Stiegl Radler

Stiegl Radler. A combo of beer and fruit soda, so roughly what we in Ohio would call Shandy. Sounds good to me, especially with it being grapefruit. I have a strong liking of grapefruit (if you notice, a lot of my favorite hop varieties and IPAs have grapefruit notes to them), which I think somewhere might stem from my weird obsession with Hunter S Thompson. But no, I liked grapefruit before I discovered the wonderful, twisted world of HST. Huh, I guess I'll never know, onto the review.

This is a light beer, probably the lightest I've ever had at a whopping 2.5% ABV. This is probably more of a summer beer (instead of middle of November), but today made it up to 67 degrees, and pending the storms, should be perfect drinking weather for this. The pour on this is a pale hazy yellow, almost like homemade lemonade. The aroma on this is Grapefruit, with a capital G as it overtakes the olfactory glands and sends me in a harmonious state of mind. The taste on this is fucking fantastic. It's like drinking grapefruit juice that some sorry bastard decided to blast with some club soda. The grapefruit flavor is very heavy up front and fades about 5 seconds later to a light watery flavor. This is very light bodied, smooth drinking, light, tingly carbonation to make this a good porch sipping beer.

I cannot wait until there is a porch to drink this on. This is really good, despite being so light.

(Side note: Phil, Jennie's dad, had a 3rd of this 16.9 oz can with us. He drank it with a look of shock and said "It's REALLY good!")

4.9/5 caps

-Nathan-

Ah, the much-ballyhooed Radler. Made a bit of a noise here in Ohio when it hit shelves in mid-to-late-summer. It's a German beer and beer style, somewhat scoffed by the serious afficionados, but nevertheless, intriguing to us American neophytes and hopheads alike.

As Nathan said, it pours a hazy pale yellow, almost like a weisse beer or unfiltered lemonade. There is predominant grapefruit and other citrus notes in the nose, and it distinctly reminds me of a shandy. Oh my gods it's good. This is lawnmower beer at its best. It tastes exactly like what it is: a lighter-flavored beer blended with grapefruit soda. This is what I wish our grapefruit hefewiezen tasted like. Don't get me wrong; that was a good, refreshing beer, but this is infinitely better. There is hardly any alcohol taste to this; it's more a fantastic grapefruit soda.

I don't really have more to add here, except that it's time to batten down the hatches and start on dinner for the family, Jennie Marzetti. I'm grateful that this is such a light beer, as following the Bully Porter and this, I don't need to invoke any more anger out of my kitchen gods.

4.75/5 caps

-Jennie