According to the story, on a Saturday in June 1922, he was in danger of running out of beer due to high demand. In a panic, he mixed half of his beer supply with lemonade and served it to his customers as a Radlermaß, meaning “cyclist’s measure” in German.

Unfortunately, people copy so many things off the internet (without proper research or giving credit) and so misinformation floods the web. After a certain point, it’s too late to fix it, but in this case, I’m trying my best! This is why it’s important to know and trust your recipe sources. In England, Wales and Scotland, another type of shandy is called Lager Top. The word Lager is a generic term for bottom-fermented beers. A Top Lager is a lager with a hint of lemonade on top, which reduces the hardness of the lager. Runaway to the Fells: 4% Spiced Damson Gose & Walk on The Mild Side: 6.0% Dark Ruby Mild (Both brewed in Collaboration with Fell Brewery) July & November 2021

Summer shandy: The summer shandy often uses lemon soda or sparkling lemonade as the mixer, which makes a refreshing, light and citursy flavor. We used wheat beer here, which enhances the light flavor. A traditional British shandy has had little problem with translation in crossing the pond. The difference in what you will be served in an American bar, as opposed to a British pub, if you ask for a classic shandy, may surprise you. Because I am a Brit living in the US, I discovered a huge error in American shandy recipes.

As far as I’m concerned, springtime is Dark and Stormy season. As the rain pummels the ground here in the Pacific Northwest, a little window of blue sky nestled between two dark clouds in the neighboring distance makes me wish I were watching the rain fall from across a dark ocean, my little Caribbean fishing… It is very important to not let yourself be fooled by the lowered alcoholic content. Another aspect worth factoring in is that if the beer-lemonade ratio is not kept 50:50 the risk is that your drink might contain more alcohol than you expect. The sweetness from the lemonade might make it hard to detect by the flavour. If you are driving and unsure, make your panaché with alcohol-free beer. In England, it is called shandy, or shandygaff. The same word is commonly used in Quebec and Canada. Since radler means “cyclist” in German, other sources now assume that the radler was invented at the end of the 19th century in one of the predominantly social-democratic cycling clubs.Panach’ is a commercial brand created in 1979 by Heineken, a Dutch brewing group, and brewed for the first time, precisely at the Brasserie de la Valentine, in Marseille. The most common use of gaff is as the name for the spear or hook used for lifting heavy fish out of the water. Another gaff refers to loud laughter (as in "his resounding gaffs filled the room" or "he gaffed merrily")—senses found in dialectal Scottish English. There is also gaff meaning "a fair" or "a place of lower-class amusement (as at a theater or music hall)." In a 1918 collection of essays entitled, fittingly, Shandygaff, American writer Christopher Morley links the word shandygaff to the lower classes, "Shandygaff is a very refreshing drink, being a mixture of bitter ale or beer and ginger-beer, commonly drunk by the lower classes in England, and by strolling tinkers, low church parsons, newspaper men, journalists, and prizefighters." As early as the 17th century, shandy was also being used in dialectal English as an adjective to refer to people who were wild, boisterous, or slightly crazy. Perhaps, the "place of lower-class amusement" sense of gaff and this sense of shandy were blended together. It's certainly not unreasonable to think that people drinking shandygaffs in lower-class establishments got a little wild—we just need to find evidence corroborating this etymology. Here’s a recipe featuring a fun twist for your summer favorite: the shandy beer! This one uses ginger, orange, and cranberry to feature the flavors of winter and fall and is still a light, refreshing beer! Grapefruit shandy: This variation uses grapefruit soda as the mixer: but you can also use grapefruit juice, soda water and simple syrup. It makes a sweet and citrusy spin.