Photo by Matthew Suárez

The beer seen in CDMX is tiny compared to Baja. Even so, six glass-grasping hands would come in handy.

A flight to Mexico City from Tijuana can be cheap. I found a round flight for $12 through the Volaris website. With airport fees included, the total cost was $72. No bags were needed, I was only going for a weekend. 

My friend Sánchez, whom I have known since high school, lives in downtown CDMX (Ciudad de Mexico – Mexico City) near the famous metro station Estación Metro Balderas (also the name of a song by Rockdrigo made famous by El Tri). I arrived at 9:30 pm at the airport and got on the metro headed towards the station. Just an hour later, and five pesos poorer, I was at Sánchez's small two-bedroom apartment in the heart of Chilangolandía, near Palacio de Bellas Artes and el Zócalo. 

Falling Piano: Beers that you can keep drinking without thinking.

Photo by Matthew Suárez

After settling in his extra bedroom, we went for Sánchez’s favorite nearby tacos: Los Cocuyos. 

I got one lengua (tongue), one al pastor, one molleja (cow neck), and two suadero (brisket). Tacos are smaller than TJ tacos (half the size). At 20 pesos each, they are  much cheaper. 

Still hungry, I ordered something you never see in Tijuana, a Gringa (55 pesos): two tortillas with al pastor meat, melted cheese, and pineapple. 

Sánchez bought a bunch of local craft beer from The Beer Box, a pricey chain of craft brew stores in CDMX. 

After tacos, we drank the beers back at Sánchez’s. We started with Cerveza Calavera, a Mexican lager that was trash. It was followed by a session IPA by Cielito Lindo (from Guadalajara); it was basic and drinkable. There were two Minerva beers (from Guadalajara), Cu4tro a Mezcal IPA, and a Mexican stout with Totomoxtle (corn husks), they were surprisingly good for Minerva. Then there were a handful of Hércules Brewery selections from Querétaro.

That was night one. Friday night.

Day 1. Sábado en CDMX.

We woke up early and refreshed and started the day with tacos de mixiote. Shredded lamb barbacoa style with some achiote, very tender meat, Chilango taco heaven. Not only were the tacos tasty, they had aguas frescas of flavors I’ve never seen. Agua de frambuesa and agua de pera! Pear-flavored water? I am in.

They both tasted like a rip-off of Boing!

From there, we biked around the city looking for breweries. I’m not much of a cyclist (I can’t even remember the last time I rode a bike), but cycling in CDMX is a breeze. There are wide bike lanes, and there are bike rentals scattered everywhere (521 pesos a year for Ecobicis).

Despite being the biggest city in Mexico, the beer scene in CDMX is tiny compared to Baja’s. Craft beers tend to be more expensive (almost at $10 a pint) and the quality is not up to par. From a hundred bars, you are lucky if one of them carries craft beer. Most tap rooms are located in the same area where Americans have moved since working remotely became a thing (La Roma and Condesa).

Hercules: The best beer in Central Mexico

Photo by Matthew Suárez

Brewery 1: Cerveza Cyprez.

Located in Roma Sur, Cyprez touts to be the brewery with the most awards in the city, and they display them on their wall. We got to the small taproom at 1:30 p.m. They were barely opening. Besides us, the other two clients were American women. 

I started with their collaboration micro IPA with Colima, a session IPA but not very carbonated. Sánchez opted for the manguiña supposedly a tropical pale ale. It was drinkable but nothing special for San Diego hoppy palates. After that, Sánchez got the white IPA, also not very carbonated, it was lackluster. Finally, I got their gold award winner Brett Saison, a very welcoming, not very spicy saison without the yeasty flavor. 

Brewery 2: Falling Piano Brewing Co.

Just 10 minutes away, from Roma Sur to Roma Norte, is Falling Piano, a brewery with an actual piano hanging from the ceiling in the middle of their masher and fermentation tanks. The atmosphere is American with trivia nights, clean bathrooms, brewery tours, beer pong, and speed dating, things the usual Mexican bar would not do. 

I got the Phantasm hazy IPA, a collaboration with Cerveza Rrëy, a nice solid hazy. Sánchez got a standard porter. My second pint was an American IPA collaboration with OBNI, a brewery located near the hospital where I was born in Coyoacán! Fantastic and again very solid American IPA. Those types of beers that you can keep drinking without thinking. 

I saw a lonely American drinking and analyzing the beer. It turned out to be their new head brewer Chris Velazquez from Denver. He previously worked for Epic, Great Divide, and Flying Dog. We had a brief chat and I congratulated him on his latest brews.

Terraza Morenos: Oh! The hazy paradise.

Photo by Matthew Suárez

Brewery 3: La Roma Brewing

The taproom has two entrances on different streets and shares space with Villa Koapa Brewing Co. and Cervecería Escollo for more than 20 beers on tap. We ordered two flights of five: The mango smoothie sour and a Morita pepper stout (both by Roma) were the best of the sampler. 

Not even 7 pm, but after three breweries we were pretty drunk. We rode rental bikes back to Sánchez’s without any issues. We ate panuchos de cochinita pibil at a street stand near his place. Giant fried tostadas topped with shredded pork, lettuce, cream, and salsas. I saw cockroaches creeping everywhere, but I trusted my local tour guide. The panucho was delicious. The after-effects weren’t. My stomach does not have the immune system of a Chilango though I was born there. 

Back in the apartment, we napped to go out later. We woke up from the nap at around 11 pm. Way too late to go to breweries. 

We ventured out to nearby bars downtown. They were loud. They were all the same. None of them sold craft beer. They all seemed like tourist traps. After going through the whole street, we settled for a bar at the beginning that had live music. When we sat down, the live music ended. We ordered XX lager and an amber. The waiter (who was Argentine) was very pushy to get us to buy a bucket of beers instead. We didn’t.

Day 2. Domingo en CDMX

We woke up late and started biking around the city past noon. Per the recommendation of a friend, we went to Tacos El Paisa. El Paisa specializes in suadero, but they also have longaniza, tripa, campechanos, and al pastor. I ordered cuatro de suadero. I  wanted to try their pastor, but it wasn’t ready.

The tacos are small but the suadero pieces are big and chunky with spicy chile de arbol salsa.

From there we biked to Izakaya Kura Sushi in La Condesa. Tijuana friends flew to CDMX that weekend. We met up with Willy and Marianna at the restaurant.

The menu is gigantic, 41 pages long.  Many of their items came “fresh” from Ensenada. They had Perro del Mar and other Wendlandt beers. I'd rather visit Ensenada if I want food from there, but we were already in supposedly what is some of the best sushi in CDMX.

I was disappointed. It was okay at best. Marianna got what I wanted to order (the simple toro roll). That was the best thing I’ve tried at that restaurant, but I’ve had better.

I opted for the “Callo Mayo” instead, which had scallops, tobiko, parmesan cheese, and sauces. All you could taste was the chipotle mayo-like sauce and some warmish scallops (and nice parmesan). No bueno. 

Sánchez got the ramen that I barely got to try. It tasted okay. It looked just okay. Willy got a couple of rolls that were covered in sauces with not much taste. 

The table next to us had Japanese people eating. What they ordered looked better. But who can guess right from a menu with 41 pages? It would take several visits to the restaurant to find what is actually good on the menu, because what I was served… wasn’t.

They forgot to bring the edamame we ordered as an entree and the plates came in odd timing (the last plate took 10 minutes after we were all done eating). Beers were great because they were Sapporo and Wendlandt. 

Taproom #1: Hercules’ Lager Bar. 

Magnificent. Hercules is the best beer in central Mexico. They have a taproom dedicated only to their lager beers. The small corner space in Roma has beautiful green tiles, nice fixtures, shelves with vinyl records, and a smooth concrete bar. 

Disappointedly, they close at 8 pm on Sundays (we were there shortly after 7 pm). The kitchen was closed and Marianna was hungry. We each got a pint: Comet Salvo (hoppy lager), Lágermaiz (corn lager), Superlager (extra bitter pilsner), and Oktoberfeest (Marzën). All excellent, though I took a special liking to the lágermaiz. 

Taproom #2: Drunkendog

I didn’t want to visit Drunkendog since I already had the previous year and I knew what to expect, a taproom with a lot of Baja beers. But Marianna was hungry and I wanted beers, Drunkendog was nearby and it was the best choice. Another place with beautiful green tile in the preppy part of town. 

Marianna got an esquite that was served with some sort of beef broth. Though I only got to taste the end of it, I thought it was rich and flavorful.

I got a “Patacán Viena” by Itañeñe, a local CDMX brewery. It was a fairly smooth viena with Saaz hops. Sánchez got a fruited sour with garambullo (blue myrtle cactus fruit) by Punto Medio (from Querétaro), one of the most interesting beers of the trip. Willy got an IPA from Left Hand Brewing, a brewery in Denver. And Marianna got a Coke Zero.

Half a block away from Drunkendog is Cafe y Terraza Bizarro, a goth-looking terrace on a third floor. Willy’s friends were waiting for him. Depeche Mode blasted through the speakers. They had their craft beer brand, but it wasn’t available. Choices were limited. I drank a Cerveza León instead (a common amber lager in central Mexico by Grupo Modelo). 

Brewery #4: Terraza Morenos 

Willy and Marianna went to their Airbnb, Sánchez and I biked from terrace to terrace to Terraza Morenos. I’ve gone to the Morenos taproom in Roma before and thought it was great, albeit small.

Google Maps indicated it closed at 11 p.m. We got there after 10 p.m. Despite this, they did not close until midnight.

Oh! The hazy paradise. So many hazy beers on tap and no flights available it was tough to choose what to get. They had a hazy in collaboration with a brewery from Paris (Prizm Brewing Co.). They had hazy collaborations with a bunch of other breweries including a distribution center (an oatcream Double Dry Hop hazy with Craft Galaxy). We got four different beers and found them all fantastic. Morenos dominates the hazy and hoppy beer scene in all of central Mexico.

We were hungry and the kitchen was open late. Sánchez got Belgian fries – good but overpriced at 190 pesos for a small portion. I got a bao bun fried chicken. It was supposed to be Korean style but it tasted more like it was bathed in Valentina. Despite this, the bao bun was tasty, and the chicken was nice and crunchy. 

We left before midnight, got some EcoBicis, and pedaled back to Sánchez place.

Day 3. Lunes con sabor a fin en CDMX.

My last day in CDMX was Monday. Sánchez had to go to work early in the morning. Marianna and Willy wanted to meet up downtown after breakfast. On my way there, I bought a panque de nata for 25 pesos, it was so nice and buttery. I met them in the Barrio Chino and we did basic tourist stuff: we shopped in FrikiPlaza, walked by Bellas Artes, took pictures at the park and monuments, and biked around the city. 

We ended up biking to a hipster tourist destination: Mercado Roma, a collective of restaurants and bars. I got the worst tacos I’ve been served in many years. They were supposedly rib-eye and picanha. They tasted like cold ground beef tacos. Not even the salsa or toppings could save the overpriced bad tacos. 

Cervecería Pacheco was in there. I inquired a little bit. The blonde California-looking dude outside the bar was Esteban Pacheco of the brewery. I told him what I do. He told me he would serve me tasters of all the beers he had and enthusiastically told me about them.

The rice lager was okay, it tasted like a watered-down rice lager. Pacheco then poured me a sour beer with Lucas candy on the rim. It was delicious but barely tasted like beer,  a tad watered down. It was followed by a West Coast IPA that had something wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly.

Pacheco served me his red ale, Revolución. It had that same wrongness from the West Coast IPA (perhaps autolysis). My friends were leaving to go back to Marianna’s Airbnb and change for the Depeche Mode concert. I wanted more beer and I still had a couple more tasters.

In a rush and still talking to Pacheco, I drank the last two. One was a chipotle stout, and the other was a stout but in a rush, I didn’t even pay attention to it. 

After that, I ran towards the Tijuana crew and to the Airbnb. We got three giant Victoria beers to drink while they got ready for Depeche Mode….

As they got ready for the concert, Willy told me he had an extra ticket and insisted on me going. I didn’t want to. I wanted more craft beer. I don’t care for Depeche Mode. I don’t dislike them. But I don’t like them enough to go see them live.

We flipped a coin for it: águila o sol (eagle or sun). Sol was going to the show. It was at Foro Sol, it made sense.

It landed on sol. We walked to the metro station and rode the overcrowded train towards the concert. The show was a bit slow despite all the promises from Willy that it was wild and that the drummer would go in crazy drum solos (he didn’t). It was a solid performance from an old band.  Out of the 20,000+ in attendance, most people in the audience were 40 or older. 

I enjoyed it but I got bored for a bit in the middle.

Depeche Mode left for the obvious encore. People sang “ole ole ole” for them to come back. We chanted “doo doo dodo doo doooo” to the tune of "Just Can’t Get Enough." Some people followed our chanting, but it faded away quickly. 

They came back.

They started playing "Just Can’t Get Enough." Proceeded with their other greatest hits. To end with…

"Personal Jesus."

My most hated song by them. I can’t stand that song. I wanted out by then. It sounded better live, for sure. But I still can’t stand that song.

We stayed till the end. They were bowing and doing their farewells and Willy wanted to see all that. I urged him that we should leave. Getting back to Marianna’s Airbnb was a bit of a nightmare. No more metro and thousands of people. A ton of overpriced taxis yelling at you to get in. No practical Uber unless we walk for a mile or so.

And so we did. Finally back to the Airbnb at 1:30 am. My flight was at 9:30 am. I called an Uber to Sánchez's place. Saw CDMX in the dead of the night on a Monday. Got to Sánchez's. He was drinking Modelos and was up to playing videogames. I was destroyed by the concert and needed sleep.

The next morning, I said bye and thanks to Sánchez and went to Estación Metro Balderas to go back to the airport. I got on the wrong side of the metro and went in the opposite direction. I corrected myself two stops later. Got lost a bit again and finally arrived at Terminal Aérea with plenty of time.