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Brew Time by KRISTIN MERRITT
Summer Brews After a normal CNY winter and what has seemed to be the longest, coldest, most terrible spring on record, it appears we are now diving right into summer, head-first. You certainly won’t find any complaining here and with restrictions beginning to be eased and lifted, sunnier days are definitely ahead! There are several traditional “summer” beers to put you in that sweet summertime mode. Summer brews tend to be on the lighter side. Shandys, Lagers, Sours, and crisp IPAs are all brews that should be on your weekend grocery lists and in your coolers all summer long. A traditional Shandy is a light beer mixed with citrus beverage, like lemonade. It may sound a little odd, but certainly don’t knock it until you try it, especially when the temperatures soar. Shandy’s are extremely refreshing and light. Leinenkugel Brewing Company’s Summer Shandy (4.2% ABV) from Chippewa Falls, WI is one of the most popular Shandy brews out on the mass market, and for good reason. It’s easy to come by in your local grocery or gas station and with their wheat beer mixed with lemonade, it makes for an easy drinking hammock beer. It’s best to drink a Shandy fresh and cold; you won’t want to let it sit in your fridge for weeks or months on end. Runner-up: Schöfferhofer Grapefruit (2.5% ABV), from Frankfurt, Germany – this is a Hefeweizen beer mixed with grapefruit juice. It’s very juicy and somewhat on the sweeter side. This is also a brew that is widely distributed and you can find this at your local Wegmans. Lagers are brews that are made using bottomfermented yeast and created under low temperatures, usually in the low 40s. The resulting brew is light and crisp. When most of us think about lagers we think about American lagers such as Budweiser, Coors, Miller and PBR, therefore making lagers one of the most underappreciated types of beer when we base them solely off of the aforementioned beers. My recommendations for Lagers come from Rare Form Brewing Company based in Troy, NY. Two of theirs come to mind that will please everyone from the PBR drinker to the more selective craft beer connoisseur. Freshy Hoppy Lager (5.5% ABV), is a lovely little brew, lightly hopped with slight citrusy notes. The second is Confetti (5.4% ABV), a Mexican-style lager brewed with New York corn and Zeus hops making this a very crisp and clean lager that you can still add a lime to. If you can’t make the drive out to the capital-region, you also have the opportunity to order from Rare Form online and have their beer shipped to you via UPS. Lagers are light and refreshing, which make them a welcome beer to have on hand in the summer and generally tend to be crowd pleasers. Sour beers are brewed to be generally acidic and therefore tart on the palate. Traditional sours include Gose, Lambic, and Flanders red ale. Many
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different strains of yeast can be used and even “wild ales” or “wild sours” are produced using Foeders, which are giant open vats, and collect different strains of wild yeast and bacteria present in the air and the beer is fermented that way. Many sours are light, tart, and can have various fruit flavors in addition. They are notably carbonated and dry and are generally pretty refreshing. Sours are personally a favorite of mine and it’s hard for me to only recommend one or two. A local recent favorite is Syracuse’s own Willow Rock Brewing Company’s Godcilla: Curuba and Soursop (3.9% ABV). This sour is indeed fruited – with soursop being a prickly green fruit with flavors reminiscent of pineapple or strawberry and curuba being a variety of passionfruit – but is not overpowering. It is dry,
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