Sol

Few beers commit to a theme like Sol: a very pale Mexican lager in a clear glass bottle, named for the sun, built for beaches, lime wedges and squinting afternoons — a role it has played since 1899.

The beer began at a brewery in Orizaba, Veracruz, and its founding story is almost too neat: a shaft of sunlight, the tale goes, broke through the rough roof and landed on a brew kettle, and the beer became El Sol — the sun. Polished by a century of retelling or not, the name did what great names do, and the clear bottle came to mean daylight and holiday in dozens of countries.

Sol now belongs to Heineken México, heir to the historic Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma brewing group of Monterrey, and pours across Mexico, the UK, Europe and Latin America — usually with a lime pushed into the neck, a garnish Mexican drinkers treat as optional and the rest of the world treats as law.

Extremely pale and extremely light: a flash of sweet grain, a soft flowery hint of hops, and a quick, watery-crisp finish with barely any bitterness. The clear bottle lends it a sun-touched character that fans consider part of the deal. The lime wedge in the neck supplies the acidity the beer politely declines to bring itself.