Mexican lager is the beer a lot of craft drinkers order more often than they admit to. Light, crisp, a little corn sweetness, built for a hot afternoon — it’s the style that a certain kind of beer snob will quietly tell you is what they actually drink at home. In 2023, our Mexican-style lager — Lobo — took home a US Open Beer Championship Gold Medal in the Mexican-Style Lager category. This is a plainspoken walk through what we were chasing, what blind judges reward in the category, and what you should taste for the next time a bartender hands you one.

What “Mexican-style lager” actually means

The style traces back to Austrian and Bavarian lager traditions that made their way to Mexico in the 19th century. Once they got there, they got adapted — most notably, the use of corn (maize) in the grain bill, which was a common, locally available adjunct. That corn note is a big part of what makes a Mexican lager recognizable today.

Three things define the style when it’s done right:

• Color. Pale straw to light amber, clear in the glass.
• Hop profile. Lager-friendly noble or noble-adjacent hops, used at low intensity. Hops are supposed to balance, not lead.
• Grain bill. Malted barley plus a meaningful portion of corn — flaked or refined — that reads as a faint sweetness rather than a standalone flavor.

It travels well in hot climates for a reason: highly attenuated, dry finish, moderate ABV (usually 4.5% to 5.2%). It’s a beer designed to be drunk in the sun, pint after pint, without wearing you out.

What Lobo is

Lobo is our 5.0% ABV Mexican-style lager. Credentials:

• 🥇 US Open Beer Championship — 2023 Gold Medal, Mexican-Style Lager category.
• 🥉 Bronze medal in another competition that same year.

It reads clear and pale in the glass, with a white head that holds. The malt is clean and soft, with a corn note that sits quietly under everything else instead of announcing itself. The finish is dry and snappy — the kind that makes you reach for the glass again without thinking about it.

We built Lobo for everything a Clovis afternoon throws at it: carnitas, grilled corn, salt on a margarita rim, a patio at 100°F, a long table of people who aren’t all drinking the same thing. A well-made Mexican lager is one of the most pairable beers on any menu, and that’s the job Lobo is doing for us.

What competition judges were actually rewarding

Worth understanding what a gold medal in this category is really signaling, because it’s not what a lot of people assume.

US Open Beer Championship judges taste blind — no labels, no branding, no context. In the Mexican-Style Lager category specifically, judges are looking for:

• Clarity. The beer needs to read clear in the glass. Haze in this style is a fault.
• Head retention. White, persistent, not collapsing in thirty seconds.
• Clean lager fermentation. No diacetyl (buttery notes). No fruit esters. No sulfur lingering on the back end. Lager yeast has nowhere to hide.
• Balanced corn-forward malt character. The corn should be present but restrained — a supporting role, not the lead.
• Style accuracy. The beer has to land inside the window. It’s not a category that rewards creativity.

That last one is the point of lager, honestly. A gold in this category doesn’t say “this is the most interesting beer on the shelf.” It says “this beer nails the brief.” Lager is discipline. The brewers who win at it are the ones who do the fundamentals well, every single batch, for years.

How we brew it

We’re not going to give you every number on the sheet, but here’s the honest version.

The grain bill includes a meaningful portion of corn because that’s what the style asks for alongside pilsner malt.

Hops are lager-friendly varieties used at low intensity — enough to balance the malt, not enough to lead. We use Saaz for its classic Noble character lending to subtle spicy and earthy notes.

The fermentation is slow and cold, the way lager fermentation has to be. Lobo spends real time in the tank — there’s nowhere for off-flavors to hide in a style this clean, and cutting corners on lager time is how a Mexican lager goes from “refreshing” to “faintly wrong.”

The people actually brewing it: Brad Gaines, our Head Brewer, and Spencer Mast, who’s on the brew deck with him. This isn’t a co-brewed collaboration or a contract batch — Lobo is ours, from the mash in to the keg out.

How to order a Mexican lager (and actually know what you’re getting)

Quick field guide you can use anywhere — not just at our taproom.

• Freshness is everything. This is a draft-first style. If you’re at a taproom, ask when the keg was tapped. Fresh Mexican lager is a completely different beer from one that’s been sitting.
• Look at it in the light. It should be clear. Not hazy, not cloudy, not “a little murky.” A hazy Mexican lager is either out of style or has a problem.
• Smell for clean malt and a faint corn sweetness. You shouldn’t get fruit. You shouldn’t get butterscotch. You shouldn’t get sulfur. If any of those show up, the beer isn’t fermenting clean.
• First sip should be crisp. Finish should be dry. If the beer lingers sweet on the back end, it’s either under-attenuated or out of style.
• Skip the lime wedge. A well-made Mexican lager does not need it. A lime is sometimes a tell that the brewery doesn’t trust the beer to stand on its own.

Where Lobo sits on our menu

We’ve got a full lager and lager-adjacent program, so if Mexican-style isn’t your thing, there’s a next beer for you:

• Pollasky — American Lager, 4.5%. The easiest-drinking beer on the menu.
• Gold Wolf Valley Pils — German Pilsner, 5.0%. More hop-forward than Lobo, cleaner finish, crisper.
• Amber Waves — Amber Lager, 5.4%. A little more malt presence; good cool-weather pick.
• Quarter-Mile Kolsch — 5.2%. Lager-adjacent; cleaner than an ale, more delicate than a lager.
• Nova — Blonde Ale with vanilla, 5.0%, bronze medal. The “I don’t usually drink beer” entry point.

But if someone walks in the door and tells us they want a light, clean, sun-on-the-patio kind of beer — we hand them Lobo first. Every time. It’s the one we trained for.

Come pour yourself one

Lobo is on draft at our taproom at 526 Spruce Ave, Clovis, CA 93611. Garage doors up when the weather’s good. Food trucks rotate weekly (schedule goes up on Instagram @cawbrewingco every Monday). We ship beer and seltzer within California, so if you want to work through the lager program at home, you can.

Come pour yourself one. Tell us if we got it right.

Written by the team at Crow & Wolf Brewing Co. US Open Beer Championship 2023 result verified against the Mexican-Style Lager category winners list.