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A great drink for cyclists – lemonade and beer
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Shandy, or is Radler?
If you’ve ever ridden in England, you’ve surely soothed your aching brain with more than one Shandy. In Germany you do the same with the Radler. They are essentially the same drink with different names. There is a very precise recipe used to make this drink:
¼ to ½ liter of lemonade, lemon soda, orange soda or ginger ale
½ to ¾ liter of pilsner, bitter or Guiness
Mix and drink
The word shandy is derived from the original, shandygaff, whose etymology has been lost to perpetuity. Shandygaff dates back to at least 1853, before the first pedal bicycle was officially invented, so it’s unlikely that the shandy was concocted strictly for the benefit of cyclists. But nobody in your average English pub knows that, so it is commonly accepted that the Shandy was created strictly for cyclists as a mechanism for allowing a modicum of alcoholic imbibing while still leaving your average pedal masher in control of just enough faculties to ride home.
The Radler has a much more colorful official history, although it’s highly likely that the story has been embellished for the commercial benefit of the Kubler Alm beer garden in Bavaria. It seems that the original property owner, Franz Xaver Kubler, wanting to capitalize on the bicycle craze that was sweeping Munich, had a bike path built to his establishment in the years just after the first World War. In the course of promoting the new route to his Inn, Kubler managed to find himself on one very hot summer day with so many riders milling about that he was afraid his normally well-stocked beer cellar would not be able to keep up with the demand. A Bavarian Beer Garden that runs out of beer would be widely ridiculed, so Herr Kubler, for reasons that are not made clear in the official history books, decided to mix his limited stocks of beer 50/50 with a large stash of lemonade he happened to have on the premises. Being a promoter (i.e. not required to speak the truth), he announced to all that he had invented this drink just for the cycling masses, in order to promote just the right level of sobriety for what must have been an exciting ride home. Herr Kubler christened the drink a “Radlermass”, “radler” being the German word for bicyclist and “mass” standing for the standard Bavarian drink size – the liter. The drink became a hit, spreading quickly throughout Bavaria and eventually to all of Germany.
Although it may not sound all that appealing, there is something about the Shandy/Radler that is satisfying and puritanical at the same time. You won’t find them on many bar menus, but trying one (or two) in the safety of your own home will make you feel like a globe-trotting cyclist.
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