Summer Honey

The summer seasonal from Big Sky is a welcome change from the majority of summer ales you’ll find.  Instead of being too wheaty or fruity, or both, Summer Honey is a balanced, refreshing ale.  Many summer ales are much too wheaty and subsequently weigh you down, which is the opposite of what a summer ale should do.  If they’re too fruity, the sugar can become too much and isn’t refreshing, also the opposite of what a summer ale is meant to do.  Summer Honey, though, has many subtleties, and they work very well together.

There’s a bit of carbonation throughout each sip, starting stronger on the front end and waning toward the end.  In this case the carbonation works in the beer’s favor because there’s not too much and gives the beer a light and perky feel.  A slight sweetness from the honey hits you right away.  As the sip nears the back end, the light sweetness becomes more pronounced and even yields a fruity, berry-like flavor. The sweetness isn’t too much, though, and not every sip delivers the same amount of fruity sweetness.  It’s a nice variation and prevents you from getting bored. After a while, though, the sweetness on the back end can become a little heavy, and actually begins to fill you up.  But aside from this, the beer has a nice lightness: enough to refresh with a body that isn’t watery, yet still easy to drink. As a whole, this is a good summer beer.  All the elements work well together and produce a tasty result, but after a while I was looking to move on.  While it’s not the best summer beer I’ve had, it’s much better than most of the stuff out there, and definitely worth a try.

Overall                 7/10
Color                    4
Thickness            5
Hops/Malt          5
ABV                       4.7%

SummerBright Ale

Breckinridge Brewery’s SummerBright Ale caught my eye the other day, and since I was looking for something light for a hot summer night, I decided to go with it. I’ve had Breckinridge’s IPA before and wanted to try something else from them. The cool label sucked me in and delivered a summer ale that left me changing my mind several times.

The brewer’s intentions for this summer ale were simple:  A light wheat ale that’s easy to drink, with even hops and malt and a touch of fruit.  At first I thought they succeeded with flying colors.  I loved the slight tanginess of the wheat mixed with subtle orange and lemon flavors.  It was smooth, easy to drink and refreshing.  But as I kept drinking, I liked it less.  The orange and lemon flavors emerge at different times of each sip.  At first I thought it was a nice, surprising element, but eventually I found it imbalanced.  Sometimes the fruit would be just enough to notice, other times too much to handle.  Sometimes the wheat could build up to be a little much, and depending on how the fruit hit you, could become weighty.  The crispness waned as the wheat began to build, yet it was never hard to drink at any point.  Many times summer ales go overboard on the wheat, but this was kept it in good balance the whole time.  I’m torn because I was less impressed with SummerBright as I went on, yet it never did anything to offend me.  The fruit was very good at times and added a nice spark to the flavor, but after a while the flavor wasn’t as impressive.  While I wasn’t blown away with SummerBright and changed my opinion on it, I would get it again.  It would be good to relax with on a summer night, but I might get bored with it after a while. It is refreshing, though, and could be just what you’re looking for.  In the end, it’s decent and worth a repeat visit if you want a summer beer with a little fruit, a little wheat and don’t want to deal with extremes of either.

Overall                 7/10
Color                    3
Thickness            4
Hops/Malt          5
ABV                       4.5%

Saranac Summer Ale

My first foray into the world of Saranac will be with their summer ale.  It showcases the most common flavors for summer ales: wheat and fruit.  The Saranac version reminded me of the Brooklyn Summer Ale I previously reviewed, only this was better.  The first thing to hit you is the wheat, but it’s in much better proportion than the Brooklyn variety.  Just like most summer ales it yields a wheaty bouquet at first inspection.  Upon tasting, the wheat flavor is matched with orange and lemon notes.  The beer isn’t that thick overall, but full of wheat flavor that makes it seem heavier than it actually is.  The wheat is a bit too strong, but the fruit helps to balance it out and make it more drinkable, and helps spruce it up.  By the end, though, there is a slight aftertaste.  The beer actually tastes just fine on the front end, but by the time you get to the back end the flavor lingers too much.  

In the end, Saranac Summer Ale is not a terrible beer, just a little too tough to handle.  Even though it starts out fine, it’s not that smooth and leaves a stale wheat taste in your mouth.  It has promise, but the wheat and fruit sweetnesses need to be balanced out better. The fruit does a good job of softening the blow of the wheat, but the wheat, the primary flavor, shouldn’t have that problem to begin with.  Overall, it is a decent beer, but there are better summer ales to be had.

Overall                 6/10
Color                    3
Thickness            5
Hops/Malt          7
ABV                       4.7%

Brooklyn Summer Ale

This summer ale from the Brooklyn Brewery in Brooklyn, N.Y., is one of the seasonal offerings from this prominent East Coast brewer.  I saw this in the store a few times and after thinking about it all week I had to buy it the next time I went to the store.  After thinking about it and getting my hopes up, I was disappointed. To me there was nothing summery about this ale.  It wasn’t bright-tasting, uplifting, refreshing or easy to drink.  There were slight fruit notes, but not enough to make up for the overpowering and bitter wheat taste.  The brewer says this beer has citrus notes to go along with a “fresh bready flavor.”  I would want this ale to scale back greatly on the wheat.  Each sip began with a fine wheaty tang and ended with a bad aftertaste.  After each sip I was left with a slight cringe on my face and a lingering, starchy residue in my mouth.  At times it was difficult to drink, even though I wanted to try a few to fully grasp what it had to offer.

As summer beers go, this left a lot to be desired.  At times, when I was nearing the end of a full glass, it reminded me of a skunked beer.  The strong wheat flavor was too much for a summer ale, to the point of weighing you down.  The citrus notes would make it more refreshing if they were more pronounced, but first the overall complexion would have to be lessened.  I will review plenty more from the Brooklyn Brewery in the future, and I assure you they will be better than this one.

Overall                 4/10
Color                    4
Thickness            4
Hops/Malt          6
ABV                       5.0%