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Beverage of the Week: Urban Chestnut’s Zwickel is an easy-drinking German beer for whenever

The St. Louis brewery’s primary offering is a tasty anytime beer that does its Bavarian roots proud.

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.

St. Louis is a good drinking town. Of course it’s home to Budweiser, but there’s so much more about the Gateway to the West than mass-produced beers. There are 86 breweries currently operating in the area, per STLbeer.com, ranging from older independent standbys like Schlafly to newer shops like Wellspent.

I’ve got my favorites among that group. There’s a bunch of stuff from Perennial Artisan Ales I enjoy and just about anything Four Hands makes is wonderful. But given my love of German style beers, my go-to for trips south is Urban Chestnut.

Urban Chestnut isn’t an underdog tale. They’re a well crafted and well funded venture with an older taproom in Mid Town and an impressive, massive base of operations/bierhall/kitchen in the Grove. It’s easy to see why investors would bet on UC; their stuff rules.

Today I’m gonna dig into the last straggler in my fridge after my most recent Missouri trip. Urban Chestnut’s Zwickel is a Bavarian lager and the most likely UC brew to pop up in your local gas stations across the midwest. Let’s talk about how it tastes.

Beverage of the Week: Spirited Hive, the Titans’ official canned cocktail, tries too hard

Spirited Hive is well made and its cocktail recipes make sense. Until the flavors start fighting each other in your mouth.

Canned cocktails are a great idea in theory. Being able to eliminate the effort of a five-step mixed drink and replace it with a one-shot trip to the fridge or cooler is an easy sell.

In practice, they’re a lot dicier. It turns out jamming a bunch of moving parts into a 12-ounce can and hoping the ingredients meant to blend together for 45 minutes tops can last a full year without turning against each other and turning your drink into a David Cronenberg-ian mash-up of mutated anger is a very delicate balance. But that’s worked recently for basic vodka-soda mixes like High Noon, which has capitalized from a still-vast hard seltzer market to become a major player on liquor store shelves.

Spirited Hive is the next step in that evolution. And, even better for my purposes as an NFL writer trying to monetize his drinking problem,* they’re an official “Ready-to-Drink Partner” of the Tennessee Titans. As great as beer is with a football game, there’s value to finding a seven percent ABV cocktail you can slip in a koozie and sip across a quarter and a half.

This made me excited to give Spirited Hive a try. But while these drinks certainly put in the effort, they’re a little too involved for my taste. Let’s dig through all four primary flavors.

Beverage of the Week: Fever-Tree’s Blood Orange Ginger Beer shouldn’t work, but it does

Fever-Tree’s got a new mixer. Does adding orange — sorry, BLOOD orange — actually improve ginger beer or make it worse?

When I did a tour of Fever-Tree’s fancy-pants mixers last month, I noted the ginger beer was far and away the star of the show (with a nod to the sparkling grapefruit). Fever-Tree must be acutely aware of this, because it expanded that beverage line out to a new flavor this fall: blood orange.

That’s … interesting. When it comes to ginger mixers I’ve well versed with lime and cranberry and other bitter citrus, but orange and ginger is a new one for me outside of chicken dishes. Fever-Tree already has a handful of lime-based mixers, so doing something that could easily translate to a one-step dark and stormy or Moscow mule seemed like the more logical progression.

But no, instead we’re gonna take those old classics and add a little more citrus and see what we get. I can understand it. Fever-Tree is fancy stuff, so you’d expect it to default to something a little more involved than rum and Coke. But I still used it in a couple two-step cocktails because I’m a lazy man and I’m not about to pretend to be fancy here. Y’all saw me drink out of a dog bowl last week, I won’t insult you by suggesting I’m zesting lemons or making shrubs over here.

Here are the basic drinks I made instead and how Fever-Tree’s Blood Orange Ginger Beer mixed with both.

Beverage of the Week: Firestone Walker’s IPAs remain an all-Crunchberries array of goodness

Firestone Walker’s Hopnosis IPA is the perfect blend of hops and citrus for a very drinkable pale ale.

I’ve made no effort to hide my fandom for Firestone Walker’s beers. In the past year I’ve had the chance to feature their tropical IPAs and oaked Oktoberfest and came away impressed with both. In fact, that Oaktoberfest may be my new favorite märzen out there, which is substantial because I freakin’ love märzens.

This week’s taste test presented the opportunity to try a new 2022 release — Hopnosis IPA. Per the company itself, the difference between this and the rest of its hop-forward portfolio is a double dry-hopping with a whole bunch of different stuff in there. Simcoe hops. Talus. Callista. Idaho 7, etc.

The centerpiece are the Mosaic Cryo Hops, which I am wholly unfamiliar with but were included, in all their glory, in a sealed, freeze-dried package along with this sample. No idea what I’m gonna do with a couple ounces of hops but … thanks?

Anyway, those are supposed to make things extra hoppy, which is a concern. I like IPAs, but I don’t need the tastebud-scorching IBUs that was the hallmark of craft breweries a decade ago. I’m good with a bitter beer, but I don’t want something I’m done with after one can.

Well, let’s see how it goes.

Beverage of the Week: Bourbon barreled (kinda) Dr Pepper? Go on …

Dr Pepper and bourbon was already a strong combination. But what happens when the Dr Pepper *already* tastes like whiskey?

It’s wild to think that Dr Pepper has its own cinematic universe. Every fall, their Fansville commercials re-introduce college football fans to a cast of recurring characters on par with Progressive’s salespeople or Geico’s cavemen or, uh, well probably a bunch of other non-insurance adsfolk I’m not remembering.

The Fansville ads are mostly innocuous, occasionally funny and, importantly, a necessary buffer between political ads in election years. They’re ingrained into Dr. Pepper’s identity, so much so that the denizens of this imaginary community have been gifted their own special Doc P variant; Dr Pepper Bourbon Flavored Fansville Reserve.

This new blend isn’t for sale and available only through the Dr Pepper Rewards exchange — an online portal that effectively tracks your purchasing habits but offers free soda and various discounts in return. You don’t have to buy anything to get your can, but you do have to win one of 2,300 specially minted kits through a lottery system that gives you one free shot at Fansville Reserve per day.

Because I am special (read: because I emailed Dr Pepper politely and asked if I could feature their new drink) I was able to get a can despite my constant failings in the sweepstakes. They, fortunately, said yes. So how did it taste?

Pretty dang good, actually.

Beverage of the Week: OK, I guess Dos Equis makes margaritas now (they’re fine)

Dos Equis’ canned margaritas have real tequila and clock in at 10 percent ABV. Does that make them any good?

Margaritas don’t do much for me. It’s a bummer. I love hole in the wall Mexican restaurants. Their wave pools of frozen alcohol in various Trapper Keeper colors is always inviting. I know the fajita effect is a real thing that changes customers’ minds and alters orders, but I doubt it’s as powerful as a brief glimpse of day-glo tequila slush undulating like early-2000s special effects in a Mark Wahlberg-George Clooney-you’ll-cry-at-the-end movie.

Unfortunately, the expectation and the experience don’t line up for me. I have no soft spot in my heart for margaritas thanks to entirely too many bad memories and reactions to tequila. I’m sure I’m not the only one, so if you’re reading this and nodding just know you’re not alone. That stuff is stupid juice.

I *do* have a soft spot for Dos Equis, however. As a broke graduate student, they were a $2.50 staple at my local Flying Saucer. While buying in bottles never quite lives up to the taste of the Mexican beer fresh on tap, it’s still a regular piece of my restaurant equation if I’m at an aforementioned perpetual-motion margarita place.

This left me in a pinch when Dos Equis sent me a four-pack of their new product … a 10 percent ABV canned margarita. It’s not a malt beverage; there’s real tequila and lime in there and, oh man, this could be a quick review. Well, let’s dig in.

Beverage of the Week: Elysian teamed with Chucky to make a murder beer (and also pumpkin stuff)

Elysian got ready for spooky season with a Chucky cranberry wit to pair with their normal pumpkin stuff. Some of it’s good. Some is not.

I’ve chronicled no shortage of Elysian beers here, and for good reason. They’re typically awesome. The company behind Space Dust IPA has been aggressive with its expansion from the Pacific Northwest to the rest of the country, rolling the dice in new markets in an attempt to become a household name among craft brewers.

That boldness applies to Elysian’s brewing process as well. When they want to go wide, they come up with a mass-appeal wheat beer perfect for Seattle Seahawks games. When they want to whittle that focus group down to a specific few they’ll give you an IPA so danky it’ll make whatever room you’re in reek like weed the moment you crack a can.

This year, they’re taking their fall offerings — a pretty solid mix of pumpkin beers ranging from light ales to stouts — and experimenting again. My most recent mailer from the brewery contained three brews; their Night Owl Pumpkin Ale, the Mr. Yuk Sour Pumpkin Beer and Chucky: A Killer Wit Beer. The latter is a collaboration with the SYFY series based around the star of the Child’s Play film franchise and features his Jon Gruden-esque mug front and center on the can.

Elysian also offered journalists the opportunity to do a virtual tasting with its founders, which was a nice touch. Here’s how each beer went down and whether or not you should seek them out here in the tail end of the spooky season.

Beverage of the Week: Kona’s Big Wave Golden Ale makes for a solid tailgate beer

Kona doesn’t do many complicated beers. But they get simple beers right, and that’s good for the pre-game.

Kona wants Big Wave Golden Ale to be your tailgate go-to. The Hawai’ian inspired brewery has grown in prominence since its parent company was acquired by Anheuser-Busch, making it a stable presence in the mainland for a beer that originated thousands of miles and half an ocean away, but technically not an import.

It’s a brewery that’s always been interesting, even if it doesn’t take many risks. Kona’s brews have typically been domestic beer standards — light lagers, golden ales, blondes and American pale ales. There’s nothing wrong with that, obviously, but it’s not something that makes their beers stand out in any way besides “HAWAI’I,” even if the bulk of its product isn’t actually brewed there.

But in the spirit of going a little easier for Sober October — and because it’s prime tailgating season — I wanted to tuck back in with Kona’s Big Wave Golden Ale, which promises the easy lift of a macro light beer with more flavor and “tropical hops.” Let’s see how it tastes.

Beverage of the Week: Firestone Walker’s Oaktoberfest is one of the best märzens I’ve ever had

The oak is subtle but ultimately lifts this beer to new heights. Firestone Walker may make my favorite Oktoberfest.

Oktoberfest is my season. Not just because the weather cools off and football is firmly upon us, but also because märzens flood the market with the most drinkable beer style in the universe. There’s nothing quite like a bready, malty Oktoberfest brew, a beer that’s as easy to drink as a light beer but loaded with enough flavor that you can drink them a liter at a time and not get sick of them.

Germany’s märzens are the standard bearer because their breweries have been making them for hundreds of years. That leaves America’s beermakers playing catchup. This doesn’t mean U.S. Oktoberfests are bad or inherently inferior — they’re usually great! It does mean brewmasters have a little room to experiment with a recipe that’s already pretty much perfect, but not infallible.

That means these beers vary a little more from coast to coast than their European counterpart. In a few places, that means a heavier hop load — the solution to lots of problems in American microbreweries and honestly not a terrible one. At California’s Firestone Walker, it means maturing the brew inside oak barrels to impart a smooth, slightly earthier beer that doesn’t throw away the hop profile, either.

Is it any good? Well, yeah. It might be the best beer I’ve had this year.

Beverage of the Week: Sam Adams is a good airport beer but that’s about it

Sam Adams rose from the primordial ooze of the US beer scene to become a powerhouse. Do their beers still hold up?

Sam Adams was the epitome of class growing up. For my parents and my friends’ parents in Rhode Island, the dividing line between a cookout and a cookout where folks had money was whether there were Sam longnecks in the cooler.

“A brewer and a patriot,” they’d scoff before prying off the cap and lamenting whatever awful thing had happened to the Red Sox that year. But deep down, they were impressed. Heineken levels of impressed.

The folks at Sam Adams have been kind to Boston and welcoming to emerging brewers, but they’ve largely become a relic as the country’s beer scene exploded. Boston Lager is up there with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale when it comes to microbrews-turned-standard-bearers. Even so, the company’s portfolio is generally something I’ll pass up if more interesting local beers are available.

In fantasy baseball terms, they’re the steady veteran who hits .260 and gives you 20 home runs each year; completely reasonable but unable to stack up to an unproven young prospect with All-Star potential. In beer terms, well…

I typically think of Sam Adams as the kind of beer you turn to at a generic spot with no local buy-in whatsoever. More often than not, it’s a nondescript airport lounge. The beers are overpriced and there are only six on tap. And if you’re not interested in Miller Lite or Stella Artois or, if they’re fancy, Guinness then Sam Adams is the best you’re going to do.

That’s the brewery’s sweet spot; a realm where they remain the innovative young upstart despite evolving into a macrobrew over the past three decades. Sam Adams has been aggressive to count a new generation of drinkers who’ve been inundated with choices in hopes of fixing that image. That’s meant entirely too many television ads, sure, but also an evolving line of new and old beers aimed at casting the widest possible net of beer lovers.

Let’s see how their fall beers shake out.