• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to footer
The Drunk Pirate

The Drunk Pirate

Rants & Reviews for the Drinking Lifestyle

  • Reviews
  • Liquor
  • Beer
  • Gear
  • Drinking Games
  • Hangover Cures
  • How To’s
  • About
  • Partner with Us

Summer Beer Smackdown

By James 6 Comments

The Top 5 Summer Beers

Back in the days before I was a workin’ man, every weekend of every summer was spent in, around or near some body of water. Being in Florida, the hardest decision every Friday was whether to go to the beach, the pool, the river or the lake. The easiest decision to make was what beer to fill your cooler with. It was such an easy decision because there was only one choice. Corona with a lime. The king of the summer beers.

My how the times have changed.

Walk into any reputable grocery store and you’ll find more “summer” beers than you can shake a stick at. I won’t be surprised if by next summer stores begin designating certain sections of their coolers as “Summer Beer Selections.” Now I could write up this long list of all the beers available and give you a bunch of stats about them, but that would just be boring. Instead, I’ve spent several nights and quite a few dollars trying as many summer beers as I could so that I could pick the top 5.

So here they are:

5. Blue Moon’s half brother, Honey Moon Summer Ale from the Coors Brewing Company. Although this is a summer beer, I wouldn’t want to actually drink it out in the hot ass Florida sun. Not a lot of it anyway. It’s a little too heavy and the taste is a little too bold and complex to drink while standing waist deep in a pool in the middle of July. This is the type of summer beer you drink on draft at a bar with air conditioning.

4. Sun Dog Amber Wheat from Anheuser-Busch. This was one of the surprises of the test because frankly, I’d never heard of it. It tastes great. It doesn’t have that sharp taste like many wheat beers. I guess it could be considered a “light” wheat beer. This probably would have done great this summer had AB not let some hippie from marketing name it.

3. Sam Adams Summer Ale from the Sam Adams brewing Co. This is a pretty flavorful beer but not so much that you couldn’t drink a shitload of it on any given summer afternoon fishing from a dock. Must be the lemon zest they add into this wheat brew that makes it so drinkable. Sam Adams prides themselves on having more than 20 different beers they brew seasonally and they definitely did a fine job with this one.

2. Shock Top also from Anheuser-Busch. This unfiltered Belgian-style wheat ale gets its summery taste from the orange, lemon and lime peels along with coriander that is added to the brew kettle. Unlike the other wheat beers on this list, this one could definitely be imbibed by the case while floating in an inner tube down the river on a hot summer day.

The winner

Bud Light Lime, also from our friends at Anheuser-Busch. This stuff is so drinkable and refreshing they should give it to football players instead of Gatorade. It’s like a low maintenance Corona. The balance of beer vs. lime is perfect. It’s not like Miller Chill that makes you think you’ve got a lime wedge shoved up your nose.(What the fuck is Chelada style anyway?) In addition to being the best tasting summer beer of the smackdown, it’s also the cheapest! Great taste and I can still afford to buy gas to get to the beach? Things like this make me proud to be an American. That and Tivo.

Filed Under: Buried Treasure

About James

I'm a dad, husband, entrepreneur, homebrewer, and semi-professional drinker who's slowly developing a golfing problem as I get older.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Donald Mccullers says

    July 21, 2011 at 7:22 pm

    Spot on for this write-up, I seriously believe this site requires far more awareness. I鈥檒l probably be once again to read much more, thanks for the tips.

  2. david sobrani says

    May 11, 2010 at 3:17 pm

    I love the way you express your thoughts in this post

  3. Chloris says

    November 8, 2009 at 9:04 am

    Fantastic post! excellent blog

  4. Brother Poop Deck says

    December 13, 2008 at 1:36 pm

    Pete’s Summer Brew.
    Somewhat hard to find, but it made it’s way to where I live in Maine, so just keep an eye out for it. Amazing stuff.

  5. Andrew Wise says

    September 2, 2008 at 4:00 pm

    where are the pics at, mang?

    i can’t read a blog that doesn’t have pictures!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Footer

About the Drunk Pirates

I'm a dad, husband, entrepreneur, homebrewer, and semi-professional drinker who's slowly developing a golfing problem as I get older.

Yo. It's Nate. Entrepreneur, marketer, and quasi-professional drinking commentator. Enjoy the posts or GTFO.

Latest Tweets

  • We don't always golf. But when we do, we make sure it's Strokin Golf. Strokin Golf's "PUT A DECK IN YOUR HAND" Giv… https://t.co/qYGsBmg6Vo July 15, 2022 7:49 pm
  • Little on the fancy side. But I wouldn't be mad to find any of these in my stocking. Any other good gifts out there… https://t.co/bmQ2bHTb7H December 13, 2020 7:14 pm
  • @PYSNGR Is the grape soaked in scotch? November 22, 2020 12:01 am

Search

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

© 2023 · THEDRUNKPIRATE.COM | Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. - Ernest Hemingway