Review: LongShot Cranberry Wit

This is the third of three beers in Samuel Adams' LongShot six-packs this year. As I've written before, LongShot beers are the winners of Sam Adams' annual homebrew competition.

I've been slacking on this review. I'm so late, it's probably not in stores anymore. I didn't see any at Total Wine & More on University Parkway the other day.

A witbier, or wheat beer, is similar to a German hefeweizen. Both beers are brewed with malted wheat, in addition to the regular malted barley. Witbiers are a Belgian style that also use spices like coriander and orange peel. German beers cannot use spice because of their famous purity law, the Reinheitsgebot, which prohibits the use of anything in beer other than water, malted grain, yeast and hops. I totally respect the German law, because it means you won't have junk like rice or corn put in your beer without your knowledge, but it prevents German brewers from making some really interesting beers with fruit, spices, honey, etc.

Wheat beers are almost always unfiltered and therefore cloudy. Yeast and other perfectly safe sediment will settle at the bottom of the bottle. You are supposed to pour two-thirds of the beer into a glass, then swirl the remaining beer in the bottle to stir up the compacted sediment, and finally pour that into the glass. Without the sediment, the typical wheat beer flavors are greatly subdued.

What are wheat beer flavors? Banana and clove, primarily. And these flavors don't come from bananas or cloves. Instead, they are esters (flavors) imparted by the yeast.

A lot of wheat beers in restaurants and bars are served with lemon or orange wedges. I avoid garnishes because the citric acid can kill the beer's head and garnishes mask the beer's flavor. Whether to garnish or not is a hot topic among beer geeks.

My tasting notes:

A cloudy straw-colored beer with a big, white foamy head. Lovely.

It has a spicy aroma of cranberries and earthy yeast.

The taste is lightly spicy and sweet from fruit flavors, yet it has the classic witbier esters of clove and banana. I also notice the grains of paradise that appear in other SA beers. It's very easy to drink.

This is my least favorite of the three LongShot beers this year. But that sounds a lot worse than it is. This is still a very good beer. It's light and fruity and refreshing. It's good for all the hot days here in Florida.

Like its two brethren, this beer should be added to Samuel Adams' regular lineup.