Dave

hell or high watermelon wheat beer

There are things that I slurp and chug, and then there are things that I sip and savor–  a summer beer is some where in-between. Not watery swill, but a bright and drinkable (less drunkable), easily refillable consumable.   Enough to quench one’s thirst without inducing dizziness.   Here are a list of beers that to seem to best answer the question, what is a summer beer?

• HELL OR HIGH WATERMELON WHEAT BEER {can; 21st amendment brewerey; san francisco, ca} “We start by brewing a classic American wheat beer, which undergoes a traditional secondary fermentation using fresh watermelon. A straw-colored, refreshing beer with a kiss of watermelon aroma and flavor.”

• FESTINA PECHE {bottle; dogfish head brewerey; rehobeth beach, de} “A refreshing neo-BerlinerWeisse fermented with honest-to-goodness peaches to (get this!) 4.5% abv! Because extreme beers don’t have to be extremely boozy! Available in 4-pack and draft during the sweaty months. Sadly, there are only a few breweries left in Berlin still brewing the BerlinerWeissestyle which is characterized by its intense tartness (some say sour).”

• BROOKLYN LAGER {can; brooklyn brewerey, brooklyn, ny}  “Brooklyn Lager, the Brewery’s flagship label, is New York’s “hometown” beer, brewed to a pre-Prohibition recipe that dates back to the days when Brooklyn was the brewing capital of the East Coast. Brooklyn Lager has won numerous awards.”

• NATIONAL BOHEMIAN {can; eponymous; milwaukee, wi} “A treasured mid-Atlantic brand since 1885. National Bohemian, or Natty Boh is Baltimore’s signature beer and a legend among American beers.  In the late ’40s, canned beer started becoming popular and National was the first brewer in the U.S. to put six-packs of cans on the market. In following decade, National Brewing continued to proudly represent Baltimore and the Maryland shore, adopting the now famous slogan: “From the Land of Pleasant Living.”

• THE LOVE {bottle; starr hill brewery; nelson co, va} “The Love is an unfiltered wheat beer, also known as a hefeweizen. It is distinguished by its extremely light body and flavored with hints of banana and clove. A slice of lemon can complement this refreshing brew.  A friend of mine would smuggle wheat-beer yeast back from a brewery in Germany, and he won the National Home Brewers’ Competition one year with this yeast that he’d smuggled. I asked him if he would ‘share the love’ and let us borrow the yeast, and 10 years later he finally did.”

• DALES PALE ALE {can; oskar brewery; lyons, co} “America’s first hand-canned craft beer is a voluminously hopped mutha that delivers a hoppy nose, assertive-but-balanced flavors of pale malts and hops from start to finish. First canned in 2002, Dale’s Pale Ale is a hearty (6.5% and 65 IBUs), critically acclaimed trailblazer that has changed the way craft beer fiends perceive canned beer.”