SUMMER DRINK IN WINTER

I don't know if you have seen the Theakstons advert about a drinker complaining about his beer not having any kumquat in it. Well , my daughter, returning from a recent holiday in the US,  brought me back some beer from Houston Texas which included a bottle of Spoetzl Brewery Shiner Prickly Pear summer lager

Now I  have had fruit flavoured beers before. As recently as our Sunderland Octoberfest, there was Darwin Orange IPA and Temptation Raspberry American and Cherry Belgian , not forgetting Titanic Plum Porter. Well here is another one I have just had, but a beer flavoured with prickly pears ?

I have done some digging and Spoetzl Brewery was established in the small town of Shiner in 1909. This therefore predates the so called US Craft explosion by a long way. I would have liked to have stated that Shiner is "On The way to Amarillo" ( as per the Neil Sedaka song), but its not - located approx halfway between Houston and San Antonio. "Is this the Way to San Antonio" doesn't quite make it when you sing it.

Sorry, back to the beer. Shiner  Bock is their flagship beer but they also produce seasonal specials. The prickly pear is a cactus found in Texas (see picture above)  and the brewer uses it to flavour this drink,  along with Citra and US Golding hops. 

So what does it taste like? Making sure there were no spines I  poured it out. The beer comes out as a deep amber colour. I am usually poor at sniffing beer ; the one fruit beer I can do is the aforesaid Plum Porter which  has a distinctive plum aroma -  I'm OK with that one. This beer had a faint fruity aroma, not too powerful.

There is some carbonation in the beer so getting used to the gasiness took a while. The initial taste was sharp, but not having eaten the fruit of a prickly pear ( have you ?) I had no idea if it was that or not. - Its a bit like having Ostrich Burgers or Kangaroo Steaks - how do you know ? Getting used to it, a cranberry flavour  kept coming onto my taste buds. I eventually got used to the bubbles and the fruit taste and finished the rest of the drink. 

During this I imagined lounging outside a cantina on a hot day in the desert, watching a tumbleweed roll past   and having this refreshing drink.Instead, as I type this, its cold and damp outside. Ah well.

  

This is about drinking summer beer in winter, for a winter drink in summer see this previous post ;- Winter lager in summer