Mexican Logger, Ska Brewing Company, Durango

Style: Mexican Lager

ABV: 5.2 percent

Serving Type: Six packs of 12-ounce cans

Malty? Hoppy? Hardly. Light-bodied and crisp.

Even craft beer comes full circle. Whereas five years ago a lot of beer drinkers couldn’t get enough IPAs, dark beers, and barrel-aged anything, today there’s a resurged interest in the session beer. Always ahead of its time, Ska Brewing in Durango was prepared for the shift with its Mexican Logger, an easy-drinking craft lager they’ve been brewing since 2001.

“Before we started brewing Mexican Logger, the heat of the summer would hit us in Durango, and we’d slip into Mexican lager mode (Dos Equis, Pacifico, etc.), albeit pretty much in the closet,” jokes Ska Brewing co-founder Dave Thibodeau. “We couldn’t really reveal to the public that we craft brewers were drinking these beers; in fact, we often wore disguises in the liquor stores. But man were we into it!”

For Thibodeau and company, summer afternoons were all about relaxing with a light Mexican brew in hand. “We knew what we had to do, and that was to brew our own craft version,” he remembers.

And so they did. “I think we made a mixed tape called ‘Mexican Logger,’ ” says Thibodeau, who founded Ska on the principle that suds should be brewed with another beer in hand and music blaring in the background. The name stuck, and Ska’s first session beer was born.

Mexican Logger is crisp, clean, and refreshing. It’s brewed with light malts and spicy Saaz hops and fermented with a lager yeast strain that comes from Mexico City. The brew, of course, pairs perfectly with a hot afternoon and a big ol’ lime.

Would we buy it again?

Proudly—no disguises necessary.