Beers are in order of preference, more or less. All beers are lagers unless otherwise specified (n/l).

MEXICO

Negra Modelo – Choice; our all-time favorite. Dark Amber in color. Excellent with a small bit of lime juice. (n/l) (Modelo Especial is NO comparison.)
Bohemia – Choice. (n/l)
XX Amber – Choice. Infrequently available in our experience along the coastal route. (n/l)

Victoria – Our favorite of the cheapies. Amber in color. (n/l)
Indio – Infrequently available; interesting flavor. Another favorite. Amber in color. (n/l)
XX Lager – Good. For a lager.
Pacifica – Standard lager, okay with lime. Excellent graphic design.
Tecate – Okay, actually tastes different than the other lagers of its class.
Modelo Especial – Really not very especial.
Sol – Blah; watery. I like the clear bottle.
Corona – My least favorite beer of all time, particularly when you take into consideration the hype. Acceptable in flavor ONLY with copious amounts of lime juice. Why oh why would anyone order this when there are so many other better beers out there?

GUATEMALA

Gallo – Lager; decent.
Bhrava – Indistinguishable from any standard Central American lagers. And, what’s with the spelling?

HONDURAS

Port Royal – Good. Our second favorite Central American lager. Order this beer anywhere in Honduras, unless you are in a cowboy bar, in which case, order ‘beer’ and take what you get.
Salva Vida – Standard, indistinguishable lager.
Imperial – Nasty. What you’ll likely be drinking in some cowboy bar in the middle of BFE in order to keep from looking like a pansy.

*** Despite being at the bottom of the list, the D&D Brewery deserves mention; it’s not a standard Honduran beer. It tastes like Oregon. You have to go to the source, the southwestern corner of Lake Yojoa (near the town Los Naranjos), to find this beer but you will not be sorry. D&D is a brewery/guesthouse run by an ex-pat from Oregon and his Honduran wife and he always has a handful of hand-made microbrews at all times. My favorite was the raspberry ale and porter mixed half and half. When we visited, he had hefeweissen, amber, porter, raspberry ale, mango ale, and blueberry ale (blueberries come from a nearby farm). We liked them all except for the mango ale (we didn’t try the blueberry).

BELIZE

Belican – One fine beer. Excellent. We love this beer.
Belican Stout – Stout! My god. What more can you ask for?
Belican Light – Why on earth would you order light beer?

EL SALVADOR

Pilsener – The one-dollar beer of choice. Excellent with lime. Our third favorite Central American lager.
Regia – Kind of weird; not bad though. Fragrant.
Golden – Indistinguishable typical lager.
Bahia and some others… they all taste the same anyway.

NICARAGUA

Toña – Far and above the more desirable beer. Our favorite of the Central American lagers.
Búfalo – Rare but a pretty good amber.
Victoria – Order Toña.

COSTA RICA

Imperial – Okay. Maybe the better of the CR lagers. Freaky graphics make you think the Kaiser was coming to stick one of those pointy helmets up your butt.
Pilsen – Startlingly similar to Imperial.
Rock Ice – God-awful graphics that unfortunately affect the flavor in a non-desirable way. Available in lemon flavor.

PANAMA

Panama – (4.8%, 355ml bottle)
Balboa – (4.8%, 285ml bottle)
Soberana – (3.8%, 355ml bottle)
Atlas – (3.8%, 285ml bottle)

Four nearly indistinguishable lagers, Atlas perhaps being a little waterier. All four come in battered recycled bottles with the graphics printed directly on the glass. Based on the above stats alone, Panama is the clear winner as far as your $0.75 is concerned and I have to say that I liked the taste of Panama maybe just a little more than the rest. The graphic design of the bottles is interesting. We liked the contrast of the green Panama bottle with the red, blue, and white label, although I was partial to the vintage cartoon feel of the Atlas logo. The Soberana bottle appears to be going for elegance with a crystal clear bottle and scripty fonts; I get the feeling this is supposed to be a chick beer. And, what’s with the name? Soberana. (Oh, it actually means “sovereign” but for us Englishy types, the apparent meaning is greatly amusing.) We had to check to be sure it was even alcoholic—which is what led us to check the alcohol content for all the rest and reinforced our opinion that Panama was the beer of choice.

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