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The shandy is a refreshing beer cocktail that’s easy to make at home! Pour this low-alcohol drink as the ideal summertime refreshment.
When it comes to beer cocktails, there’s nothing better than a shandy, especially when the weather gets warm. You may know this one thanks to Leinenkugel and what you see on store shelves, but the drink is even better when you make it at home.
The perfect shandy is fizzy, refreshing, and so easy to customize based on your preferences. I’ll share my favorite combos with you here, along with tips on how to play with the flavors.
What is a shandy?
A shandy is a European beer cocktail, invented in Britain in the mid-1800s. The original name was “shandygaff,” which refers to a beer mixed with ginger beer or ginger ale. Today, it’s very popular in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, and is sometimes known by the French name “Panaché.”
Here are a few more things to note about the shandy:
- Adding a mixer to your beer isn’t about watering it down. It still tastes great, and it’s a low alcohol drink, which makes it more hydrating in warm weather. The shandy is to beer exactly what a spritzer is to wine!
- A traditional shandy or shandygaff uses ginger beer or ginger ale. In Britain, if you order one at a bar, you’ll likely get beer mixed with lemon or lemon-lime soda.
How to make a shandy
There are lots of variations when it comes to the ideal components for a shandy. You can use ginger ale or ginger beer to make the classic old-school version, or lime-lime soda (like Sprite) or sparkling lemonade for a summer version.
To make a shandy, mix together equal parts:
- Beer: Pale ale or lager
- Mixer: Ginger ale, ginger beer, lemon lime soda, or sparkling lemonade
For this classic version, I used a pale ale and mixed it with the traditional option of ginger beer. It makes for a balanced and moodier shandy than the summer shandy, which is lighter and more citrusy.
Don’t let me stop you from playing around with flavor combinations, though!
Shandy variations
There are a few variations on the shandy that have become popularized via the Leinenkugel brand. But you can easily make them at home, and they taste so much better homemade! Here are my favorites:
- Summer shandy: The summer shandy often uses lemon soda or sparkling lemonade as the mixer, which makes a refreshing, light, and citrusy flavor. I used wheat beer here, which enhances the light flavor.
- Grapefruit shandy: This variation uses grapefruit soda as the mixer, but you can also use grapefruit juice, soda water, simple syrup. It results in a sweet and citrusy spin.
Step it up with cocktail bitters
Shandy purists may disagree with this idea, and that’s ok! The shandy is a laid-back drink that’s all about ease and straightforward flavor. But if you want to step it up a little bit, try adding a few dashes of cocktail bitters!
I added a few dashes of Angostura bitters here because I love adding bitters to just about anything. (I really like them with my soda water for the ultimate low-alcohol cocktail.) Bitters add intrigue and complexity to this basic drink!
More beer cocktails
There are so many other great ways to mix beer into a tasty cocktail! Here are some more beer cocktails to try:
- Beer Margarita: Try mixing your beer with tequila and Cointreau for a kick.
- Classic Chelada: This Mexican-style cocktail mixes beer with lime juice and a salt rim for a complex and delicious drink.
- Michelada: The Michelada is like a Bloody Mary made with beer, refreshing and perfect for brunch!
- Spaghett: This is a fun beer cocktail mixed right in the bottle!
When to serve a shandy
This beer cocktail is great for summer…or anytime! Drink it as a:
- Summer drink
- Happy hour drink
- Dinner party drink
- Guys’ or girls’ night drink
- Cocktail hour drink
Classic Shandy
The shandy is a refreshing beer cocktail that’s easy to make at home and perfect for summertime!
- Prep Time: 2 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutese
- Total Time: 0 hours
- Yield: 1 drink 1x
- Category: Drink
- Method: Stirred
- Cuisine: Cocktails
- Diet: Vegan
Ingredients
- 6 ounces pale ale or lager beer
- 6 ounces ginger ale, ginger beer, lemon lime soda (Sprite), or sparkling lemonade
- For the garnish: lemon wedge (optional)
- Optional: 1 dash bitters adds a complex flavor
Instructions
- Add the beer and mixer to a glass and stir gently to combine.
- Garnish with a lemon wedge.
These are lovely ideas! My Dad always poured a beer and Ginger Ale.. just the thought brings me a smile. along with a story of “The Old Country”
I’ve forgotten about this shandy.. it’ll be a nice break from Guinness 😁
There’s another common British shandy drink that you see people drinking a lot. You could do another recipe for that one. It’s Guinness (or any stout) mixed with blackcurrant cordial. To be honest it sounds absolutely ghastly to me. I can’t imagine those two flavours going well together. But it seems to be pretty popular, and I don’t really like regular shandy either, so it’s probably just me lol. You can tell when people are drinking it even from across the room, because the head/foam on it is bright purple instead of the cream colour it normally is. I’ve heard that blackcurrant basically doesn’t exist in the US, because centuries ago it carried a disease which wiped out pine trees, and pine trees were a lot more valuable to Americans than blackcurrants were, so they opted to just completely get rid of all blackcurrants. But these days you can simply go on one of those sites that import British food and buy blackcurrant cordial there (or even amazon sell it, I import American foods to here on UK amazon myself, stuff that isn’t sold here that I’ve always wanted to try). Look for something called Ribena. That’s the big brand that everyone drinks, there’s not many things more British than Ribena. They use something crazy like 90% of all blackcurrants grown in the UK just to make their cordial. You can get fizzy/sparkling Ribena too (pre-made, so it’s not a cordial that you have to dilute), if you wanted to add even more bubbles to the Guinness.
But yeah, personally if I want a sweeter stout, I get a pint of Mild. Mild is a type of beer that’s dying out, sadly, even though it’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s seen as an old man’s drink. It’s still very similar to a stout, and to be honest many of the real ale/microbrewery/craft beer “stouts” like the common chocolate stouts or vanilla stouts or oatmealare actually just Mild, but they call them stout because younger people don’t know what Mild even is. It’s a bad name, marketing wise, for the target audience of university students who want to party. Even though it’ll still get you drunk. But it you ever visit the UK and you see a pub that sells Mild, you’ve got to try it.
But “Guinness and black”, which is the name people use when they order it, is decently popular. I see it more than I do people drinking regular shandy. That could just be the type of pubs I go into though. It’s more alcoholic than a regular shandy too because you only need a small amount of the blackcurrant cordial seeing as how it’s a concentrated flavour.
You might be able to get away with using grape cordial instead, if you don’t wanna import Ribena. I don’t know though. I’ve just heard that whenever something is purple in the US, it means grape flavour, whereas over here it’s always blackcurrant. Like our skittles have a blackcurrant flavour.
Thanks for the note! We’ll have to try it out.
When I was a youngster, during the 80’s , my uncle used to make these for “the women”of our family during social gatherings. Maybe it was old fashioned, but I enjoyed the implication. They were tasty, and as a visitor to the U.K. from the U.S. I appreciated the protective consideration. I don’t know the US. equivalent to the lemon beverage component to this drink, but I would certainly like to duplicate it if anyone knows.