I love a good beer, and I also love semi-frozen slushy drinks. Luckily, the beer slushy trend brings together both worlds and is perfectly refreshing.
The traditional version of these semi-frozen beers is called jelly beer. Originally from Japan, the jelly beer version we know is actually coming from Thailand.
When Thai restaurants started introducing these ice-cold drinks to the rest of the world, the beer-slushy boom began. And now, there are innumerable variations, recipes, and tricks on how to make the perfect beer slushy.
What is a beer slushy?
Simply put, a beer slushy is a frozen or semi-frozen beer. And with the proper technique, you can easily make it at home.
The traditional version from Japan and Thailand is made of only beer. To get that right, you need to master the chilling process and your timing to bring the beers to the ideal consistency.
More modern beer slushies use additional ingredients to add flavor and complexity to the drinks. The results are frozen beer cocktails with tropical fruity notes like mango or pineapple.
What kind of beer for a beer slushy?
For making traditional beer slushies made of 100% beer, best use malt beer. Whereas, for flavored recipes, you can use any sort of beer as long as you balance the flavors and bitterness.
However, keep in mind that when beer is frozen, the bitterness level increases. That's also why jelly beer usually is made with malt beers.
Malt beer is a lot sweeter than regular wheat beer. So, even when frozen, the sweetness dominates the bitterness. Yet, with wheat beer, that's a different story.
Therefore, when using wheat beer for a beer slushy recipe, make sure to use other ingredients that will counter the bitter notes. Fresh fruit, syrup, or lime juice can help balance the bitter notes.
The 6 best beer slushy recipes
Get ready for some delicious beer slush recipes. -If you prefer some tangy lime in your slushy, rich cold brew, or some tropical fruit flavors, there's something for everybody.
So, here are my seven favorite beer slushy recipes.
Cherry Beer Slushy
Ingredients
1 bottle of Wheat beer
2 tbsp Maraschino cherry juice
2 tbsp Heering cherry liqueur
Lemonade
As I explained before, the bitterness of frozen wheat beer needs some serious sweetening. In this case, it comes from the Maraschino cherry juice and the cherry liqueur. That not only provides the necessary sweetness, but also a lot of cherry flavor.
The best part of this combination is that you can easily adjust the taste by adding more or less lemonade to the mix. It is super easy to balance the sweet and bitter notes in the slushy.
You don't even need a blender to make the Cherry Beer Slushy. You can pour the beer, cherry juice, and cherry liqueur into a shallow dish and place it in the freezer.
Take the dish out every thirty minutes and scrape the mix with a fork to create frozen crystals. Do this for about two hours or two and a half.
Once the mixture is frozen, scrape it with a fork again and add it into a glass. Now top it up with ice-cold lemonade until you get the desired taste.
Garnish your cherry beer slushies with lemon wedges and cherries.
Mango Beer Slushy
Ingredients
6 oz IPA
1/2 pcs Mango fruit peeled and diced
1/2 cup Ice cubes
1 bsp Lime juice
The best thing about beer slushies is that they're so refreshing and easy to make. One of the easiest ones is this Mango beer slushy. This tropical beer slushy will even convince the most tenacious beer haters.
As long as you use a quality IPA (Indian Pale Ale) and a sweet, ripe, and flavorful mango, there's hardly anything that can go wrong. Besides this, you only need ice cubes and (optionally) a bit of fresh lime juice.
Pour the beer into a large glass and put ice cubes, diced mango, and lime juice into a blender. Blend until smooth, then add the mango-ice mix into the glass.
Stir until combined, and your mango IPA beer slushy is ready to be served.
Beergarita Slushies
Ingredients
0.75 cup Crushed ice
0.5 oz Lime juice
0.25 can frozen limeade concentrate
2 oz Tequila Blanco
3 ounces Dos Equis Lager Especial
sea salt and lime wedges for garnish
If the regular beer slushy isn't boozy enough for you, here comes the Beergarita. And it is just what you think it is: a cross between a beer slushy and a Margarita.
I prefer my Beergarita slushy made with Mexican beer, preferably with Dos Equis. If you don't have it, another light beer does the trick just as well.
The preparation of this drink is also super easy: Prepare your glass by rimming it with sea salt or fleur de sel and put it aside. Then add all ingredients listed above into a blender and blend until smooth.
Pour the Beergarita slushy into your glass and garnish it with a lime wedge.
Pineapple IPA Slushy
Ingredients
1.5 cups frozen pineapple chunks
1 cup Ice cubes
6 oz IPA
1 tbsp Simple syrup or agave nectar
0.25 oz Lime or Lemon juice
Slushies made with fresh fruit are delicious treats on hot summer days. But combining the fresh and fruity notes with an IPA can get you an even better slushy.
The hoppy notes from the Indian Pale Ale work great in these kinds of slushies. And of course, there are many IPAs with different flavor profiles available. For this type of drink, it makes sense to opt for a juicy and fruity IPA.
For this Pineapple IPA slushy, you'll need frozen pineapple chunks, IPA, some ice cubes, a bit of syrup or agave nectar, and some lime or lemon juice.
Add pineapple chunks, ice cubes, sweetener, and citrus juice into a blender with about 2/3 of your IPA. Blend the mix well and then pour into a glass.
Top your glass with the rest of the IPA and mix it gently with the slush.
Lager and Lime slush
Ingredients
2 oz Lime juice
2 oz simple syrup
6 oz Lager beer
The Lager and Lime beer slushy is so refreshing and tasty. Mixing beer with sweetened citrus juice reminds me of the Radler Bier -a German invention and a refreshing low-ABV drink that combines beer with lemonade.
In the case of the Lager and Lime slush, however, we don't use lemonade but fresh lime juice and simple syrup. In a frozen slush cocktail, that's even better than a traditional Radler.
The easiest way to do this is by combining simple syrup and lime juice and then freezing them in ice cube molds. Pop them out of the freezer once they're solid and blend them until smooth.
Pour the beer into a glass, then add the lime and syrup slush mixture. Mix until beer and slush are perfectly combined, and garnish the beer cocktail with a lime wedge.
Cold-brew and Porter beer slushy
Ingredients
2 oz Cold brew coffee (chilled)
4 oz Porter beer
0.5 tbsp Maple syrup
1 tbsp Cream
1/2 cup ice cubes
Coffee meets Porter beer in this rich and frozen cocktail. Although this combination might sound intimidating, the cold brew coffee blends perfectly with a rich beer like a Porter.
When adding a bit of maple syrup and cream to the mix, you'll get a coffee & beer cocktail you can't resist. Forget your iced Latte. A cold brew & porter slushy is so much better.
The preparation is also pretty straightforward. Just add all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Then, before pouring the beverage into a glass, taste and adjust by adding more cream or maple syrup if needed.
If you want to tweak the recipe and use a stout, for instance, Guinness, add a bit more syrup.