Shannon set to deliver Blackberry Crystal Wheat

Image courtesy of
Shannon Brewing Co.

Wanna see somethin' purple?

Come March, that's a question the folks at Shannon Brewing Co. are likely to ask someone looking to try something new. The new thing in this case being a spring/summer seasonal beer by the name of Blackberry Crystal Wheat (6.2% ABV).

Available statewide beginning March 14, Blackberry Crystal Wheat is a kristallweizen brewed with real blackberry puree. The infusion is said to give the beer a refreshing and subtly dry fruit flavor, not to mention a striking purple color.

The official launch of Blackberry Crystal Wheat will coincide with the brewery's annual St. Patrick's Day Celebration, set to occur on Saturday, March 17 (click here to purchase tickets). In addition to food and live music, the event will feature over 20 Shannon beers on tap, including a number of barrel-aged varieties.

Beyond that, consumers can expect to find Shannon Blackberry Crystal Wheat on tap and in six-packs of 12-ounce cans.

Shiner harvests the Hill Country for Peach Wheat

Image credit: The Gambrinus Co.

When a little white box from the little brewery in Shiner shows up at my door in the spring or summer, it's a fairly safe bet that some sort of fruit beer is in the offing. Just consider what the Spoetzl Brewery has produced during warm weather months over the past few years. Beers like Ruby Redbird, Prickly Pear and Strawberry Blonde have all hit the market once the mercury started rising in the Lone Star State.

In each of those instances, the fruit used to make the beer was harvested right here in Texas, which is a trend that continues with the latest beer in Shiner's Brewer's Pride series, Hill County Peach Wheat (4.5% ABV, 15 IBU). It's a beer that's brewed with a mix of 2-row and wheat malt, along with other natural flavors, but the peaches are what brings "the Hill Country to your hand."

Peach Wheat makes for a fine poolside potation (The Gambrinus Co.).

Now, make no mistake, Hill Country Peach Wheat is peachy, and not in a contrived way like a lot of beers that claim to feature the fuzzy fruit's flavor. It's just that other than a hint of wheat grain in the finish, peaches more or less dominate the palate. So, the question of the beer's appeal would seem to come down to whether the peach presence is too much of a good thing.

On that note, my impression of Hill Country Peach Wheat follows almost directly in line with what I thought about Shiner Prickly Pear. When the beer is cold...ice cold...it's a refreshing and effervescent beverage that stops just short of the soda-like quality I sensed when drinking Ruby Redbird. Let it get too warm, though, and it feels as if the sweetness starts to linger just a little bit too long.

Be that as it may, Hill Country Peach Wheat almost certainly isn't meant to be a sipping beer. Rather than setting aside time to savor a beer like this, you're more likely to shotgun it on a hot summer day. Just keep it cold and keep it koozied, if that's the case, and you'll be good to go should you decide to pop a Peach Wheat poolside.

Like all Brewer's Pride release, Shiner Hill Country Peach Wheat will only be available for a limited time. Look for it on tap, in 24-ounce bombers, and in 12-ounce bottles as part of the brewery's Family Reunion six pack.

A fruit beer comes to fruition at Grapevine

Image courtesy of Grapevine Craft Brewery.

A product nearly four years in the making, Grapevine Craft Brewery has announced the release of its first fruit beer in the form of Prickly Pear Wheat.

The creation of head brewer, Jonny Daylett, Prickly Pear Wheat has a bit of history around the homebrewing community. As far back as 2012, a version of the beer known as The Pear Necessities made the rounds at events under the umbrella of the Daylett Brew Company. Later, Daylett and the beer's recipe would become part of the plans behind Frisco City Grainworks, a startup slated to open in late 2014. When that didn't happen, Daylett made his eventual move to Grapevine, where the beer will now live on as a limited commercial release.

As for what consumers can expect, Prickly Pear Wheat is brewed with real fruit puree to give it a "vibrant and striking magenta color." It's a beer of moderate strength, given an ABV of 6.1%, and one the brewery says is "summer drinking at its finest."

According to a press release, Prickly Pear Wheat will be available on draft and in six-packs of 12-ounce cans beginning in June. Additional limited offerings will follow, including Tropical Double IPA with Blood Orange and Mango (draft and package), and Brewers' Reserve Tart Cherry Berliner Weisse (draft only).

Apricot Provincial coming from Funkwerks in March

Following up the 4-pack release of its year-round Raspberry Provincial in the fall of 2015, Funkwerks has announced the addition of a new Belgian-style fruit beer with similar naming to its seasonal lineup.

Apricot Provincial, slated as the brewery's spring seasonal, is a sessionable Belgian-style sour ale with an ABV of 4.2%. It was brewed with a unique 24-hour warm souring technique using lactobacillus in the wort, then fermented with a Belgian yeast strain famous for its fruit character. The chosen yeast is said to be the perfect compliment to the fruit, resulting in a beer with a citrusy apricot aroma that transitions into a subtlety sweet and tart finish.

"It's the perfect beer to bring in the spring season because of its light citrus flavor and delightful apricot notes," says Gordon Schuck, co-founder and head brewer of Funkwerks.

According to a press release, Apricot Provincial will be available in 4-packs of 330 mL bottles, with deliveries to retail outlets in North Texas to occur by late March.

Checking out Shiner's new Strawberry Blonde

Image credit: The Gambrinus Company

Arriving on my doorstep this week, samples of the newest beer from the Spoetzl Brewery came labeled with a promise to deliver "a little something special from the little brewery in Shiner."

Strawberry Blonde is beer No. 7 in Shiner's Brewer's Pride Series, following Haymaker Extra Pale Ale which debuted earlier in 2015. It's a lager brewed with fresh strawberries from Poteet, Texas, a little town about 40 miles south of San Antonio. Poteet, in case you didn't know, is known as "The Strawberry Capital of Texas," and the city hosts a festival dedicated to that particular fruit during harvest time each year (www.strawberryfestival.com).

The beer, you might say, is a celebration of strawberries as well. To be sure, the berries are the dominant player, but the flavor of the fruit is balanced in and of itself. The taste is lightly tart and not too sweet, which keeps the beer from being too much of one thing and not enough of the other. Then again, no one would ever accuse Shiner of going way over the top with any of their beers, so maybe this is exactly what one should expect.

Going beyond the fruit, the list of ingredients includes a mix of pale and wheat malts, which to me gives the beer a little bit of a biscuity character. It doesn't quite make for biscuits and jam in a bottle (though, the neck label does suggest you "jam out" with this beer), but the grain bill does provide what I'd call a pastry-like impression.

On the tongue, Strawberry Blonde is light and refreshing, though it's perhaps somewhat overly effervescent. The carbonation is intense, to say the least, and while it's not all that evident based on the quickly dissolving head, as your drinking the beer the bubbles don't exactly dance across your palate.

Despite that, at least in terms of flavor and the ability to slake your thirst on a hot summer day, Strawberry Blonde is a pretty decent beer. Of course, I'm not suggesting beer geeks are going to cast aside, say, New Glarus Strawberry Rhubarb in favor this brew, since it should be understood that the two breweries don't have the same target audience. Still, for someone looking to make their first foray into a fruit beer, I can't help but see Strawberry Blonde as a perfectly reasonable option.

Strawberry Blonde will be released in 12-ounce bottles as part of Shiner's Family Reunion variety pack. It will also be available on tap and in 24-ounce bombers. Look for it wherever Shiner is sold.


Strawberry Blonde
Style: Fruit beer
ABV: 4.3%
IBU: 11

Prickly Pear is Shiner's new summer seasonal

Image credit: The Gambrinus Company

Just for fun, imagine a world where Mother Goose wrote nursery rhymes about beer. Not just any beer mind you, but Shiner Prickly Pear, the brewery's new summer seasonal. Such a sonnet might go something like this:

Peter Piper poured a pint of Prickly Pear.

A pint of Prickly Pear Peter Piper poured.

If Peter Piper poured a pint of Prickly Pear,

Where's the pint of Prickly Pear that Peter Piper poured!?

You know the drill...say it ten times fast.

Getting back to reality, Shiner announced in January that Ruby Redbird would be transitioning to a year-round offering, and they followed that up yesterday with news that Prickly Pear would be taking its place as the brewery's warm weather rotator. As it just so happens, samples arrived at my door on exactly the same day, packaged along with cactus leaves, tweezers, band-aids and gauze. Apparently there's an element of danger in drinking this particular beer.

Prickly Pear, as it turns out, is likely familiar to many, since the returning recipe was originally released as the third beer in Shiner's Brewer's Pride series. And, from what I can tell, things haven't changed much in terms of the ingredient list, as the beer still features prickly pear (and other natural flavors) added to a mash of mixed grains and a combination of Citra and U.S. Goldings hops.

Now, having had a few prickly pear beers in the past, I will say that this incarnation differs quite a bit in terms of its color cast. Others I've had were more distinctive visually, most times with deeper pinkish hues. This one is perhaps best described as having no more than a tinge of pink color, or if we were to borrow a term from the wine world, the look of a rosé amber lager. Appearances aside, though, what really matters is whether the beer is any good.

On that note, the beer's aroma has a fairly strong floral element to go along with the prickly pear and other fruit flavors that are more strawberry-like than citrusy. Things tone down somewhat in the taste, as the tartness fades away almost completely, leaving soft but lingering fruit tones and a finish that is awash in wheat grain. It's a well-carbonated brew, with a light-to-medium body and a slightly more than mild bitterness.

So, would I drink it? Yes...as long it's ice cold. Just out of the cooler, Prickly Pear is refreshing and unique, but once it starts to warm up the sweetness and intensity of the fruit picks up and it's just a little too much for my particular taste. If you like fruit infusions, though, this might be just the thing for your poolside or patio, especially if you're the type that likes a beer that doesn't really taste like one.

It's probably not a coincidence that the last statement above can also be said for Ruby Redbird, the brewery's now former summer seasonal. It's interesting to note, though, that Ruby Redbird is referred to by Shiner as "The Perfect Summer Beer." As for Prickly Pear...it's now "The Official Shiner of Summer."

Prickly Pear is available in 6-packs, 12-packs and cases of 12-ounce bottles or cans, as well as in 24-ounce bombers and on tap. Look for it wherever Shiner is sold.

Armadillo crafting 'Wunder'ous new brew

Image credit: Armadillo Ale Works (click to enlarge)

Armadillo Ale Works generated a fair bit of buzz back in May, when they announced plans had been finalized to build a brewery of their own in Denton. While a spring 2015 opening is still a ways off on the calendar, founders Bobby Mullins and Yianni Arestis are hoping to give fans of the brewery an idea of what they can expect once the new facility debuts next year.

The pair admits that the success of Brunch Money had a lot to do with their decision to release a line of limited-edition brews with the aforementioned goal in mind. As Arestis explains, when "customers tell you it's their favorite beer of the year...that gives you the confidence to keep taking risks." Statements like that have reinforced their vision of what they want the brewery to be known for, which is one capable of producing quality brews that are both innovative and unique.

Those are words that will most certainly describe the beer they're brewing this weekend, but just in case you'd prefer a different turn of phrase, allow me to suggest 'summertime refresher.' In fact, that was the goal for Armadillo's newest beer from the start. With seasonal temperatures in mind, they decided their next release "would have to be a combination of the most refreshing fruit and the most refreshing type of beer." What instantly came to mind was the idea of making a watermelon kölsch.

Due out in mid-August, WunderMelon will be a traditional German-style kölsch brewed with malted barley and a touch of wheat. Real watermelon juice will be used to provide the supplemental flavor, and plans are to add it directly to the fermenter. Mullins says that incorporating the fruit later in the brewing cycle should help maintain freshness and make the beer really pop. Test batches, he reveals, have resulted in a "dry and crisp beer, with a slightly tart fruitiness." The fruit juice, moreso than the hops used, lends a hint of bitterness on the back end to help balance the sweetness upfront.

Finishing out with a 5.2% ABV and 26 IBU, WunderMelon promises to be a light, easy-drinker, which should make it a great choice for the sure to be sweltering days ahead. At least that's the impression one gets when Arestis says, "I can't think of anything I'd want to drink more on a hot Texas summer day."

WunderMelon will be available on tap and in 22 oz bombers. Launch parties are scheduled at venues across the Metroplex, with special edition WunderMelon pint glasses expected to be available at each location:

August 15 at 7 p.m. - Oak St. Drafthouse, Denton
August 16 at 7 p.m. - Craft and Growler, Dallas
August 16 at 7 p.m. - Brewed, Fort Worth

Also take note that a batch of Brunch Money is rolling out to retail as we speak. As before, though, quantities are limited, meaning stores may sell out quickly.