A German brewer, a railway town and a new century.

Dos Equis traces its roots to Orizaba, in the Mexican state of Veracruz. Spanish Wikipedia says that in 1894, near the town’s railway station, Enrique Mantey and the German brewer Guillermo Haase — the Spanish form of the name English Wikipedia gives as Wilhelm Hasse — founded Cervecería Guillermo Haase y Cía., and that in 1896 it became a public company, Cervecería Moctezuma, S.A., bringing in further German capital and French capital from the Suberbie family. English Wikipedia says the brewery was named after the Aztec ruler Moctezuma.

The beer’s name came from the calendar. On its Mexican brand page, Heineken México says Dos Equis was born in 1897 in Orizaba to mark the arrival of the twentieth century, and that its original name was Siglo XX, “twentieth century.” English Wikipedia adds that the bottles were marked with the Roman numeral XX, and “Dos Equis” is simply Spanish for “two Xs.” The brand’s US website puts it the same way: the name means two x’s in Spanish, and the beer originated in Mexico.

For most of the twentieth century Dos Equis belonged to Moctezuma, a separate company from the Monterrey brewer Cervecería Cuauhtémoc, which was founded in 1890 and launched with Carta Blanca. Spanish Wikipedia says the Monterrey holding company Valores Industriales (VISA) acquired a majority of Moctezuma in 1985, after Moctezuma ran into financial difficulty, and that the businesses were merged as Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma in December 1988. English Wikipedia says the 1985 integration brought Dos Equis, Superior, Sol and Noche Buena together with Carta Blanca, Tecate, Bohemia and Indio.

A lager, an amber and a famous older gentleman.

Dos Equis is two beers as much as one. Heineken México describes Dos Equis Lager as a pale lager with a light to medium body, and Dos Equis Ámbar as a Vienna-style lager with notes of toasted malt and a little caramel. English Wikipedia says the Lager is sold in green bottles and the Amber in brown ones, and, citing the brand’s website, that the Amber was first exported to the United States in 1973. Heineken México says the Lager was born in 1984 as an export beer before it reached the Mexican market. Spanish Wikipedia’s article on the Swiss brewer Santiago Graf counts Dos Equis Amber among today’s “Graf-style” Vienna lagers, alongside Victoria and Negra Modelo. Later US additions include a Mexican Pale Ale, released on draught in late 2018, and Lime & Salt in 2020, Brewbound reported.

Outside Mexico the brand is best known for an advertising character. “The Most Interesting Man in the World” began appearing in US advertisements in 2006, played by the American actor Jonathan Goldsmith as a bearded, debonair older gentleman, with voiceovers by Will Lyman, the narrator of the PBS series Frontline. The spots ran a montage, mostly in black and white, of the character’s younger exploits, and closed with his line “I don’t always drink beer, but when I do, I prefer Dos Equis” and the sign-off “Stay thirsty, my friends.” English Wikipedia says the character became an internet meme.

In March 2016 the brand announced Goldsmith’s retirement from the role, The Washington Post reported; his final spot sent him on a one-way trip to Mars. The French actor Augustin Legrand took over that September, The New York Times reported, signing off “Stay thirsty, mis amigos.” Ad Age reported in March 2018 that the campaign was being sidelined in favour of a new one, “Keep It Interesante.” In January 2026, CNN reported, Dos Equis revived the campaign with Goldsmith back in the role; the first new spot aired on 19 January 2026 during ESPN’s broadcast of the College Football Playoff national championship.

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.

A Dutch owner, three US sources and two symbols.

The current owner arrived in 2010. On 11 January 2010, BBC News reported, the Dutch brewer Heineken agreed to acquire the beer business of the Mexican group FEMSA, including Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma; Spanish Wikipedia says FEMSA received a 20 per cent stake in Heineken in exchange. English Wikipedia says the Mexican company now runs breweries in Monterrey, Guadalajara, Toluca, Tecate, Orizaba, Navojoa and, since 2017, Meoqui, and Heineken México lists Dos Equis among the 21 brands of its Mexican group. Its stablemate from the Baja California border has its own guide here: Tecate.

Where the beer is made depends on where it is sold. The brand’s US website says Dos Equis products for the United States are brewed and packaged by Cervecería Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma in Monterrey, by HBBV in Amsterdam and by Cervezas Mexicanas in Irwindale, California, and imported by Cervezas Mexicanas of White Plains, New York.

The identity rests on two symbols. Heineken México names the brand’s icons as the XX, which it says celebrates evolution, and the Emperor, which it says recalls tradition. In August 2020 Heineken refreshed the packaging, with more emphasis on the XX symbol and the brand’s colours, according to Brewbound and Beverage Dynamics. A separate article looks at the typefaces Dos Equis uses.

For a design guide, Dos Equis shows how a date can become a mark: a Roman numeral chosen to greet a new century is still the brand’s name and its emblem more than a hundred years later. Compare Tecate and Carta Blanca, its stablemates at Cuauhtémoc Moctezuma. For this guide we use emperor gold, lager green and amber brown with a Roman inscriptional serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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