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When last we left fruit beer reviews, I doled out major praise to Bar Harbor for balancing blueberry fruit flavor while maintaining a solid level of traditional craft beer appeal. Based on a recommendation, this weekend I thought I would take a stab at Louisiana brewery Abita's Strawberry Harvest Lager. After my first sip, I realized it would be perfect... for a counterpoint example of why fruit beers often get a bad rap!The nose is an overwhelming burst of strawberry. It's too much by any standards (except maybe for Kool-Aid Man: Oh yeah!), but what's most unfortunate is that it isn't a nose full of fresh Ponchatoula strawberries as the bottle promises. Instead, the berries reek of sugary cream reminiscent of a sweet strawberry yogurt bar. It all sits on a subtle palette of malt, but if not for the carbonation, one might be hard pressed to tell based on aroma that this is beer at all.
The taste isn't much better. Abita drinks like a strawberry shake with sweet and overwhelming strawberry flavor. The label speaks of "a light, crisp lager with just a hint of strawberry sweetness." Hmm. The lager certainly is crisp -- refreshing bubbles are the only thing that salvages this brew -- but when it comes to the "light" department, this beer is an overachiever, masked almost entirely by its sweetness. The finish is almost all strawberries. It's not an experiment I will be trying anytime soon, but the taste is similar to what I would expect from the leftover liquid in the bottom of a bowl of Frankenberry if I substituted Michelob Ultra for milk.
THE FINAL SIP: Abita Strawberry Harvest Lager is the kind of fruit beer that gives fruit beers a bad name to traditional brewing fanatics. It's 100% about selling beer with fruit flavoring showing very little consideration for making it taste at all like beer. But maybe that's what you like? I could see this scoring very high from someone who isn't a big beer fan. For my tastes, I'm glad I only have one left in the fridge, but if you're one of the commenters who scolded me for slighting Bud Light Lime, Abita Strawberry might be a life changing experience.
[Photo Credit: abita.com]
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8-25-2008 @12:10PM Matt Mazz said... At this year's Beer, Bourbon, and BBQ festival, the Sam Adams booth had us sample a blackberry beer and a coffee stout, and vote on a fave.
The stout was not bad, but the fruity beer was terrible. If done properly, the fruit beers can be a treat, but they are few and far between.
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8-25-2008 @3:06PM Sara said... Ugh, I get so tired of all the fruity, spicy beers. The pumpkin one (I think by Sam Adams) is not good at all. Yet people buy it in heaps! Just brew a good rich beer, folks. :)
http://www.ecosalon.com
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8-25-2008 @9:24PM Chan said... how about watermelon beer?
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8-25-2008 @9:33PM ZachB said... I've drank a lot of this beer. Occasionally, I'll get one that has a REALLY strong fruit flavor (and its awful). The beer is supposed to have a much more subtle strawberry flavor. I think you probably got some that was way more sweet than it should have been.
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8-26-2008 @9:30AM Jon said... Sara, you must be thinking of a different brewery. Sam Adams doesn't make a pumpkin beer. (Well, they might make a small-batch pumpkin beer, but it's not available in stores.) Post Road, Smuttynose, Dogfish Head, and many other breweries make pumpkin beers, and they're all good. The only bad pumpkin beer I've had was Blue Moon, but they're owned by Coors, so of course they're awful.
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9-11-2008 @5:17PM H town said... I live two minutes from Ponchatoula where strawberry season peaks in April. While I don't consider myself a beer connoisseur in any way, I thought this beer was delicious and drank several back in April. I haven't seen any for sale since April. I'm guessing that you got a hold of some skunk beer.
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