Drinking craft beer in Mexico

Making craft beer in Mexico is a little like trying to start an outdoor pool business in the middle of a desert.

You're going to have to import everything. It's going to be hard and expensive. People are going to be confused. And it probably won't work long-term no matter what you do.

And yet people do it!

Mexico has over a thousand craft brewers but they produce just 0.22% of Mexican beer.

In fact, over 90% is made by just two companies—who, together, own the eight biggest brands. These are all the ones you've heard of and probably tried: Modelo, Corona, Pacifico, Victoria, and Tecate, among others.

Starting a brewery is hard everywhere but doing it in in the face of what is essentially a duopoly makes it harder.

And then Mexico itself poses some extra challenges—you have to import nearly all the raw ingredients, the taxes are high, water is hard to come by... the list goes on.

The more I fell down this rabbit hole, the more I knew I wanted to do an episode of the podcast about craft beer in Mexico and the people who are choosing to make it despite all the reasons not to.

Which led to me boarding the bus to Querétaro for the second time in as many months.

Querétaro, Mexico

Querétaro is a mid-sized city in central Mexico that, despite having a population under 2 million, has an outsized craft beer and spirits industry.

The beer part is arguably due to Cervecería Hércules.

The name Hércules comes from it's neighborhood, which sprung up in the 1850s around a textile factory of the same name. At its peak, the plant had 8,000 employees and was the second biggest textile factory in Latin America.

Fast forward a hundred years—globalization happens, the textile business moves to China, production starts shrinking, and a member of the family starts making craft beer in the corner.

Fast forward fifteen more years—Hércules has taken over the whole textile factory, added a beautiful boutique hotel, a space for concerts, and the biggest beer garden I've ever seen.

They've helped keep their vibrant, working-class neighborhood alive. And they've done it while making damn good beer.

I have a lot more to say about them (and their beer) but you'll have to wait for the podcast ep for all that!

In the meantime, make sure to check out Hotel Hércules and Tudor Cocktail Club if you ever find yourself in Querétaro.

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Thanks for reading!

Up next: a female distiller running the only micro-distillery in CDMX.

xo,
Caro

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