I drink shandy most weeks - I play tennis on a Monday and when we’re done we pop to the clubhouse bar for a few pints.
I’ll tend to have pints of lager shandy (50:50 mix) as it’s more refreshing / hydrating than a straight beer, and it means I don’t get a headache at work the next day.
My missus drinks a reverse lager top - i.e. mostly lemonade with a little bit of lager. Just adds a bit of interest to the drink but she’s not a big beer drinker so doesn’t like it any stronger.
I haven’t drunk shandy myself for decades.
I used to drink “kids’ shandy” - 0.5% alcohol sickly sweet shandy that came in soda cans.
This led to me buying my first pint ever, aged 12.
I went down to the local village pub to buy a can of this muck, and the geriatric landlady said “I ain’t got any of that left. But I can sell you a beer and a bottle of lemonade and you can make your own.” I didn’t think anything of this, so accepted her kind offer, then trotted back home with a pint of Brakspear’s bitter in one hand, and a bottle of lemonade in the other. I ended up quite tipsy.
Thus, my first ever pint cost me 45p.
My first pub drink was shandy. Red Lemonade and Smithwicks. Bought for me by my Da. I was 15-16. I felt so grown up sitting with my Da’s mates with a pint in front of me.
Isn’t that a Black Velvet, or is that Guinness with champagne?
A Black and Tan in Scotland is a half-Guinness half-heavy(or bitter, I suppose). I wonder what the equivalent drink is called in Ireland?
Like a lot of Scottish kids, I was weaned on shandy. First of all there was Top Deck, which was something like 0.02% alcohol, and sold in 330ml cans alongside Irn Bru and Tizer in the local shop. Also came in a limeade and lager variant, which I really liked. Wiki Linky.
Then there would be Christmas, or some random Auntie’s silver wedding or something, where the adults would pour shandies for the kids. Usually Tartan Special or McEwan’s Export half and half with lemonade. I’m still quite partial to a Special shandy, but the taste immediately makes me want a Christmas present.
I think this is why shandy drinkers are scoffed as being poofs and lightweights - it is considered junior beer.
As others have said, an order of a shandy in a Scottish pub will probably get you half-and-half Tennent’s lager and lemonade from the skooshy gun thing, as a default. Lager tops will be half-inch to an inch of lemonade in the top of the pint glass.
When I was younger, Snakebite was very popular - half and half draft lager and draft cider (Strongbow or Dry Blackthorn). Adding a dash of blackcurrant made it a Pink Panther. Cider and blackcurrant was Diesel.
Oh, and I’ve heard of Guinness and Cider as poor man’s black velvet - the real thing being made with champagne. And kind of minging.
Snakebite and Black - officially it’s export-strength lager, super-strength cider and cassis (but more usually lager, cider and ribena).
Popular with goths, rockers, bikers, and anyone else who likes to throw up in purple 
Snakebite and black = diesel, no?
Last time I was in Austria I ordered a Radler, thinking it was just a brand name. I thought “Jesus, this beer is sweet” before I realised Radler = shandy.
In the interests of science I might nip to the pub at lunchtime, ask for a shandy (I’ll be wearing dark glasses and a false beard, obviously) and see whether it comes in lager or bitter form.
Ah diesel, the staple of my uni days. So many dresses ruined by extensive pink stains.
That’s the name I meant to say, and presumably Jjimm too. The lager and lime had pretty much no alcohol at all, but the shandy version had 1%. (I found an image showing that before. but for some reason GIS isn’t working for me right now - it’s just grey squares).
Where I grew up, a Snakebite and black was known as a Pink Panther. Cider and black was diesel. I have heard the Snakebite and black = diesel thing as well though. Probably regional.
I did my underage drinking in Midlothian, if that helps.
Oh, and to all you US dopers - that’s underage drinking as in going into the local pub aged 16 and trying to look as old as possible. The bar staff knew fine what was going on, but everyone did it. Quite funny given that I’ve just been reading the thread with the dude with the 19-year old girlfriend, and folk are expressing shock and outrage that he might give her a beer when they are at his place.
FTR when I was growing up, a small bottle of Diamond White cider + a small bottle of Special Brew + a double vodka + blackcurrant in a pint glass was known as a “Blackout”. I was once challenged to drink three; halfway through my second one I slumped off my bar stool and had to be taken home.
Oh - just thought of another one. A “Turbo Shandy”.
One half pint of Stella Artois and one bottle of Smirnoff Ice in a pint glass.
If you think about it, actually has no greater alcohol content than a pint of Stella, but just sounds deadly.
I used to love the pint of shandy the old groundskeeper would leave for everyone in the dressing room after a game of footy. Very refreshing.
When I worked in pubs, it was always half beer, half lemonade, and you’d use house bitter if they didn’t request anything else. I was quite partial to a Ginger Beer shandy if the place had good ginger beer…
Shandy was also the cause of many fun jokes - such as asking new bar staff for a Guiness Shandy and watching the foam explode everywhere. Even better was the really annoying American (I think, memory is alcohol faded) who took a liking to it one summer, and we managed to convince him over a few days it was actually called Shandy-Bollocks, so he went his merry way around other pubs in Oxford and then London requesting pints of Shandy-Bollocks.
I’m Canadian, and the Shandy I am used to is 3/4 beer, 1/4 ginger ale & a twist of lemon. My grandpa was N. Irish - and I have no idea if this variety of a Shady comes from there, or it is just a variant created by my own family.
A-ha! One summer, a friend got a few of us drinking what he called “bikers” - 2/3 lager, 1/3 cola. We could drink them all day and still go out that night due to the lower alcohol content and the caffeine in the soda. And once you got used to them, they didn’t taste half bad. But we never knew where the name came from. Mystery solved, ignorance fought.
The young team nowadays round these parts fuel themselves with a Cheeky Vimto or two before going clubbing. Port + Blue WKD + Red Bull. It does actually taste a bit like Vimto, but I’m not sure about the wisdom of the accompanying caffeine jolt.
Dutch, I grew up in the rural east of the Netherlands, where shandy was half lager (Grolsch, obviously, since it was local) and half 7-up.
I quite liked it back then. Haven’t had one since I was 12 though.
When I was a kid I LOVED Club Shandy but it isn’t available anymore. 