When Beer Meets Lemonade
When Beer Meets Lemonade
For some it’s the shandy, for others the panaché, the radler or the cóctel de cerveza. For me, it will always be the clara. The subtle addition of lemonade (or casera) to the lager makes all the difference. And for someone who has never been keen on beer like myself, that means a lot. This particular one was a shandy, poured at the dingy yet cosy little Seven Stars pub, tucked away behind London’s Royal Courts of Justice following a long day spent at the Maughan library. It incited me to write because of all the memories that came flooding back the moment the cold, bittersweet flavor jolted my taste buds—memories of the clara, or rather claras, so frequently consumed last year while living in Madrid. The drink is basic, unadventurous, unsophisticated. But to me it’s synonymous with late-night strolls in the dry Spanish warmth, cigarettes with compañeros in Madrid’s Barrio de Las Letras and obligatory post-work stops at Casa Labra for croquetas de bacalao on my way home. Although both are based on the same principle—effectively a beer cocktail—the UK’s pub shandy is a different animal than the Spain’s bar clara; its not just the drink, but all that comes with it.
Whether I was out for a copa, a doble, a pinta or a jarra (on adventurous days), the beauty about drinking in Spain is that many bars remain open until the early hours of the morning, and in Madrid’s case, all night. When the weekend hits, and that means on Thursday in Spain, it seems Madrid’s population in its entirety, young and old, take over the tapas bars, overflowing onto the pavements of La Latina. All drinking, all eating, all chatting, all smoking. What’s more, the awfully affordable price of the clara – which has lowered since the botellón ban to push street drinkers into bars – means that every sociable Madrileño finishes their glass in one bar and moves onto the next, and so on and so forth, without burning a hole through their pocket.
The short moment of nostalgia was gone in a flash. That first sip of the shandy wasn’t just a refreshing taste of beer mixed with lemonade. It was a reminder of one of the simplest but most dominant aspects of Spanish culture; a culture that I am yearning for in London. And to top it all off, I couldn’t stop thinking that I could have had two claras for the price of that one shandy.