Der Krug Brauhaus In Guadalajara

We don't have a lot of time to spend in Guadalajara before returning to Santa Cruz. So before we left San Miguel, I got on line and looked around for breweries and brewpubs to visit in the vast city. Naturally the list was short and highly suspect. I crossed a few off after using Google Earth to discover their address as a heavily grafittied business district or suspicious store front.


I did come up with a couple legitimate places, one of those being the Cuautemoc Moctezuma brewery the makers of such classics as Sol, XX, and Bohemia, which I will review later. The other was the Der Krug Brauhaus in Colonial Americana, about a fifteen minute taxi ride from our hotel.

I have to admit I had high hopes for this place and was very excited by the prospects of sampling a variety of German beers and at the same time cautiously familiar with the deceptions that occurs around beer in Mexico. For example, there is a place in San Miguel named 'The Limerick' that gives the impression they are an authentic Irish pub with a clover leaf sign out front and Irish and English beers on display behind the bar. The fact is, they only serve Modelo. So I tempered my enthusiasm and boldly aproached Der Krug with a hopeful spirit.

Der Krug is located in a quite residencial neighborhood with a substantial outside seating patio facing the street. Upon arrival I took note of the shiny, if not antiquated, stainless steel brewing vessels behind the bar. We took a seat outside and looked over the choices of beers. There are only three, my first dissapointment. A stout (not typically German), a hefeweizen and what they refered to as a Red Ale which as it turns out is a blend of their stout and hefeweizen (huh?). I suspiciously ordered the stout and hefeweizen, holding off on the red ale.

At this time I want to point out that I try to be as generous as I can when reviewing beer and breweries. These businesses are trying to do the best they can and earn an honest living and I applaud their efforts. This is also just one persons biased opinion and should be regarded as such. No ill feelings are meant on a personal basis.

The best I can say for the stout was that it was o.k. On the thin side with no remarkable character but not offensive and I finished the glass. On the other hand the hefe was not only room temperature (a room in Guadalajara this time of year is about 75f.) it was fermented without the use of the traditional German wheat yeast and so was missing the classic spicy phenol and fruity ester characters needed to be defined as a German hefeweizen. This beer was bland and unremarkable, so I won't elaborate other than to say that it was politely returned after a couple sips to confirm my displeasure. As I said,I left the Red Ale up to my imagination and saved myself the equivalent of $3.50 usd.

To make matters worse, the food was marginal at best, my schnitzel was some kind of corn breaded flank steak(?). In the end I can not recommend Der Krug Brauhaus for anything except the Modelo on draft.