There are four main seasons in which I would recommend beer as the best possible beverage choice. Summer is one of the four!
Here are some quick write-ups about a handful of beers that I felt compelled to take a picture of this summer. This is not a comprehensive list of all of my summer beers. Who has that kind of time?
Sawdust City Brewing Company – Patio Nights
Sawdust City (who I enjoy) have marketed this as kind of a “sangria beer”. It looks lovely in a glass. It is firmly okay. Kind of a nice and fruity change from an everyday beer, with a heavy dose of hibiscus. I feel as though this beer could go from being okay to great if they hadn’t added lactose to it. I could be in the minority here, but I feel like lactose has never made a beer better. I don’t have a clue why people insist on throwing it in everything.
Anyway, this is okay.
Sawdust City Brewing Company – Pineapple & Scotch Bonnet Kettle Sour
Sawdust City have really thrown everything but the kitchen sink at their kettle sour. Some of it works pretty well and some of it doesn’t. I didn’t know what to expect from a beer infused with hot peppers, but I’m into spicy stuff and was excited to try. Turns out: Pretty neat! The beer itself is a nice enough mild sour. Slightly tropical, pretty refreshing. The scotch bonnet, which kind of has a fruity feel to begin with, integrates well enough into the beer that you don’t taste a lot of it specifically, but then sort of a tingling/buzzing warmth started to spread through my mouth and chest and guts. It was fun and I would buy this again!
Amsterdam Brewery – Hazy Town
I took a picture of this beer to send someone a “Come my lady, come come my lady” joke, not because it was any good. The joke was totally worth it and the beer was just okay. It’s yet another entry into the completely oversaturated hazy IPA market, and not one of the better ones. I recommend trying one of the better ones, like Collective Arts’ “Life In The Clouds” or Sawdust City’s “Juicin'”, if you can find it.
Brewery Unknown? – Yup! Light
Nope!
Juicebox Craft Beer With Lemonade – Raspberry Lemonade
I took a picture of this because it was one of the worst things that I have tasted. There is a dirty sponge in the picture that I would rather chew on before trying to drink another Juicebox Craft Beer With Lemonade.
Very bad. Like licking a dirty toilet seat and a toilet seat cleaned with Lysol, somehow at the very same time.
South River Brewing Co – Buckshot Craft Lager
This brewery is located in… South River. It used to be called Highlander Brewing Co, but now it isn’t. They do a lot of English style ales and such, and they’re one of those breweries where they make things that are called IPAs that don’t really taste like the contemporary idea of what an IPA is. We were passing through on our way to a camping trip and I picked up a big pile of what they had on offer. I only took two pictures of their stuff. I think a lot of it is fine and some of it is not so great, but a few of them are quite good.
Buckshot Craft Lager is pretty great. It’s a good and not too sweet lager. Very good summer beer. Refreshing and flavourful. Easily recommendable.
South River Brewing Co – Honey I’m Home Honey Wheat
This wound up being not quite what I expected, because it doesn’t have any of the signature “wheat beer” flavour notes. Frankly, it tastes pretty similar to the Buckshot Lager, albeit with a hint of honey sweetness. Enjoyable and fresh-tasting. Would probably grab this again.
Summer is a pretty good time to drink beer!
In the summertime you might be outside working in the yard or outside trying to keep your kid from doing something crazy, and this can make a person really thirsty. Luckily, you can buy beer for that.
If you’re BBQing, it is a scientific fact that you will do a better job if you are drinking a beer while you do it. There are even some non-alcoholic beers out these days that don’t make me want to vomit. So you can still drink a beer, even if you don’t want to drink.
So as we close out the dog days of summer and head into that transition into the pumpkin spice days of autumn, I hope that you all enjoy whatever beer makes you happy.
Have you had any great beer this summer? Let me know!
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