Beer Cocktails - What do you think?

My significant other forwarded to me a copy of Fine Cooking newsletter. There is an article talking about new American Lagers if you're interested. There's also a recipes section of the web site with beer cocktails featuring Blacker and Tanner and Eve’s Black Heart. I did a quick search and found nothing on HBT about beer cocktails so though I'd start a thread.

There was an article in a men's health about a year ago that had beer cocktails.

...In fact, I got off my lazy ass and Googled it for you! Here you go:
http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/beer-cocktails

Sound good to me.

I'm not a cocktail fan, but am also not a purist about beer. With homebrew, I usually have enough bottles to screw around with a few. But if you start calling the drinks martinis, then that's where I draw the line.

i've had a number of them, and enjoyed most of them for sure.
i just wish i could remember what they were!.
here is one i had though
"Popular in the U.K., where it's also known as a Shandygaff, this drink mixes equal parts beer with either ginger ale, ginger beer, or carbonated lemonade (some folks even use Sprite or alcoholic sodas like Smirnoff Ice and Mike's Hard Lemonade). If the drink has multiple sources of alcohol, it's called a TurboShandy. In the following recipe from Gourmet, fresh lemonade and mint are used instead of bottled products.

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/drinking/beer/top5_beercocktails#ixzz1CuX7ussQ"

with actual GINGER beer and some beers, it is just rather amazing with the hops and the malt and the punch of the ginger, makes me actually wanna try to make a ginger ALE hehe

I went to BW3's a few months back and they had a dozen or so recommendations for mixing beers, usually based around some variation of a black and tan.

In the summertime, I'll enjoy a nice lager or pils mixed with tomato juice and a touch of black pepper. Used to do it with Mickey's hand grenades, slurp a quarter of the bee, top with tomato juice. It's just about always homemade tomato juice from tomatoes grown in my garden.

Had a buddy who swore by putting a dill pickle spear in his reds. Tasted pretty much like you thought - like someone put a damn pickle in your beer.

I've drank american light beer with both tomato juice and pickle juice.
some of my family uses clamato juice, but I can't get that down.

I've even mixed a hoppy beer with american lights to make them more tasty, though i wonder if thats the best use of hops, sometimes.

There's a bar here that does beer cocktails... Black and tan is good, half a pint hard cider, topped off with stout. Quite tasty. There's others, but I can't remember

Black and tans are good, but I wouldn't necessarily call that a beer cocktail.

My wife love chabelas which is basically a bloody mary made with beer and the glass is rimmed with some sort of mexican tamarind spice mix. There are some places that make it really good but I'd rather have a bloody mary.

I think Redeye, and Black Velvet are the main ones I hear of. Beyond that it's bar things, usually involving a shot of some liquor dropped into a beer and slammed down so you can't taste it.
Imbibe Magazine has a French Armada among others.

Cocktails are really taking off in a lot of the major cities in the US, and no-doubt many of the "mixologists" are using beer as an ingredient. Can't say I've had anything I've ever liked much, but that doesn't mean I wont hold out hope.

What I'm waiting for is the incorporation of beer schnapps into a cocktail. I haven't had it (because apparently it's very hard to find outside of Germany), but it seems like that stuff would get right to the point without diluting the rest of the spirits.

Magners cider and spaten Oktoberfest is very good mixed

A4J said:

Black and tans are good, but I wouldn't necessarily call that a beer cocktail.

My wife love chabelas which is basically a bloody mary made with beer and the glass is rimmed with some sort of mexican tamarind spice mix. There are some places that make it really good but I'd rather have a bloody mary.

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Someone gave me some beer rimming spices for Christmas. Tried some with one glass. Was too sweet and couldn't taste the beer. I've had black & tans before and it seems like the Guinness & Champagne + is popular.

Drop a shot of whiskey in a good homebrew pils and chug. That's the only cocktail I need to start the night off.

I made Dr. Peppers for girls. 1 shot of Ameretto in a glass of beer. That is the extent of that.

"Bartender! Do you know how to make a redeye?"

Ha, half a beer, 6 oz tomatoe juice, shot of vodka and a raw (unmixed) egg. I used to have one of these for a hangover cure from time to time. Can't say I'd recommend it.

Oh, and boilermakers. Take your beerstein, fill with beer and drop a shot of your favorite liquor in. A nice stout and a shot of Jameson isn't too bad.