Pretty well everyone here knows my opinion of Lime Beer. So, needless to say, you can imagine my dread when I heard about the Canadian exclusive release of Miller Chill Lemon. Is no fruit safe from their marketing machetes? When the range of Lime beer came out, I felt some moral obligation to inform the public about it dangers (plus it was a HUGE fad, which meant it was going to be on everyone’s lips – literally). This time I decided to take a different tack. Lemon beer is not going to be the next big thing. It is simply the folks at Molson-Coors trying to recover from the butt-kicking they took in the lime wars (I suspect even Big Rock lime outsold Miller Chill Lime) – hoping against hope that maybe THEY will be outfront of the next craze. Nope.
However, after some reflection I decided that it gave me a good opportunity to talk about lemon and beer. Which is exactly what I did on my CBC column last Friday (which you can hear here). The natural starting place is with that little wedge of lemon that predictably comes with your hefe or witbier or Grasshopper-like wheat beer. So, we talked a bit about its purpose and whether to toss it aside or put it into the glass. I, personally, always toss it.
And then I shifted into lemon as an actual ingredient in beer. Which led me to Miller Chill Lemon (and Russell Lemon). But, I realized when preparing the script, I needed a way to get off these undeserving beer quickly. And it struck me. Last fall at a wine show, I chatted with one of the co-founders of Mill Street, who found a way (persuasive he was) to get me to try their Lemon Tea beer. And, to my utter surprise, I really enjoyed it. It balanced lemon, tea and beer in a originally refreshing way. I took my hat off to them for it. So, I finished the CBC piece off with a tasting of their beer.
And, purely coincidentally, last week Vue ran my review of said beer – which I wrote some time ago and was expecting it to run earlier in July. So if you don’t want to listen to my and Peter Brown’s chatter, you can go here and read the review straight up.
Only in Canada you say? Damned straight!
July 30, 2011 at 2:15 PM
Speaking of lemon & beer, I had a couple cans of Austrian Stiegl radler at Wunderbar Wed. evening. The story I had read was that an enterprising tavern owner mixed lemonade 1/2 & 1/2 with lager, to stretch his dwindling supply. In any case it’s quite a refreshing summer beverage…& at just over 4%abv(, a couple cans would be perfect on a lazy summer evening.
August 2, 2011 at 7:16 PM
I recently tried this and it was delightful in all the right ways as your column indicated and appropriate as I had it on nice warm day. It would be even better if we could break 30 degrees here.
August 3, 2011 at 7:55 AM
My friend also tried the Mill St Lemon Tea Beer at their brewpub this spring. It inspired him to brew his own lemon beer; just a basic blonde ale with a bunch of lemon zest added at flameout. Turned out spectacular, we enjoyed a glass last night while he brewed a witbier.
When used properly, fruit can be a wonderful thing in a beer.
August 14, 2011 at 4:16 PM
Fruit beer can be a great thing if done well. In the hands of many macro brewers, the fruit flavor is artificial, and there is never any beer to begin with. However, well done lime and lemon beers have been done that maintain a beer character, while still highlighting a real fruit flavor. A lager is usually a poor choice, as it gets overwhelmed by any other flavors (especially when it’s an artificial lime pop flavor), but when Brewster’s did their “Bandwagon Lime” as a seasonal a year or two ago, combining a real lime flavor with a noticeable wheat beer character underneath, it easily outdistanced anyone else on “the bandwagon”. I was quite pleased with the Mill Street offering as well, again because it was a balance of real flavors.