast urbanite and more like a gritty badass.

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