In honor of both Iron Maiden releasing their own beer this week and it’s name sake being my favorite dive bar in Orange County I present to you my version of the M

oscow Mule. With history steeped in the British colonial presence in India, Crabbies Scottish Ginger Beer has been brewed since the early 1800′s and enjoyed world wide! They suggest drinking this ale over ice, but I took it to the next level with a little bit of vodka and some fresh ingredients.

Simple and refreshing, this cocktail can be premade in a pitcher and enjoyed during the warm days to come!

Simply fill your copper cup half way with ice

Grate a little ginger for aromatics

2 parts of your favorite Vodka

Half a lime’s worth of juice per 2oz of vodka

3 parts Crabbies Alcoholic Ginger Beer

Stir to blend

Garnish with lime or mint.

An excellent drink after a hot afternoon of cricket.

Mezcal fills the mouth and nose with hints of smoke, while fresh serrano chiles tingle the tongue. The mouth slightly puckers from the combination of fresh lemon and hop bitterness. And then all is calmed by the crisp and refreshing carbonation of the beer.

Smoky and bitter with a hint of heat and slight tartness, this cocktail is both warming and refreshing. It will warm you up in the winter, and add a little kick to your routine in the summer. Smokin’ Hops is a perfect match for anything off the grill — especially smoked meats.

And beware, this drink will bite you.

Smokin’ Hops

Ingredients

• 1 oz. Mezcal
• 1 oz. lemon juice
• 1/4 oz. minced Serrano chiles*
• 1/2 oz. agave nectar
• 3 oz. West Coast IPA

Instructions

In a shaker glass, muddle the serranos with the simple syrup. Add mezcal, lemon juice and ice. Shake and strain into a Collins glass over ice. Top with IPA. Garnish with lemon peel.

*For less heat, substitute with a few dashes of your favorite hot sauce.

Obsidian Cocktail

• .75 oz. Yamazaki
• .75 oz. Godiva White Chocolate

Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass

• Float .75 oz. Patron XO

Dry shake 2 oz. of Obsidian Stout for about 60 seconds and pour on top

This seductively spicy twist on the classic shandy comes to us from guest beer mixologist Derek Elefson of Cincinnati, OH.

Derek is a cocktail enthusiast at heart and flavored Alcoholic Beverage Trends expert. He is also the “Designr” of Flavored Beverages and the Director of Alcoholic Beverages at Givaudan.

Dereke’s “Naughty or Nice” beer cocktail balances honey weiss with hot chili pepper (naughty) and warm brown cinnamon notes (nice) with apple and maple for mid-ground balance. A perfect option for Fall or early Winter that is not pumpkin!!

Naughty & Nice Spiced Apple Shandy

INGREDIENTS (makes one serving)

•   12 oz. bottle Honey Weiss
•   2 oz. lemonade
•   3⁄4 fresh green apple (or honeycrisp)
•   1⁄2 fresh green jalapeño (for a touch of “naughty” flavor; green notes pair well with jalapeño)
•   1⁄4 tablespoon ground cinnamon (for warmth, depth of complexity, and “nice” holiday flavor)
•   1⁄4 oz. maple syrup for additional sweet & warm holiday flavor playing nicely with cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

1. [Drink 2 oz. of Honey Weiss] Muddle: chopped apple, diced jalapeño, and maple syrup with 1⁄2 oz. lemonade and 1⁄2 oz.
Honey Weiss*

2. [Drink 2 oz. of Honey Weiss] Pour into cocktail shaker 3⁄4 filled with crushed ice. Add remainder of lemonade and a pinch of cinnamon. Shake contents *

3. Strain into old fashioned or pint glass (you should get a nice frothy foam*). Gently add remainder of Honey Weiss taking care not to diminish foam. Stir under foam gently. Sprinkle with cinnamon & garnish with apple slice.

*careful with the foaming

PRINT YOUR OWN COPY — RIGHT CLICK IMAGE BELOW.

Follow Derek on Twitter: @FlavorDesignr

I tend to drink more in the fall. Maybe it’s the looming of my upcoming birthday, maybe it’s the slight chill in the air, hell, maybe it’s the pheromones in the air. For whatever reason, I enjoy throwing more than a couple back in September. The shift of season brings on richer, more full bodied cocktails with wonderfully rich spices and deviant amounts of booze… Just my style.

“Grow a Pear”

• 1.5 oz Sazerac Rye
• .5 oz Cinnamon Syrup
• .5 oz Fresh Lemon
• .25 oz Spiced Pear Shrub
• 2 Dashes Peychaud’s Bitters

Combine and Stir over ice and strain into a cocktail glass

• 1 oz Black Butte Porter

Hard shake into a foam and float on top.

Garnish with a Lemon Twist.

Shoot and make another, you’re going to want it.

This weekend, I found myself craving a Bloody Mary (with beer, naturally!) – but I didn’t have tequila in the house (insert sad face). But, I did have some Mezcal – which got the brain ticking. Why not mix-up a smoky almost BBQ-like Bloody Mary with the Mezcal?

But in order to get that straight off the grill, molasses BBQ flavor really narrowed down – I decided to use a stout in the recipe. The result? A bad-ass Bloody Mary hybrid worthy of being garnished with a slice of bacon. In fact, you better garnish this baby with bacon – if you truly want a flavor orgasm in your mouth!!!

BBQ Bloody Mary (with beer)

Ingredients

• 1.5 oz. Mezcal
• 3 oz. Tomato Juice
• 2 oz. Dry Stout
• ½ oz. fresh lemon juice
• ½ tsp. Worcestershire Sauce (sub with Soy or Braggs for a vegetarian version)
• ½ tsp. celery salt
• ½ tsp. fresh ground pepper
• ½ TBSP horseradish
• Hot sauce – to taste (Chiptole version work best in this recipe)

Instructions
In a pint glass, add Mezcal, tomato juice, lemon juice, Worcestershire & seasonings. Stir to mix all ingredients together. Fill pint glass with ice. Top with the stout & garnish how you like (but don’t forget the bacon — or fakin’!!)

This particular video is for the “Witty Gin Fizz” — a beer cocktail inspired by the classic gin fiz. In lieu of soda water, we chose to use a Belgian Wit style beer. The result is super tasty and oh-so-refreshing!

Witty Gin Fizz Recipe

Ingredients

• 1.5 oz. Gin
• .5 oz. fresh lemon juice
• .5 oz. agave nectar
• .25 oz. pasterized egg whites (optional)
• 4 oz. Belgian Wit

Instructions

Vigorously shake gin, lemon juice, syrup and egg whites with ice. Pour over cracked ice, top with the beer.

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About the Beer Mixology Team

Jerry James Stone

Jerry is a writer for Discovery Channel, and the producer and main recipe developer for TreeHugger’s Green Wine Guide, which features sustainable wineries and vegetarian wine pairings. He’s currently creating the official Philz Coffee cookbook for the Bay Area establishment which will feature recipes about cooking with coffee.

He has been a food judge alongside Michael Pollan and Alice Waters for the Good Food Awards and wrote the nightlife section for Fodor’s 2013 San Francisco guide book. His writings can be found in MAKE magazine, The Atlantic and Digg.com.

Follow Jerry on Twitter @JerryJamesStone

Ashley V Routson

Known to most as The Beer Wench, Ashley is a self-proclaimed craft beer evangelist & social media maven on a mission to advance the craft beer industry through education, inspiration and advocacy. She is currently the “Director of Awesomeness” at Bison Brewing in Berkeley, CA — where her responsibilities include everything from marketing, sales, PR, social media & events. Ashley is also a freelance consultant and professional speaker on the subjects of social media, beer mixology, food & beverage pairings. She is the founder of DrinkWithTheWench.com & BeerMixology.com as well as a regular contributor to CraftBeer.com.

Follow Ashley on Twitter @TheBeerWench & @BeerMixology

Chris Eldridge

Chris an Independent Video Producer, Editor, and Cinematographer for corporate, television, and marketing-oriented clients, with a persistent, detail-oriented work ethic. He studied Cinematography at San Francisco State University, working as a projectionist at movie theaters in San Jose & San Francisco. Out of school, Chris began working in Television and shooting feature films with friends, one of which saw theatrical distribution in the US & India.

Chris currently produces content for the EMS industry, as well as several wine, beer, arts, and entertainment pieces for his personal project, CineVine.com.

Follow Chris on Twitter @thedridge & @CineVine

This is a nice, well balanced and spicy cocktail – super simple to make and lots of fun to drink! You can mess about with the chilli of course, I’d like to try it with some chipotle or perhaps something superfruity like habanero.

I’m a big fan of Compass box and their interesting take on blending whisky and the orangerie is really interesting being pretty much a proper blended whisky at 40% with the addition of loads of Orange zest. It makes it really quite a dry spirit rather than syrupy so it’s great to balance out the sweetish stout and coffee liqueur.

Ingredients

• 1oz Kahlua
• 1oz Compass Box Orangerie Whisky
• 4oz Brooklyn Black Chocolate Stout or Thornbridge St Petersburg
• 2 slices of medium hot chilli
• Dash of Fee Brothers Chocolate bitters
• 1 Chilli for garnish

Method: Mix spirits first, then beer to prevent too much frothing! Shake ingredients with ice, fine strain into a martini glass, garnish with fresh chilli. EASY!

As with many recipes, ingredient substitutions can lead to exciting new twists on classic cocktails. For my beeralicious twist on the Mint Julep, I opted to use honey syrup instead of sugar and basil instead of mint. The final touch was a shot of fizz and flavor from Bison Brewing’s Honey Basil Ale — a virtually hopless organic beer with a beautiful golden amber hue.

Tasting Notes: Sweet honey and herbaceous basil meld together with soft vanilla and toasted oak Bourbon flavors in this refreshingly carbonated beer-inspired twist on the classic Mint Julep.

Honey Basil Beer Julep

Ingredients

• 1.5 oz. Bourbon
• .5 oz. Honey Syrup (recipe to follow)
• 2-3 Fresh Basil Leaves
• 2-3 oz. Bison Organic Honey Basil Ale

Instructions

In a shaker pint, muddle basil leaves with the honey syrup. Add Bourbon & ice, shake vigorously and strain into glass over ice. Top with a few ounces of Honey Basil Ale and garnish with a basil leaf.

Honey Syrup

• 1/2 c. Honey
• 1/2 c. Water

Bring water to a boil. Reduce heat and stir in honey until completely dissolved. Cool before mixing. Store in refridgerator.

100 + degree weather in Reno this week! Trying to beat the heat and relax on the deck after a long shift behind the bar, this came to mind…

Indian Summer
1.5 oz Tru Organic Gin
.75 oz Fruitlab Hibiscus Organic Liqueur
.75 oz Simple Syrup
.5 oz Pink Grapefruit
.25 oz Lemon
Shake and strain into a tall glass on the rocks
Top with Lagunitas IPA
Garnish with Grapefruit Zest

Refreshing, zesty and goes down so quick on a hot night. Give it a try…