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Mexican beer: two giants, the Vienna lager and a craft scene born on the border

Mexican beer from Corona, Modelo and Dos Equis to Minerva, Wendlandt and Colimita: the two brewers that make almost all of it, the Vienna lager legacy, the world's largest beer exports, the michelada and the fight over water.

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Bottles and a glass of pale lager beside a salt-rimmed michelada with lime and chile on a sunny courtyard table

Mexico’s brewers took up lager in the second half of the 19th century, with German immigrants and the court of the Habsburg emperor Maximilian. Santiago Graf, who ran the Toluca brewery, imported ice machines from Germany in 1882 and brewed the first lagers to succeed in Mexico, amber and dark beers in the Vienna manner. The BJCP credits him and other immigrant brewers with bringing the Vienna lager to the country. Victoria, Negra Modelo, Noche Buena and Dos Equis Ambar still carry that line; nearly everything else Mexicans drink is pale lager, which the Brewers Association now describes as the Mexican-style lager.

Two companies

In 1918 Mexico had 36 brewing companies. Over the 20th century they merged into two. Grupo Modelo, founded in Mexico City in 1925 with Corona, now belongs to AB InBev and holds about 57% of the market. Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma, founded in Monterrey in 1890, belongs to Heineken and holds about 40%. Everyone else shares the last 3%, and strictly craft beer makes up less than 1%.

The two giants brew for the world. In 2025 Mexico exported US$6.48 billion of beer to 98 countries, about 36% of the world’s beer export trade by value, ahead of the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, and almost all of it went to the United States. There the business is split: since 2013 Constellation Brands has owned the US rights to Corona and the Modelo brands and brews them in its own Mexican breweries, while Grupo Modelo supplies every other country. Modelo Especial became the best-selling beer in the United States by dollar sales in May 2023.

How Mexicans drink it

Mexican beer is mostly light lager served very cold, often with lime, in returnable bottles; the 940-millilitre caguama dates from 1960, and little is poured on tap. The michelada adds lime juice, sauces, spices and chile in a salt-rimmed glass. Its name is traced either to Michel Ésper of a sports club in San Luis Potosí or to mi chela helada, my cold beer.

Born on the border

US Prohibition made Mexico’s border towns busy. Cervecería Mexicali opened in 1923 to serve the drinkers who crossed over and held up to 90% of its regional market until it closed in 1973. Modern craft brewing grew in the same place, alongside San Diego. Cervecería Tijuana began in 2000 with a Czech brewmaster; Cucapá opened as a Mexicali brewpub in 2002; Aguamala followed in Ensenada in 2005, then Insurgente and Wendlandt. In 2016 Grupo Modelo bought the brands of Cucapá, Tijuana, Mexicali and Bocanegra.

Elsewhere, Minerva of Guadalajara won a case in 2012 that ended the exclusivity contracts keeping craft beer out of bars; Cielito Lindo bought its brands in 2023. Cervecería de Colima grew to more than 100 people on the back of Colimita, a golden lager. Calavera puts four dried chiles in its imperial stout, and Monstruo de Agua brews with maguey sap and more than 100 Mexican-grown ingredients. The craft brewers’ association, ACERMEX, founded in 2007, became the Unión Cervecera Independiente in December 2023.

Water

Water now decides where Mexican beer is brewed. In March 2020, 76% of those who voted in a Mexicali referendum rejected a nearly finished Constellation brewery, and the government refused it federal permits. In August 2022 President López Obrador announced a ban on new breweries in the dry north. New capacity has gone south: Constellation’s brewery in Veracruz was 85% built in October 2026, and Heineken’s planned brewery at Kanasín, Yucatán, still had no start date in May 2026 as environmental groups questioned what it would do to the aquifer.

Sources

Checked .

  1. Beer in Mexico — Wikipedia
  2. Santiago Graf — Wikipedia
  3. 7A. Vienna Lager, 2021 Beer Style Guidelines — Beer Judge Certification Program
  4. Exportaciones de cerveza mexicana superan 6,400 mdd y llegan a 98 países — Secretaría de Agricultura y Desarrollo Rural
  5. México, rey mundial de la cerveza: exporta 6,267 millones de dólares — El Economista
  6. Constellation Brands — Wikipedia
  7. Grupo Modelo — Wikipedia
  8. Michelada — Wikipedia
  9. Cervecería Mexicali — Wikipedia
  10. Subsidiaria de Grupo Modelo se vuelve titular de marcas de cerveza artesanal — Expansión
  11. ACERMEX se convierte en Unión Cervecera Independiente — La Buena Cheve
  12. Constellation Brands cierra capítulo con venta del terreno de malograda cervecera de Mexicali — Axis Negocios
  13. Anuncia AMLO veda a cerveceras en el norte — El Universal
  14. Constellation Brands vuelve a retrasar su cervecería en Veracruz — Pilotzi Noticias
  15. Planta de Heineken sigue sin fecha — El Despertador
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