Mention shandy to someone over 40 and you’ll inevitably get hit with a wave of sentimentality.

In the 1970s and 80s, shandy was a tin of almost-booze given to children, a soft drink with top notes of beer. Top Deck and Shandy Bass were on sale in newsagents up and down the country. In a particular subsect of the internet’s nostalgia machine, grizzly men reminisce about their first sip of this drink, the thing that gave them a thirst for the real deal, before going on to bash the “nanny state” that did away with beer for babies.

In Scotland, we can still pick up a litre bottle of Barr Shandy, should we require it. To most of us, however, shandy is a gently alcoholic treat for a summer’s day, a way of joining in the fun without risking a hangover.

A mix of lager and lemonade is most common, though I far prefer a bitter shandy. In the late summer after my daughter was born I sipped half-pints in my village beer garden. The refreshing fizz of sugar cut through the biscuity slick of Belhaven Best, both parts somehow combining to become another thing entirely. Something better.

The idea that a shandy should be either as good as or better than the beer on its own is a defining principle of the YouTube series, Does It Shandy? Abbeydale Brewery’s Laura Rangeley and Michael Deakin of LGTBQ+ nonprofit Out and About started filming themselves drinking shandy mixes at the end of 2020, taking the mick out of craft beer snobbery while discovering new flavour fusions.

They started with traditional combinations such as an Anspach & Hobday Ordinary Bitter and lemonade (for non-UK readers, we tend to mean a clear, carbonated drink, high in sugar and additives, rather than the tart, still lemonade you may be expecting.) No actual fruit has been harmed in the making of this drink. Schweppes, Sprite, or, more likely, supermarket own-brand, is king.

““The mass-market lager that isn’t improved by a splash of lemonade doesn’t exist.””

After a sip of the un-cut beer to start, Laura and Michael add a soft mixer. In later episodes they start to play with the form, using Crabbies Alcoholic Ginger Beer, Fanta, and grapefruit soda. There are beers from Manchester’s Cloudwater and Queer Brewing, among others. “We're pushing the shandy boundaries a little bit more now,” Laura says.

Following Laura and Michael’s example, I undertook research for this piece with gusto. A consummate professional, I spent several weeks dedicating myself to mixing craft lagers, stouts, and everything in between with softies. Czech dark lager and lemonade; milk stout and soda water; pilsner and posh elderflower fizz. So dedicated was I to my work that I even tried Belhaven Best and Lilt, which took some time to recover from.

Nothing compared to my firm favourite: two parts bog-standard bitter (John Smiths is good) to one part lemonade. It’s a classic for good reason.

A shandy is technically a half-half mix, but I do feel we can include “tops” in this category. A top is a quick-fire shot of lemonade on top of a full pint, usually lager. Lager tops is a favourite of those new to beer, where a mouthful of sweetness eases the drinker into the experience. Other drinks in this category include Guinness and blackcurrant cordial, which sounds grim but is often the gateway to favouring stout.

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The origins of the name are delightfully obfuscated by a combination of legend and poor documentation. Shandy is a shortening of shandygaff. Difford’s Guide suggests the “shandy” part of shandygaff comes from mid-19th century slang. Shant of gatter translated to “pub water”—a pint of beer.

There is also a possibility that shandy comes from the Scots word, chanty, meaning chamberpot. This would, in turn, mean that shant of gatter is more correctly read as “piss-water”; a fair cop, if the lager of 1850 was anything like the poor offerings we suffer in our chain establishments. The mass-market lager that isn’t improved by a splash of lemonade doesn’t exist.

Gaff could be a portmanteau of ginger and half. This theory is supported by the use of ginger beer or ale in shandies at the time, the era from which we have the earliest mentions of the drink.

I’ve seen reports that shandygaff is still common in Jamaica, though it’s out of use here in the UK. Shandy is also commonly heard across the world, including in Spain, where the word refers to a pre-mixed bottled option. My friend Inés, who is my go-to on all Spanish matters, thought that clara is most often beer and carbonated water, rather than lemonade, and said she also regularly requested cerveza con limón.

In France, a shandy is known as a panaché. With the addition of grenadine it becomes a Monico. In Germany, the beer-lemonade mix is known as a radler. The story of too many cyclists and too little beer is charming, but hard to swallow. Unlike the radler, which I find lends itself to delighted gulping.

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Shandy Shack, based in Bampton, Oxfordshire, launched with a pop-up bar in 2018, and originally served combinations of craft beers and luxury sodas. In 2020 the co-owners Ed Stapleton, Tom Stephens, and Freddie Gleadowe started brewing their own.

“We decided to get stuck into brewing the ultimate shandy,” Ed tells me. After starting with kits, they moved on to taking a space in a brewery, hoping to be rewarded for the risk. “None of us were brewers. Over a winter we tried small batches, teaching ourselves how to brew. We got kind of lucky—within three months we struck gold.”

The result was their IPA Shandy, a 2.8% offering that tastes both hoppy and satisfyingly fresh. It was quickly followed by a 2.5% Elderflower Lager Top, which might appeal to those who favour sweet drinks. Both shandies are vegan, gluten-free, low in calories, and have natural ingredients. A far cry from this writer’s choice of gluten-laden bitter, and still a delicious option for sultry summer afternoons.

Lower ABV choices are a favourite among the 18-25 crowd, apparently, with current data suggesting Gen Z is more likely to opt for moderation. Sales of no and low-alcohol options increased by more than 32% between 2019 and 2020. And it’s not just the young team. Around two-thirds of our adult population has tried a no or low-alcohol drink, and about a quarter of us consume them regularly. Commercially made shandies are a novelty that manage to invoke nostalgia with a modern twist.

I wondered about the authenticity of a ready-made shandy. There are new varieties every day. Stiegl’s grapefruit radler; Bavaria’s lager shandy; Track and Naparbier’s Riddle Me This lime sour; Newbarns’ Radler Shandy. Each comes in between 0.9 and 2.8% ABV.

If we follow the logic that a shandy is lighter in alcohol then a commercially made one must be authentic. Personally, my pedantic brain insists that it must be mixed from two separate drinks. Otherwise, it’s just a citrusy low-alcohol beer. But nobody needs to listen to me on this, I am not the shandy authority. Not even after my shandy spree.

The team behind Does It Shandy? aren’t fussed either way. “Mixing yourself is more fun because you can create a number of combinations with different pops rather than it be pre-ordained,” Michael says. “However, this is not without its risks!”

After some of the combos I tried this spring, I’d have to agree. Perhaps leaving the mixing up to the experts is the best choice after all. And while the summer of 2021 didn’t quite see a shandy renaissance I, for one, am delighted that the country is waking up to the pleasures of the shandy and welcoming it back. For some of us, it never went away.