A beer that carried its brewery’s name.

Indio began as one of the first beers of Cervecería Cuauhtémoc, the brewery founded in Monterrey, Nuevo León, in 1890. Spanish and English Wikipedia give slightly different founder lists, but both name a group of Monterrey businessmen that included Isaac Garza Garza, José A. Muguerza, Francisco G. Sada and Joseph M. Schnaider. English Wikipedia says the brewery produced its first barrel in 1893.

The company dates Indio itself to 1893. Its old brand page, archived in 2015, tells the story this way: as one of its first beers, the brewery chose it to carry the company’s own name, “Cerveza Cuauhtémoc,” after the last Aztec emperor, whose image appeared on the label. Over time drinkers began to call it “la del indio” — “the one with the Indian” — because of that figure, and in 1905 the name was officially changed to Cerveza Indio. Spanish Wikipedia repeats the account, and English Wikipedia, citing guides to Mexican beer from the 2000s, says the label still carried an image of Cuauhtémoc.

The same archived page describes Indio as a dark beer with light sweet notes that reduce its bitterness, and says it was sold throughout Mexico and in some cities in the United States. Spanish Wikipedia lists caramel malt, maize and barley among its ingredients, citing the company.

A portrait, a nickname and a brand built on neighbourhoods.

By the company’s account, Indio is a brand named by its drinkers: the nickname came from the figure on the label, and the brewery adopted it as the official name in 1905. Cuauhtémoc, the figure behind the portrait, was the last Aztec emperor, and the brewery itself carries his name.

In the 2010s the brand’s marketing turned to street and neighbourhood culture. An Indio microsite archived in 2016, Indio Barrios, carried the line “El lado auténtico de México” (“the authentic side of Mexico”) and invited visitors to explore a map of Mexico’s barrios, or neighbourhoods, under the slogan “Estamos haciendo barrio.” Another archived microsite from the same period presented a sponsored project with the cinematographer Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezki: it describes a one-minute commercial filmed over three days in Los Angeles, where, it says, Lubezki lived, with a film camera and a still camera, and with the Mexican cinematographer Alexis Zabé operating a second camera that filmed Lubezki at work. The microsite framed it around the idea that being authentic takes courage, and said Lubezki chose locations for their light, among them rooftop terraces at dusk and the Los Angeles Theatre, which it describes as built in 1930 and opened by Charlie Chaplin for the premiere of City Lights.

The range has also grown beyond the dark beer. In January 2015 El Financiero reported the launch of Indio Pilsner Plata, a pale beer made with maize and blue agave. At the press conference, Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma’s marketing director, Fernando Ortiz, said that 20 per cent of Mexican beer drinkers prefer dark beer and 80 per cent pale, and described Indio as one of the company’s five flagship brands, with its volume doubled over the previous 15 years. The company said Pilsner Plata would be brewed at its plant in Toluca, and Indio’s brand manager, Adrián González, said it had been delivered to Oxxo convenience stores from 15 January, with mass advertising in more than 100 outlets and bars and restaurants to follow in March. Today the brand’s website opens with the line “De Alma Guerrera” — “with a warrior’s soul.”

Design and documentation.

The seven brands in this group are all Mexican beer brands: Modelo, Pacifico, Dos Equis, Victoria, Bohemia, Indio and Carta Blanca. Mexican beer brands in general sit at many different points in the trade, from names that began at a single regional brewery to names that now belong to much larger international brewing groups, and a single brand can be sold everywhere from a corner shop to a supermarket shelf.

A beer brand’s identity is usually carried less by a single product than by a label, a name and the bottle or can it comes in, because the company behind the name may have changed hands, moved its production or grown far beyond the place where it started. That makes the questions behind each name worth asking plainly: who started it, who owns it now, and where its beer is actually brewed and packed.

Each guide separates what independent sources record from what the company says about itself — its founding story, its owners over time, where its beer is brewed and how its labels and packaging have changed — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word.

From Cuauhtémoc to Heineken.

Indio’s ownership follows its brewery’s. In 1985 Valores Industriales (VISA), the holding company of the Monterrey brewing families, took control of Cervecería Moctezuma of Orizaba, and in December 1988 the two businesses were merged as Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma, Spanish Wikipedia says. That merger brought Dos Equis, Superior, Sol and Noche Buena alongside Carta Blanca, Tecate, Bohemia and Indio, English Wikipedia says. In 1988 VISA formed FEMSA as its main subsidiary; in 1994 FEMSA sold 22 per cent of its beer business to Canada’s Labatt, and after Labatt raised its holding to 30 per cent, FEMSA bought it back in 2004, Spanish Wikipedia says.

On 11 January 2010 Heineken announced it would acquire FEMSA’s beer business, including Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma, English Wikipedia says, citing BBC News; Spanish Wikipedia, citing BBC Mundo, says the business was exchanged for 20 per cent of Heineken’s shares, and El Financiero later dated the integration to May 2010. The company now trades as HEINEKEN México and says it runs seven breweries and a malting plant; English Wikipedia lists them as Monterrey, Guadalajara, Toluca, Tecate, Orizaba, Navojoa and Meoqui. Spanish Wikipedia lists Indio among the company’s brands alongside Bohemia, Carta Blanca, Dos Equis and Tecate.

For a design guide, Indio shows how a portrait and a nickname can outlast an official name, and how a beer brand can build its marketing on neighbourhood culture. Compare Bohemia, the same brewery’s pilsner, and Dos Equis, another Mexican beer whose name began as a nickname. For this guide we use dark brown, clay red and sand with a slab serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Indio’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.