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Beverage of the Week: Four Peak’s Joy Bus Wow wheat beer looks great, tastes … good enough

Gorgeous can, pretty good fruity wheat beer inside.

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.

When I was in Arizona for last winter’s Super Bowl, I used the opportunity to work my way through the local beer scene. I got to hit breweries like The Shop, Mother Road, Lumberyard and Wren House, but there was something missing. Four Peaks, one of the state’s oldest micro-turned-medium breweries was conspicuously absent.

Some of that was by choice. I’m not a big Scottish-style beer guy, which is exactly what their flagship Kilt Lifter is. But there was still a sense of regret. So when the brewery made its new-ish Joy Bus Wow wheat beer, I saw another opportunity. Here was the chance to give Four Peaks a try and drink a beer whose proceeds, in part, go to the Joy Bus charity, which helps improve the lives of homebound cancer patients.

A beer that helps people is an easy way to introduce yourself to new markets. Did Four Peaks come up with a product that’ll help it play outside the southwest?

Beverage of the Week: Vizzy’s creamsicle hard seltzer almost gets it right

Creamsicle hard seltzer sounds great. In execution, it’s a little too … seltzer-y.

In the world of hard seltzers, Vizzy is a name I see a lot but have yet to try. It’s not the industry pioneer, like White Claw. It’s not an industry leader like High Noon. It’s not readily available at the open bar at weddings like Truly. So there it is, recognizable but not yet something I could actually say is good or bad.

Needless to say, Vizzy needed to stand out. Unleashing a creamsicle seltzer in time for hot days at the pool? Yep, you’ve got my attention now.

Coors did their own take on the orange classic in a limited edition seltzer offering last year, but I was unable to find it in time (what I also miss from Coors’ limited summer selection? A pretty decent shandy. Anyway …). I was worried that was my last crack at the ethereal taste of childhood mixed with the unmistakable tenet of drinking in the 2020s. Thankfully, Vizzy — owned by Molson Coors — stepped up to fill that void.

Beverage of the Week: Parlor’s root beers taste like being a kid again

Butterscotch root beer sounds like the hottest drink of 1956 and it rules.

Full sugar sodas have become a special treat for me akin to fancy scotch or a nice steak. They’re awesome, but since I’ve no longer got the metabolism of a teenager and there’s already a steady slice of my diet reserved for beer-related calories I typically just default to whatever artificially sweetened diet or “zero” options are at hand.

The one exception is root beer. I’m fortunate enough to live in Wisconsin, which has not only great beers but incredible sodas. Standing atop that landscape is Sprecher, whose founder needed to brew something for kids touring his facilities with their parents to sip on and stumbled into a soft drink empire. Sprecher makes some S-tier beverages — their Puma Kola and Orange Dream are rich and satisfying — but the company’s bread and butter is its fire brewed, honey sweetened root beer.

This put Parlor, a new craft soda brand backed by a handful of music business veterans, on my radar for this column. It also gave the startup a high bar to clear. Would their full sugar lineup of soft drinks be worth the 170 calorie toll per bottle? Could they bring birch beer back?

I’m game. Let’s dig in.

Beverage of the Week: HenHouse Brewing’s got this prestige beer thing down

Each HenHouse beer is a whole ride. In a good way.

I hadn’t heard of HenHouse Brewing, but a PR email put me onto a California brewery with some cool labels. Then a quick search suggested their Big Chicken Double IPA was a wait-in-line beer on par with Pliny the Younger or Heady Topper.

Needless to say, I was intrigued. But since I’m in Wisconsin and HenHouse is one of the few beers outside my grasp up here (this is not a complaint, Wisconsin is wonderful and there are roughly six breweries between my house and the Madison airport, 30 minutes away), the company was gracious enough to send me a couple of their beers for review. A couple of heavy, complex beers with a high bar to clear.

Does HenHouse belong on the beer snobbery tier reserved for breweries like Treehouse or Trillium or Russian River? Could they live up to the legitimately impressive art of their labels? Let’s tuck into a couple offerings and see how it turns out.

Beverage of the Week: Sunny D Vodka Seltzer is way better than ‘purple stuff’

Nostalgia meets booze trends to make a glorious, orange-y seltzer you can drink all day.

Nostalgia is one hell of a drug. Especially for millennials currently caught up in any generational malaise.

That’s why we’ve seen a lot of the 1990s come back into focus lately. We brought back Dunkaroos. We adapted Legends of the Hidden Temple for adults (it went poorly). Now we’re doing the same for Sunny Delight.

“Sunny D,” as its known to friends, was and remains the nebulous sweet, slightly goopy orange drink that arrived in our childhood refrigerators in bottles shaped like whac-a-mole mallets. It was orange juice without pulp or bitterness and, somehow, less sugar than the actual thing. It was great and kinda awful and despite those fond(ish) memories I hadn’t had it in any form in roughly two decades.

Until this week, because Sunny D now comes in a boozed-up version. Behold, Sunny D Vodka Seltzer.

Beverage of the Week: Topo Chico Spirited is perfect bubbly, boozy summer flavor

Topo Chico Spirited offers boozy cocktails with lots of flavors, low calories and, this is important, thick-thick bubbles.

I’d heard a lot about Topo Chico, but I kinda dismissed it as dumb seltzer hype. La Croix kinda ruined an entire genre by tasting like angry fizz and the vague recollection of a fruit you once liked.

But people kept talking it up, and when they added booze to the mix — not just a hard seltzer, but a straight-up cocktail — I was intrigued. Now that I’ve had it … well, I’m not obsessed, but I understand why people would be.

There’s something different about Topo Chico’s carbonation. The bubbles are different. Bigger. Softer. While most seltzers and sodas have tiny circles of CO2, Topo Chico’s beverages taste like they’re filled with ovals. It’s like the difference between a regular tap beer and a nitro one. It’s softer, maybe even a little creamier.

We’ll get into all that though. Let’s talk about each flavor.

Beverage of the Week: A big ol’ margarita throwdown, with Milagro, Santo and Batch & Bottle

There are tons of low-effort margarita mixes and kits out there. I rolled through five of them to see which is worth your while.

I’m coming around on tequila.

The spirit that once induced nausea from a single whiff — thanks, Pepe Lopez! — has turned me back to its side thanks to my slow, ongoing introduction to brands that aren’t best used for stripping varnish off old shipwreck wood. A smattering of canned cocktails slowly began changing my mind. Then, earlier this spring, 818’s premium offering showcased how lush tequila can be.

This is all very good timing; 2023 has been a big year for the spirit. Like peach flavoring, it’s been a focus of the ever-shifting booze landscape as brands launch into their summer fun phase (a departure from the “it’s winter, let’s stay inside and drink” phase that follows). So I’m gonna lean in and roll with the drink that’s the word-association partner of “tequila.”

This week, we’re hitting margaritas in three different, but low effort, forms. Premade in a bottle without tequila, premade in a fancy kit with tequila, and made at home with a ready-to-go mix and a couple solid, mid-tier bottles. How’d they stack up? Let’s find out.

Beverage of the Week: Leinenkugel’s new session sour peach isn’t sour, isn’t bad

Leinenkugel’s made a sour. Well, kind of.

Leinenkugel’s sales numbers are surging. Sure, that’s mostly related to the fact the company made its flagship Summer Shandy available year-round. But it’s also because the long-running brewery — under the stewardship of Molson Coors — is continually expanding its tap offerings. That includes bringing back old favorites like Sunset Wheat or trying new things like a chocolate dunkel or, this summer’s latest varietal: Juicy Peach.

Juicy Peach is an effort to jump on two trends at once. Peach is the fruit flavor of 2023, consuming everything from hard tea varieties to an entire Simply Spiked mix pack. Sours are the trendy beer style of … well, probably about five years ago, if we’re being honest.

But the divisive brews have persisted long enough to be accepted, or at least tolerated, across the country. And that’s what Leinenkugel’s needed to hear in order to fill its kettles with fruit and hope the final product doesn’t taste like bile.

This sweet and tart session sour is meant to walk a fine line between the two. A light(ish) beer that intermingles fruit flavor while scraping the surface of a sour beer before being sucked into the acidic depths of the brew. That’s a difficult balance to pull off. Let’s see if Leinenkugel’s is up for the challenge.

Beverage of the Week: Glenmorangie’s got a whisky for everyone (and a wonderful 14 year malt)

The $55 14 year brings an explosion of flavor — and holds up compared to the smoother, more mellow (and expensive) 18 year.

I started this column for two reasons; to write what I love (and continue living a life in which I have the job described by a 15 year old dirtbag) and to get paid for sipping whisky. Friends, today is the realization of that dream. We’re drinking scotch.

My typical malt comes from Islay, where you can taste the ocean air in each warming dram of Laphroaig or Lagavulin or my personal favorite, Bunnahabhain (where, sadly, I can no longer find my preferred Ceobanach, which absolutely ruled). But I’m happy to drink anything from the wonderful sovereign nation, particularly from Glenmorangie’s region to the north of Scotland.

My normal Highland malt is Dalwhinnie; a distillery capable of making a $80 spirit at a $30 price tag (their former Game of Thrones branded House Stark scotch) and a $120 one for $60 (their 15 year). But Glenmorangie retains a presence in my brain, even if I rarely drink it. First off, it’s because it’s available everywhere and at a ton of different ages and price points. But secondly, it’s because it’s the favorite whisky of New York Giants punter Jamie Gillan.

Gillan, nicknamed the Scottish Hammer, is a native of Inverness and a former rugby player who worked his way up from little-regarded high school prospect to veteran NFL special teamer. When I talked to him four years ago he covered everything from how he ended up on scholarship at Arkansas-Pine Bluff (via Facebook post and accepted sight-unseen) to his Scottish roots. And his favorite malt? Glenmorangie.

So we’re gonna do a quick distillery tour, sipping whisky that ranges from 10 years to 18 years in age.

Beverage of the Week: Simply made spiked peach juice and it’s candy in a glass

Turns out, mixing peaches and sugar with booze makes one heck of a summer drink.

Last year, Simply made the move from bowling pin-shaped plastic bottles of juice and lemonades to cigarette-jean aluminum cans of hard seltzer and made waves in an ever-expanding ocean. That set the stage for an encore.

Market trends in 2023 dictated it would be one of three things: tequila-based, hard tea or peach flavored. That middle option would have been a natural fit — look out, 2024 — but instead we got a sea of peach mixed with some Simply standbys.

That doesn’t mean the new lineup is just peach lemonade. In fact, this extension leaves its roots behind and there’s nary a drop of lemon in the entire lineup. Instead, we’re getting fizzy Georgia fruit with strawberry, mango and kiwi to fill out the sampler.

The company that forced its way into a crowded marketplace is at it again. Can the sequel live up to a well received debut?