Image Property of 21st Amendment Brewery
Type: Beer – Fruit Beer
Name: 21st Amendment Brewery – Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Beer
Price: Free (gift)
Made: San Francisco, CA
Alc/Vol: 4.9%
Now, before I really go into how I felt about this beer I already had a slight pretense against it. A friend of mine, Greg, is a bit of a beer aficionado. Well, Greg has for some time been a fan of 21st Amendment Brewery and what they have been doing out of San Fran. He is also an avid IPA lover but wanted to try this beer even though he isn’t a fan of watermelon, and he hated it. So when someone is telling you this it is hard not to set low expectations.
The problem is I lowered the bar and this beer still seemed to under-perform. I love watermelons, I’m not huge on fruit beers although I liked my caipirinha made with watermelon.
Have you ever bit into a watermelon and it was deep and juicy? It was thirst quenching and refreshing, deep in color and seemed to cool off the summer heat with a single bite. Then, have you ever had a watermelon that was bland, lacking in richness or even color for that matter? It was juicy but tasted more like a melted watermelon Popsicle than anything else. Unfortunately, this beer was the latter.
Now, I don’t know much about old San Fran in relation to watermelon production and I’m not sure what kind of access they have to quality watermelon but it seems like they got a bit of the latter. The problem with watermelon is that it is so juicy that it could easily water down the flavor of whatever you are drinking, add the aluminum can to it and you a weird tangy aftertaste.
It was semi-sweet, yeasty (I thought it was odd/interesting that it said “yeast inside-agitate before opening”) but overall watery. I’d really hate to say this, and it wasn’t that bad, but when I volunteered in New Orleans for a week and we were served FEMA can water it had a similar taste. Which isn’t a good thing. It hurts me to say this but I can’t give this beer any bananas, its a 0 out of 5 on this beer. But I don’t count out 21st Amendment Brewery, I’ve heard too many good things to not try their other beers. It is just this one will be one of those beers I just can’t get behind.
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