Red Beer (as in beer + tomato juice)

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gunnar

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OK, everywhere I mention this I get all kinds of disgusted reactions. I don't care. It's one of the great beer-based pleasures in life and if I'm the only one doing it, that's fine. (Actually, a little googling shows that others are doing it, but mostly as a hangover cure.)
When I was a kid I remember my dad drinking red beer (I don't know what ratio of tomato juice to beer he was using, but I like it very tomato-y) out of frosty mugs. I think I also remember him drinking it in bars sometimes. (In Montana, at least in those days, kids could be in bars.) When I reached legal age I would sometimes order it (mostly in eastern Washington and northern Idaho) and no bartender ever blinked an eye. If I drank only red beer, even if I attained near-blind levels of drunkenness, I'd have little to no hangover.
Whenever I tried ordering it in the midwest, however, all I got was a blank stare, or a beer with the word red in the name.
Now, red beer may indeed be good for curing hangovers, and it is good for avoiding them, but perhaps its greatest value lies in the ability to put flavor into really crappy beer. I've even been able to enjoy Rolling Rock this way, for example.

Anyway, to bring this around to homebrew related topics, I cooked up a batch of tomato juice yesterday (tomatoes plus garlic, some mild peppers, some basil, pepper, a fair amount of salt and ... a few cones of my homegrown hops (there's the homebrew part). Later, once it was ice cold, I had a red beer (the beer was Shiner Bock). Best red beer I ever had, thanks to that homemade tomato juice (I've had Shiner Bock red beer recently, but with store-bought juice and it was just average).
I couldn't really taste the hops, so next time I'm going to add more to see if I can get it to a point where a non-hoppy beer, properly reddened, becomes hoppy. Who knows--it might even make a "triple-hopped" bottle of yellowish soda water taste like it's been hopped. And tomatoed.

Oh, by the way, I never put tomato juice in really good beer. I don't think that would work.

Anyone ever added hops to anything non-beer, but which gets added to beer?
Anyone else drink red beer?
Gunnar
 
I have come to spend a fair amount of time in Montana lately and have really come to enjoy red beer. I find that in bars that have nothing but BMC that I will order red beers allnight. I have also subsituted clamato for tomato juice to get "clam beer" which is like the difference between a bloody Mary and a Cesar. Keep up with the north west traditions!
 
I have come to spend a fair amount of time in Montana lately and have really come to enjoy red beer. I find that in bars that have nothing but BMC that I will order red beers allnight.

That makes me feel good. Trapped in Illinois, it's nice to know that things back home are still right and proper.
Thanks.
 
here in oklahoma i know alot of people who drink it
the wife and i enjoy a yellow-fizzy + clamato ofton in the summer time.
 
It's pretty popular here in Nebraska particularly during football games. It's Cornhusker red don't ya know. (It's not really Cornhusker red but those fans are nuts.) :p
 
I've never had the opportunity/guts to try Clamato. Juice with fish in it hasn't ever been high on my list of desires. Maybe I'll have to get over it.
 
In one part of rural Mexico, they add Worchestershire sauce, tabasco, lime, and salt the rim, and call it a Michelada. I think Budweiser is selling it premade these days.
 
You all are crazy. I have never heard of this, until I saw Budweiser and Bud Light with Clamato. Gross. I'd be interested in trying something decent though.
 
In one part of rural Mexico, they add Worchestershire sauce, tabasco, lime, and salt the rim, and call it a Michelada. I think Budweiser is selling it premade these days.

Hmm.. that seems like their stealing the Caesar, which was invented by the guys that invented Clamato juice.

Wait, did you mean they add that to a beer with clamto? In that case I may have to try that the next time I ened up at a wedding etc that only serves BMC type beers.
 
Around here (SE Ks.), old people used to drink it all the time. I guess it seemed to die off quite a bit because i seemed like everyone acted like it was something new when Budweiser came out with that Clamato thing.
 
Lotsa recent talk about this.

The basic recipe is tomato juice (or sometimes Clamato or V8) juice mixed with Mexican beer (Corona or Modelo Especial) and the juice of half a lime in an ice-cold, salt-rimmed pint glass. Add the beer by pouring it from high above the glass so the contents can mix properly.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/tomato-beer-134943/
 
I've been drinking beer with tomato juice since I first had it in Texas in the 1960's. I now use V8 instead of straight tomato juice.
Mr.Beer Lager goes very well with V8 (your call!) Well MB lager w/V8 no long has an after taste while you're drinking it.
 
Magic Hat has a summer beer with beet juice in it, and it's very red (called Wack-o). Not my thing though. Nor does adding tomato juice to beer, but thats why this is a cool hobby. So many different ways to spin it.
 
Red beer is essential when camping. It's a morning drink for me.

And they're best with tecate. Everyone knows this.
 
Chabela (or cerveza preparada) is pretty popular around here. It's basically clamato, beer, and spicy seasonings. It's actually pretty good, but I'd rather have a bloody mary if I'm gonna drink something like that.
 
My version of red beer is Ballast Points bloody marry mix with either their smoked lagger(Bloody Larry) or their smoked helles(Bloody Hell) very tasty! Their mix is awesome nice and spicy! Dare i say the best bloody mary mix around.
 
My brother in law, who doesn't necessarily like beer, will sit and drink red beer until he passes out. Don't quite see the draw...
 
The bar in the restaurant I manage will go through about 3 gallons of clamato juice and 4 gallons of tomato juice every week just mixing with BMC and the occasional Caesar and bloody mary. Montanans love their red beers. When I worked at the same restaurant in Idaho we sold maybe one red beer every week.
 
I love red beer. It makes your standard production line beer taste better.
My favorite is to make it like a bloody Mary. A beer, equal amount tom juice, a healthy amount of hot sauce and whorchester, a dash of celery seed, a sprinkel of old bay. stir and top with seasoning salt. pure heaven.

A camping must have. Bout three of those when in for the day of boating and I'm in a great mood the rest of the night.
 
I have never heard of red beer until this threat. However, I'm a huge fan of tomato juice all by its self, so this sounds good to me. I'm going to have to try this this weekend!
 
I had something similar once with a Chinese liquid seasoning. It was pretty tasty but heartburn ensued
 
The dive bar I worked at a few years ago had some regulars who wouldn't touch tomato in their beer, but half Icehouse / half oj was a pretty common one, especially in the mornings. They called it redneck mimosas.

Told them they should at least be using high life, as it is the champagne of beers.
 
My grandma's go to drink is clamato juice and coors light. Personally the clamato juice always scared me off, but I have always enjoyed tomato juice or v8 with yellow fizzy. This was my favorite drink for years at an OTB bar that I frequented in my undergrad years. It was definitely a dump, they had a sign behind the bar that said "we refuse to serve visibly pregnant women." Sadly it was not the biggest dump I used to go to. ;)
 
As a Spokane, WA native I also remember my dad drinking red beers made with Bud. I even remember him drinking them in bars in MT. We'd go fishing over there and end up in a "lodge" every night after fishing. I drink one every once in awhile. It's a great memory for me.
 
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