beverage of the week – Page 2 – Syndication Server

Hard Seltzer of the Week: Willie’s Superbrew is as weird as its name suggests

“Superfruits” and herbs make Willie’s stand out in a crowded seltzer market. Is that a good thing?

Welcome back to FTW’s Beverage of the Week series. Here, we mostly chronicle and review beers, but happily expand that scope to any beverage that pairs well with sports. Yes, even cookie dough whiskey.

Willie’s Superbrew is not like other hard seltzers. That’s clear right away.

Whether it’s the craft brewery-style 16-ounce cans with sticker labels or the bold promise of “superfruit,” it’s not a drink you’d ever confuse with High Noon, White Claw or a host of slim-canned market standbys. The Massachusett brewer’s uniqueness isn’t limited to marketing, either. Their lineup includes flavors like ginger and turmeric and hops, which go above and beyond the La Croix-limited palates of other seltzer brands.

A drink that started as a home-brewed, boozy and fruited ginger beer has expanded to three flavors from its New England roots. And each can, from its DIY aesthetic to the uncommon mashup of flavors inside maintains that vibe. That makes it very interesting and at least a little cool amidst a perpetually expanding marketplace.

But is it any good?

Snack of the Week: Wilde Protein Chips work best when they remember they’re made of chicken

Chicken and eggs, in potato chip form? Alright, I’m listening…

I really like the idea of a healthier potato chip. I understand it’s not really a thing — absent-mindedly ripping through a bag in between meals is always gonna be at least a slight detriment if you’re trying to lose weight — but the idea of packing crushable empty calories with *something* useful at least brings some cold comfort.

That led me to Quest’s protein snacks a while back, which are made with whey and milk proteins and, thus, are all tinged with a certain dairy taste that persists no matter the chip. This wasn’t bad, it’s just something that worked far better in some flavors than others.

Wilde offers something different. Their protein chips come from a poultry base, offering chicken breast, bone broth and eggs as sources. That’s an interesting twist, even if I’m a little wary of casually snacking on flattened-out chicken between meals.

But hey, it does sound pretty good, and I’m very much into the idea that my sudden mid-day craving for garbage could be beneficial. Let’s see how they taste.

Beer of the Week: Shiner exists at the nexus of drinkable, available and cheap

Everyone knows Shiner Bock. What about Shiner Black or Shiner Blonde?

Shiner Bock’s a standby in the world of smaller beers gone big. A widely available, mass produced beer that leans into its local roots.

Like Sam Adams is decidedly Boston, Shiner is decidedly Texas. While the Massachusetts standby presses its status as a craft brewing pioneer, Shiner has always felt a little more universal. A little more attainable. A little less snobby.

Part of that was because the company’s flagship beer, Shiner Bock, was so dang easy to drink. It was basic malty goodness, a step up from macrobrewing’s golden lagers that you could find in most supermarket beer aisles or package stores for negligibly more than a Miller High Life or Coors Banquet beer.

There’s more to Shiner than just Bock. The question remains whether the rest of the company’s brews can live up to the standard of its simple, beloved headliner. The cold weather — well, relatively cold for Texas — has brought along a swell of new seasonals and offerings from the brewery. Let’s drink those and see what we’ve got.

Vodka of the week: Beattie’s farm-made vodkas are a proper slice of Canada

Canadian vodka is good vodka, it turns out.

I’ve found it’s tough to have an opinion on good vodka.

Terrible vodka, sure. You can compare it to nail polish remover or whatever you used to clean out Nintendo cartridges back in the day. But good vodkas tend to blend together for a relative neophyte like me who rarely drinks it outside the context of a cocktail. You’ve got smooth … and then what?

Fortunately Beattie’s potato vodkas are here to expand my horizons, for better or worse. The Alliston, Ontario distillery offers a limited array of tuber-based spirits in simple flavors and simple packaging. Each bottle looks true to its farmhouse roots, and it’s one I’m eager to try despite my lack of familiarity.

I’ve had my share of Canadian alcohol in my life. Moosehead makes what might be my favorite large scale lager. Canadian whisky is a special blend of smooth and inexpensive that made it a go-to in college and reliable standby now.

But I’d never had Canadian vodka until now. Until I found out about Beattie’s, I don’t know if I’d ever really heard about it. A little research suggests there are a handful of established distillers up north, some quaint and some wearing the equivalent of denim-on-denim and screeching for attention by bottling their booze in a dang hockey stick.

Beattie’s presents itself as a leader in the field. How does it measure up to that standard? I’m gonna mix Beattie’s into a handful of cocktails and see how it turns out. And I’m gonna start with a craft mixer I’ve been meaning to try for a while now; Q Mixer’s ginger ale.

Hard seltzer of the week: Berczy brings a touch of class and uninspired flavors to the game

Berczy is fine, but boring. And stop foisting passion fruit on us, brewers.

Hard seltzer remains an inescapable part of the drinking landscape. And if trends continue, there’s little downside to jumping into an already crowded market.

Sales revenue for boozy seltzers increased by another 22 percent between 2022 and 2023, per Statista. Overall sales volume is projected to increase by nearly four percent next year. Young drinkers are starting with bubbly citrus instead of skunky bargain beers. Older ones are opting for the lower calorie counts and diverse flavors of slim 12-ounce cans over lagers.

That leaves plenty of room for new competitors to join the fray, though they’ll need a hook to set them apart on a crowded horizon. For Berczy, that’s a touch of London class and the distinction of an “alcoholic sparkling water.” The British import promises classic flavors and 75 calories — though the cans I received clock in at 110, which is a pretty significant difference.

Does it stand out for anything other than its origin across the pond? Let’s give it a shot.

Goose Island’s special release Bourbon County stouts are back, boozy and remarkably complex

Goose Island’s Bourbon County stouts are back for Black Friday. Surprise: they’re awesome … again.

Barrel-aged beers are a double-aged sword. Sometimes they’re the result of meticulous care and tremendous effort to make a good beer richer. Others they’re a cover-up for an unimpressive batch in hopes a higher ABV and some oaky, vanilla notes can wash away a brewery’s failure and turn it into something better.

Goose Island’s Bourbon County stouts fall firmly in the former category. The Chicago-based brewer, now owned by AB InBev, began brewing these special celebration beers more than 30 years ago. That’s a long time to perfect a process — and to add new wrinkles along the way.

This year’s media tasting, fronted virtually by senior innovation officer Mike Siegel and senior brewmaster Daryl Hoedtke, among others, took us through the arduous process of creating each year’s lineup. Employees submit their own variants on the longstanding stout in hopes of making the cut. Pilot batches are produced. The end result is an impressive array of flavor that goes above and beyond the basic, dense taste endemic to many quick-fix barrel-aged beers.

I was fortunate to get my hands on all six of this year’s Bourbon County beers right as the weather began to turn cold here in Wisconsin. I’ll tell you right now, they’re all pretty damn good. Here’s what I thought of each of Goose Island’s 2023 special brews.

Canned cocktail of the week: Tampico’s Hard Punches are boozy, sweet madness

A canned punch that tastes like the real thing — and will knock you on your butt.

If you’re like me, you recognize Tampico’s neon jugs of various fruit punches from end caps at your local, dirt cheap grocery store. Their beverages don’t have names so much as they have colors. Want a glass of thick pink? Hypercolor yellow? Concerning levels of blue?

Effectively, Tampico is the purple stuff Sunny Delight warned us about, and it’s wonderful. I still buy it occasionally as an adult, though in its sugar-substitute versions and generally cut with a fair amount of water. It’s still pretty damned sweet at that point, so you can imagine what we’re dealing with here if you’re new to the brand.

OK, so now lets take those big, sweet jugs of sugar water and add booze and a little carbonation to them. How’s it gonna turn out?

Like Sunny D before it, Tampico is the next brand to make the jump from the back of your childhood refrigerator and into canned cocktail form. Its slim cans ditch the neon lure of plastic jugs for a more sophisticated place on liquor store shelves. So can a budget fruit punch brand break into a snobbier world of hard seltzers and canned cocktails?

Ranking — and grading! — every flavor of C4 energy drink, from Starburst to Skittles

A Starburst flavor reigns supreme. Skittles, on the other hand…

C4 began life as a pre-workout drink mix. In the years since, it’s made the logical jump to energy drinks in general.

A quick rise hasn’t quite put the Cellucor brand on equal footing with Red Bull or Monster or Rockstar, but it’s been viable enough to be a staple in grocery stores across the country. A big part of that growth has been thanks to the co-branding that allows C4 to drop candy flavors — Starburst and Skittles — into pounder cans with familiar, beloved flavors and 200 milligrams of caffeine.

There’s more to C4 than just Halloween memories. So we’re gonna run down each flavor and see which reigns supreme.

The one issue I have with C4 is that as a “performance energy drink” it maintains its pre-workout roots. And that’s great if I’m actually working out, but the beta-alanine inside — third on the ingredient call sheet — brings the familiar skin-flushing, tingly feeling that makes it slightly uncomfortable for, say, sitting and writing about football all day. I guess it’s good in that it’s making me get up and do ball slams every 15 minutes, but I’m not sure that’s a plus if you’re just looking for something to wake you up.

I’ll have a separate scale for C4’s Smart Energy, since that’s a different brand and, notably, it doesn’t contain the tingle juice that makes the original a pre-workout staple. These are the 11 flavors of performance energy-branded drinks I can find at my local store, everything in the official C4 lineup but Strawberry Watermelon Ice. Here’s how they rated out.

Ranking (and grading) Athletic’s non-alcoholic beers, the best booze-less brews you’ll find

Simpler is better when it comes to booze-less brews, but Athletic’s got a stout that’s worth coming back to (and one that’s not).

Sober October is upon us, so a merry booze-less month to all of you who celebrate.

I, personally, don’t, but I can appreciate the sentiment. September is a celebration month for me, filled with football and Oktoberfests and delicious, malty beers. But on Sunday nights, after I’ve filed my last NFL story, I wind up craving a beer but have zero desire to once again tax my overworked liver or make Monday’s 6:30 AM wakeup any more difficult than it already is.

This is where Athletic Brewing Company comes in. The Connecticut-based company stood out amidst a crowded landscape by offering non-alcoholic offerings covering a wide variety of styles. Where before there may have only been Clausthaler or O’Douls, you now had the opportunity to find pale ales and stouts that carried lower calorie counts and virtually none of the booze.

That’s where I’ve been turning lately on those Sunday nights. It’s worked out well enough for me to make these rankings.

Athetic’s beers are graded on a curve; while they stack up well against traditional brews, they don’t quite get all the way there. And that’s all right, because in the land of non-alcoholic beers they mostly stand alone. As such, these grades consider both how true to the regular, booze styles they’re replicating are as well as the overall quality and taste of the beverage itself.

Also, the only brews to make the rankings are the ones I’ve personally tried and reviewed thus far. Expect this list to be updated as I expand my palate — and allow me to apologize if I haven’t gotten to your favorite yet.

Ranking — and grading — every sorta-mid Sonic Hard Seltzer flavor

Sonic’s seltzers are mostly average. Even Ocean Water and cherry limeade.

It was too easy. A burgeoning hard seltzer and canned cocktail market expanded the space for fruity, soda-adjacent alcohol. Sonic, the Oklahoma-based drive-in with the 44-ounce cups, had long prided itself on its expansive selection of sweet drinks going above and beyond the simple Coke-Sprite-tea/lemonade triumverate.

Thus, Sonic leapt into a crowded marketplace with familiar flavors and an even more recognizeable logo. The fast food company’s hard seltzers promise more than the standard citrus flavors. There’s signature tastes like their cherry limeade and Ocean Water. And, at 100 calories and five percent ABV per can, it walked an efficient line between boozy and, well not healthy, but slightly better-for-you than most drinks.

Sonic’s attempt to crack a new market — or at the very least streamline the process for anyone dumping a few shots into their enormous styrofoam cups — isn’t limited to its classic lineup. There’s a melon medley and tropical fruits and a few hard seltzer standbys. The question remains, however; is it any good?

Well, let’s see what we’re dealing with.