beverage of the week – Page 6 – Syndication Server

Beverage of the Week: Jiant hard tea tastes a lot like white wine, somehow

Jiant’s hard teas are boozy and low on calories, but they all taste kinda the same.

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.

There are three trends I’ve noticed as brewers and distillers ramp up their efforts to ply our great nation with booze this summer. The first is that tequila, while never truly out of style, is getting a big push in the seltzer and canned cocktail game. The second is that we’re throwing peach into everything and making a bunch of good drinks taste like gummy candy (not a judgment, peach rings rule).

The third is that we’re giving hard tea another shot. That’s great, because having a market dominated by Twisted Tea provides a massive opportunity.

Hard coffee was, despite its potential, a bust. Per Kate Bernot — who is a wonderful beer writer you should absolutely follow — canned, boozed-up coffees sold only 1 percent of the volume that Twisted Tea comprised in 2022. And Twisted Tea, as we’re all aware, suuuuuuucks.

So instead there’s been a push toward expanding hard tea beyond its current horizon. Earlier this year I kicked the tires on Spiked Arnold Palmer and found it to be a worthy replacement for the bile-tasting industry leader. Now comes Jiant, a craft-brewed sparkling hard tea that clocks in at seven percent ABV and between 130 and 150 calories per 12 ounce can, depending on your source. My variety pack came with four flavors; peach, kiwi strawberry, mixed berry and half & half.

One of those is pretty good. Let’s find out which.

Beverage of the Week: Firestone Walker’s 805 Cerveza is a perfect Cinco de Mayo beer

805 Cerveza isn’t Mexican made, but it’s a pretty dang good Mexican lager.

I do not know you, dear reader, but I know this much about you; you deserve to drink something better than Corona on Cinco de Mayo.

The most popular Mexican beer in America is a bland bottle of nothing. It requires fresh citrus just to register on your taste buds. It’s so inoffensive you can pour a tiny bottle of it into a margarita and not affect the core taste.

Corona is, in layman’s terms, butt.

But there are several Mexican lagers that are not. Today we’re gonna try a new one.

Firestone Walker, out of California, has an entrenched place in the craft beer landscape thanks to its hop-heavy (and incredibly drinkable) pale ales. That made its newest venture, 805 Cerveza, a proper fit not only for a review but one that happens to fall on Cinco de Mayo. The Mexican lager is spun off from the brewer’s 805 imprint, a blonde ale crafted in honor of the company’s west coast roots (and area code). It’s a light lager with lime involved, clocking in at 4.5 percent ABV and 110 calories.

Of course, there are concerns. Firestone Walker is an American brewery. While they can recreate that cerveza style, drinking their beer isn’t supporting a Mexican company on the day Americans choose to celebrate our neighbor to the south. If you’re looking for a great, authentic brew from Mexico there are several proper options. My tastes are pretty basic since Mexican lagers aren’t my favorite and I live in Wisconsin, but I’m always down for a Pacifica or an Estrella Jalisco. There are tons of smaller breweries who probably make incredible stuff as well.

Today, we’re drinking an established American brewery’s take on a Mexican classic. Let’s see how it goes.

Beverage of the Week: High Noon’s tequila seltzers (mostly) live up to the brand’s lofty reputation

High Noon branched out to tequila, so they made three pretty good cocktails. Out of four.

High Noon changed my opinion on slim-can hard seltzers and canned cocktails. Granted, the bar had been set pretty low by White Claw, but High Noon’s balancing act between flavor, fizz and a light calorie count has earned it a spot among my regular drink rotation. Particularly in summer, when those vodka sodas go down smoooooooth.

Unsurprisingly, High Noon has opted to capitalize on this strength. 2023 marks the brand’s venture into the the next big market in the canned cocktail/hard seltzer landscape: tequila. The formula is simple; a little fruit juice, tequila blanco and seltzer. As usual, you’ve got the 100 calorie benchmark and 4.5 percent alcohol by volume.

This summer has seen a proliferation of tequila-based canned cocktails. High Noon has a head start thanks to its name recognition and track record. Will its tequila seltzers take advantage of that, or merely sink to just-OK levels?

Beverage of the Week: Athletic’s Suped Up pre-workout coffee brew is, phew, a whole ride

It’s too acidic to be a proper beer and too heavy to work as a pre-workout drink. But it’s a cool idea, at least.

When it comes to non-alcoholic beer, Athletic Brewing Company quickly established itself as the top option in a stale market. No longer would you have to subject yourself to O’Doul’s or Clausthaler if you were looking to replicate all the rituals of a cold one without (most) of the booze. Athletic’s NA offerings couldn’t fully lock down the taste of a great pale ale or Mexican lager, but they came closer than anyone else.

This success led to a broad expansion, which led to a partnership with Super Coffee, which led to this week’s installment of BotW. Friends, it’s a weird one. Athletic leaned in to its “beer for fit people” tendencies dark to create a dark, coffee-infused brew that isn’t just an NA offering but also a protein-enriched pre-workout concoction.

Weird sentence, I know.

I’m not generally a pre-workout drink guy in the first place. Something about that niacin-induced tingling gets me anxious. Sure, it makes me want to work out to get rid of it, but it also makes me want to rub up against the walls like an itchy bear in hopes of shedding whatever top layer of skin has suddenly decided it’s time to party.

Regardless, I jumped in with high hopes when I cracked this beer at 9 a.m. in preparation of a morning workout. It was … an experience, certainly.

Beverage of the Week: Arnold Palmer Spiked is here to make golf tolerable

A booze-infused Arnold Palmer? I’d always heard it called a John Daly. Whatever it is, it’s good.

I was raised in a golf household. My dad was a high school golf coach. Not a good one, mind you, but he cared. There were plenty of weekends lost to the Travelers Championship or Greater Milwaukee Open as a kid.

As a result, I spent some time at the driving range, walked some municipal courses with some flea market knock-off clubs and was generally indifferent toward golf. Until I became an adult and realized you could spend most of your round with a drink in your hand. Golf, much like watching baseball or playing slow-pitch softball, is much better with a beverage.

This week’s sipper combines those worlds. Arnold Palmer’s pour of choice, a half lemonade, half iced tea glass of simple pleasure, has always been a fertile spot to plant booze. Add some vodka or bourbon or Southern Comfort to it and you’ve got what I’d always heard as a John Daly. But Arnie’s estate is branching out, so what we’ve got is the officially branded Arnold Palmer spiked bevvy. He’s right there on the can — signature and trademark multi-colored umbrella and all.

Does it live up to the Palmer standard? Is it at least as good as the Arizona Iced Teas that bear his name? Let’s crack this can.

Beverage of the Week: SweetWater’s got a new West Coast IPA (yay) and a light beer (… OK)

And we talk about Hendrick’s new gin, which makes a good Masters cocktail

SweetWater is like Firestone Walker or Elysian or Three Floyd’s to me; it’s a circle of trust brewery.

It may not have the same cachet of those more notable brewers, but SweetWater has been a staple of my drinking life since graduate school in Nashville and $2.50 pints of Blue and 420 at the Flying Saucer. The brand has expanded since then, and while it’s always tough to find up here in the saturated boozing landscape of Wisconsin it’s always been a worthwhile find. As such, it’s landed inside the circle of trust; if I’m somewhere where there’s no real local beers on tap but there’s one of these nationally distributed brewers (like, say, an airport), they’re getting the call.

The question is whether the brewery still has the magic as it branches into new territory. SweetWater introduced two new beers this spring — a West Coast IPA to attract folks who like hoppy citrus and a lager to cover a more traditional light beer market. I drank them because that’s my job sometimes, and I fully appreciate how lucky that makes me.

Here’s what I thought — along with a bonus look at Hendrick’s newest gin offering.

Beverage of the Week: Firestone Walker’s rye IPA doesn’t quite live up to the standard

It’s still a very good beer — but it finishes fourth in a four-beer IPA mix pack.

Firestone Walker emerged as a leader in American craft brewing in the 2000s. All the hallmarks were there. Cool, somewhat complex/obscure branding? Yep. Pale ales with the IBUs cranked all the way up? 1000 percent. Weird beer names? Well, eventually.

That brings us to 2023, where another round of new releases from the California brewer means another trip to the Beverage of the Week column. Psychedelic Arcade is a West Coast IPA that headlines Firestone Walker’s latest IPA mix pack. But since it comes with three friends, I figured we’d review them all.

Well, review three of them and then plagiarize an older review of the fourth beer, Hopnosis IPA, which I covered back in November. Will the brewery’s new rye IPA be another Firestone hit? Or will it be merely a pretty good beer?

Beverage of the Week: Welp, Kendall Jenner makes the best tequila I’ve ever had

Today in “sentences I never imagined I’d write.” And also “drinks I never thought I’d drink.” Weird day.

I had never heard of 818 Tequila for two reasons. The first is that I’m not a big tequila drinker, leaving me abreast only of the big names — your Cuervos and Patrons and Espolons, mostly. The second is that I am someone’s dad, woefully out of touch with popular culture that doesn’t revolve around various FX/FXX shows and largely unaware of the business ventures of Miss Kendall Jenner.

Jenner, like George Clooney, Dan Aykroyd and Peyton Manning before her, is now in the spirits business. Her brand, 818, was founded in 2021 and quickly gained the kind of cachet that comes with 280 million Instagram followers. The official company account clocks in at 1.1 million, which seems low by comparison but is still five times larger than White Claw’s following.

(There’s a larger debate here about the role of cultural appropriation in the rise of American celebrities adopting traditional Mexican spirits and culture to make money, particularly when it comes to a family as ubiquitous as the Kardashian/Jenner clan. I assure you I am not the right person to talk to about this. I am just here to drink it, but I do understand the concern.)

I was fortunate not only to get some for sampling, but to get a fifth of 818’s ultra-luxe Eight Reserve, which comes in a very nice, unique eight-shaped ceramic bottle that also happens to look like the world’s least convenient vape pen. And since I’m a relative tequila neophyte, I also reached out to 818’s Director of Tequila David Yan Gonzalez to talk me through it (in between our shared concerns over why the Dallas Cowboys aren’t better).

Beverage of the Week: Are Quest’s protein snacks good enough to justify $40 per pound price?

Protein-loaded snacks? A healthier tortilla chip? Alright, I’m interested.

Look, this feature used to be called “Beer of the Week.” Then liquors and sodas started showing up and it became “Beverage of the Week.” We’re already playing kind of fast and loose with the rules, so if I want to review a whole brand of snacks, I’m gonna.

So rather than rename this “Thing of the Week” I’m just gonna bend the definition of beverage and claim it a St. Patrick’s Day and/or March Madness religious allowance. We’ve all gotta eat something to power through 14 hours of basketball right? Why not opt for the protein-dense, “athlete-worthy nutrition” of Quest’s Protein Chips and related sundries?

It’s a little weird to see “nutrition” slapped on a bag of Cheez-It-adjacent crackers or peanut butter cups, but the label suggests there’s value beyond the quick satiation and immediate shame of destroying an entire bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. There’s 10 grams of protein in a serving of their cheese crackers, eight in the peanut butter cups and an impressive 18 to 20 (against 140 to 150 calories) in the brand’s tortilla chip lines. If nothing else, these snacks should do an efficient job filling you up.

I am, full disclosure, a moderate protein guy. I’ve been turning to it more as I get older, mostly because my workouts suck now and aging is like being trapped in the later seasons of a beloved show and being forced to watch the superior early episodes every time you go to the gym. I am Nelly, sadly shuffling through burpees and watching Prison Mike elucidate the dangers around him.

Mostly that involves dropping a scoop of protein powder into my morning coffee. I understand that’s probably not how you’re meant to do either beverage but it gives me caffeine and tastes like birthday cake so you cannot convince me it’s wrong. Anyway, that’s given me awareness of Quest — though I know them primarily from their protein bars, which I don’t really eat — but not the snacks they so graciously shipped my way for review.

So hey, let’s see how they taste and if they can get you through the NCAA tournament.

Beverage of the Week: Liquid Death’s got more stupid names and some pretty good tea

Liquid Death’s newest brand extension hits some high notes — even if some of the flavors aren’t great.

Liquid Death is officially a thing. A water brand that took a simple concept — cans and aggression — and turned it into a business worth, at last estimation, $700 million.

It’s also a very stupid thing. In order to stand out from a sea of pamplemousses and seltzers that taste like nothing (La Croix. It’s always La Croix), founder Mike Cessario gave his water “the dumbest name.” His quote. Yeah, the dude gets it. He also probably thinks it’s less dumb now because, well, $700 million.

This, of course, has created an opportunity for brand extensions. The company that gave us flavors like “Berry it Alive” (… uh), “Severed Lime” (not a thing) and “Mango Chainsaw” (extremely not a thing) is now back with “Grim Leafer” and (biiiiig sigh) … “Armless Palmer.”

Yep, Liquid Death is making iced tea now.

The new sweetened teas clock in at 30 calories and 30 milligrams of caffeine across three flavors — the two mentioned above as well as a peach tea called … “Rest in Peach” (fine whatever it’s better than most of these stupid names). They also carry the brand’s beer-inspired packaging forward. Instead of 16-ounce pounders these come in 19.2-ounce stovepipe cans that have been a trend in macrobreweries trying to look like microbreweries over the past decade.