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Shandy (also Radler or Panaché) is beer flavoured with lemonade or other soft drink. Though the German name, Radler, was coined in 1922, the drink is known to have existed in England since the 1600s.
Variations
Shandygaff is lager or ale mixed with ginger beer, ginger ale, or lemonade. Lemonade is popular in Europe and ginger ale in the Caribbean. The proportions of the two ingredients are adjusted to taste, normally half-and-half, although shandy sold in tins is typically much weaker, around 1 part beer to 10 parts lemonade.
In Bavaria, Weißbier (wheat beer) and lemonade is called a Russ, German for Russian.
Often a non-alcoholic beer is used, so that the drink has no significant alcohol content and is therefore popular among children.
In South Africa, a rock shandy is a popular non-alcoholic drink made up of 50% soda water, 50% lemonade and Angostura bitters.
In Ireland a half and half of fizzy orange and lemon (no alcohol) is quite popular and commonly referred to as Rock Shandy. The Cantral & Cochran Group also market an Orange and Lemon drink under the brand Club Rock Shandy and according to brand information on their website the origin of the name is from Blackrock swimming club. They also previously marketed a shandy drink called Club Shandy which contained 0.5% alcohol but this has not been available since the mid 90's.
The Potsdamer is a popular shandy drink in Berlin and other eastern parts of Germany, made with light-colored beer and flavored soda.
The soda (German: Limonade or Brause) used in a Potsdamer (or "Berliner Weisse mit Schuss") comes in two standard varieties: one green with a Woodruff flavor (German: Waldmeister); the other red, with a raspberry flavor. The ratio of beer to soda is 1:1. To follow custom and control the size of the head, one should fill a .5 L glass halfway with the soda first, and then pour the beer.
In Southern Africa a popular variation is the Malawi Shandy which is made from half lemonade, half ginger ale, and a few dashes of Angostura™ Bitters.
A more potent variation on shandy, known as Turbo Shandy is made from mixing lager with Smirnoff Ice or similar lemonade style alcopop and (sometimes) one shot of vodka.
Radler
A Radler is an alcoholic beverage consisting of equal parts of lager beer and lemonade. In Northern Germany, it is also known as an Alster (short for "Alsterwasser") or Potsdamer. In German, or at least its Bavarian dialect, Radler literally means cyclist. It is also quite common in Austria.
In the German state of Bavaria, a mix of Weißbier (wheat beer) and lemonade is called a Russ. Weißbier mixed with cola is called a "Diesel," or simply a colabier.
Similar cocktails of beer and lemonade are known in England as a shandy and in France as panaché.
A New Zealand brewery Monteith's brew a beer called Radler. It has a distinct lemon and lime flavour to it, which makes it easy to drink for those who don't like the bitterness of beer and often considered more thirst quenching than the average beer.
Radler was invented by the Munich gastronomer Franz Xaver Kugler when in September 1922 approximately 13,000 cyclists visited his tavern. On this particular day his beer started to run out, so he mixed the remaining beer with lemonade and pretended he created the Radler especially for the cyclists so that they could drive home without the risk of falling off their bicycles. During the summer months, Radler is still very popular in Bavaria and the rest of Germany, due to its reputation of being a thirst-quencher.
Lager and lime
Mexican bottled lagers are sometimes served with a wedge of lime. In the UK draught lager served with lime cordial became popular in the early 1970s. A variant on this is the "lager top" in which a small measure of lemonade is added to the lager.
Other names for shandy
- Flanders: mazout (meaning "gasoline") is a mixture of lager and cola, kivela is a mixture of lemonade and lager and spavola is a mixture of sparkling mineral water and lager
- Northern Germany: Alsterwasser, Potsdamer, made with clear lemonade
- Germany: Radler ("bicyclist"), made with clear lemonade
- Northern Germany: Alster
- Germany (Bavaria): Russ (a shandy using Weissbier instead of lager)
- France, Switzerland: panaché or Panasch (in Swiss German)
- Spain (with carbonated lemonade, either lemon-flavored or not - gaseosa): Clara con Limon
- Chile: Fan-schop, a mixture of beer with Fanta.
- clara ("clear")
- lejía ("bleach"), in Basque Country.
- Slovenia: Diesel, mixture of lager and Cockta or other cola based beverage. The mixing of these two drink produces a Diesel -like coloration, which explains the name of the drink.
Trivia
The term shandy drinker is Brittish slang for an effeminate or possibly homosexual male. The comes from the fact that a shandy is sweeter and less alcoholic than regular beer and is therefore seen as a 'girly' drink.
External links
"Shandy"