Victoria

Victoria

The story of Cerveza Victoria begins in 1865, when the Swiss entrepreneur Agustín Marendaz founded a craft brewery in Toluca, the capital of the Mexican state of Estado de México – drawn by the exceptional water quality and the characteristic barley harvest of the region. Ten years later, Santiago Graf acquired the brewery and developed it into the Compañía Cervecera Toluca y México S.A., which soon became known as a leading brewery in both the domestic and international markets. The first documented records of the Victoria brand date back to 1906, and the label featuring the legendary beer king Gambrinus – who still adorns every Victoria bottle to this day – gave the brand from the very beginning a royal and unmistakable identity deeply rooted in Mexican history and culture.

In 1935, Cervecería Modelo acquired all the assets of the Toluca brewery and thus also took over the Victoria brand – and when Martín Oyamburu Arce, one of the owners of Grupo Modelo, announced the purchase, he had the phrase published in all Mexican newspapers: «La Victoria es nuestra» – meaning «The victory is ours» – which became the origin of the brand slogan associated with Cerveza Victoria to this day. The original brewery in Toluca is today a cultural centre, while the Victoria recipe continues to be brewed in Grupo Modelo's seven production plants across Mexico – from Torreón to Yucatán. Since 2013, Grupo Modelo and therefore Victoria have been part of the world's largest brewing group Anheuser-Busch InBev.

As the most traditional brand of Grupo Modelo with over 155 years of history, Cerveza Victoria is a classic Vienna lager at 4.5% ABV – a beer style invented in Vienna in 1841 by Austrian brewer Anton Dreher and introduced to Mexican brewers by European immigrants and the brief reign of Emperor Maximilian in Mexico. In the glass it presents itself in a characteristic amber tone with a stable, bronze-coloured head, where a pleasant aroma of caramelised malt and hops gives way to a medium-bodied, full-flavoured and distinctive palate with a subtle, pleasant bitterness that finishes in a long, balanced close. As the oldest still-produced beer brand in Mexico, Victoria embodies far more than a beer – it is liquid national pride, a living piece of Mexican history and an inseparable part of Mexican identity and festive culture.