Tecate

Tecate is the beer that carries its hometown's name across the border: a pale Mexican lager from Tecate, Baja California, a small desert town an hour east of Tijuana. Across northern Mexico and the American Southwest, the red can with the black eagle is shorthand for cold beer, full stop.

The brewery opened in 1944, and the beer's signature ritual grew up with it: a squeeze of lime and a pinch of salt right on the rim of the can, a serve the brand has pushed for decades and much of northern Mexico treats as simply how beer is drunk. Tecate also wrapped itself around boxing, putting its name on big fight nights on both sides of the border.

Today Tecate is brewed by Heineken México — the historic Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma brewing group of Monterrey, now inside the Heineken system — and it sits at number 22 on Brand Finance's 2025 ranking of the world's most valuable beer brands. Desert-town beer, done very well.

Straw-gold and light on its feet, with a soft sweet-corn and white-bread graininess, faint grassy hops, and a quick dry finish. It is built for heat: it wants to be nearly frozen, and it takes lime and salt on the can rim better than almost any beer alive.