“Roll out those hazy, crazy, lazy days of Summer… those days of soda and pretzels and beer…”
Summer has arrived. It’s great outdoors…
I can finally potter around in the garden again and harvest this season’s herbs. It also means – sunshine, beaches, sunsets and sundowners… On days like this there is nothing more refreshing than an ice cold Beer Shandy.

I am a relatively short person…that means alcohol doesn’t have far to travel to my head. Because of that I can tolerate one drink and that’s it for me. With a beer shandy, I feel refreshed but I don’t feel like I am going to go to sleep.

According to UK legislation and the American Heritage Dictionary, a “shandy”, which is short for “shandygaff”, is defined as

a mix of beer and lemonade, ginger beer or ginger ale. This gives the drink its pleasant beer flavour but with a sweeter tangier taste.

It’s not very clear of the origins of a beer shandy but it’s believed that it was named after a local English pub and dates all the way back to the 17th century. Apparently the quality of their beer was not that great, so they used a sweet lemony mixture to hide the fact.

Just about every country in the world has their variation of a “Shandy”. For those of you who are not into beer or alcohol, try this version. In South Africa the non-alcoholic version is called a “Rock Shandy” and is made up of half lemonade half sparkling water, with a dash of Angostura bitters. It’s just as refreshing as the shandy.

You don’t have to enjoy a shandy on it’s own:
These spicy chilli bites are the perfect snack to compliment a beer shandy. If you’re into seafood, some lightly crumbed calamari or squid heads are great tasting with beer too.

Do you have a similar drink in your country? What do you call it and what do you like to eat with it?