Fruit Salad

Shiner Prickly Pear Lager

It's decent. Tastes kinda like what you'd imagine a prickly pear would taste like (admit it: you haven't eaten one and neither have I).  And other than that, it's a decent tasting lager. It has enough hops but isn't hoppy, and it's not sweet either. Even holds up once it's not cold anymore.

Flying Dog Blood Line

There's a big hop component to the smell of the Blood Line, but taste wise, it tastes like a cross between orange juice and beer, which it is. Unfortunately, I like really pulpy orange juice and this is crystal clear. More gold-amber than orange. And the orange character is really more juice than zest or tartness, if that makes sense. If you love orange juice, you may love this. Or you may consider it a perversion against that which you love most. I think it's decent. For a beer that's supposed to taste like "blood orange", I am grateful that it tastes like orange and not like blood.

Omnipollo Hypnopompa

I've been looking forward to this all week, saying the name aloud every time I open the fridge.

It's quite heady, with powerful, even bitter malt and some hop presence too. Do yourself a giant favor and take the thing out of the fridge first. Drinking it cold kills it—it starts to taste good around 62°F to my meat thermometer, which also probably makes it taste slightly more like chicken strips.

It is at these temperatures that the chocolate, mallow root, and other fun flavors show themselves. Like a naked guy coming in from a blizzard, the flavor in this one is a grower, not a shower. The bitterness really subsides, and I'm left with the impression that if aged, this would get real leathery and even more delicious. If I find myself in a beer store with some extra coin, and if my new apartment has somewhere appropriate to store it, I'll get another.

I love the bottle on this. Fun disco font on the back, and these little white discs on the front. What are they? A venn diagram?

Nope, they're little eyes! Too cute. There's actually black printing on the brown bottle (which is impossible to see when it's full of dark beer), but once you empty it, it's staring back at you!

Anyway, this is a winner. I'd keep the bottle too, if I had space. A bit expensive, but worth it, and I'd save it away for a year or five for best results.

(Hits and) Misses

Northwest Brewing Company Mango Weizen

The label says Mango Weizen. To me, it tastes like neither a mango, nor a weizen. The label also says it's on clearance, and now you know why I bought it. It wasn't even good enough to take a picture of it, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

New Belgium Pear Ginger Beer Contains Alcohol

The new Belgium one on the other hand has a beautiful printed bottle. I love the Lips of Faith series, as has been evidenced by previous posts. It doesn't really taste like pear, but there is definitely a ginger kick. It doesn't work that well, but it's all right. If you really sniff hard it kinda smells like pears. And the bottle says it contains alcohol, which it definitely does, though mercifully it does not taste too much like alcohol. Anyway, this is decent but not great: a bummer, because it's on the pricy side, but when you use adjuncts such as those, the end result is just going to cost more. New Belgium's Lips of Faith is sometimes a bit hit or miss, and this one I just have to pass on.