At a recent Boulevard tasting event, I tried out their Midwestern take on the Radler and maybe due to the heat or the underwhelming nature of the other beers that I tasted, it stuck out as the best of the bunch that day.
Fast forward to me getting an invite to meet and greet with the Widmer’s to taste their take on the Shandy. Sadly, I could not get off work to do so.
Then, my mom brings me some beer news from the Oregonian paper (cause she rolls old school with newsprint) and there is an ad for a Hopworks Radler.
One more item, then I promise to begin my dissertation. The Full Pint has a well thought out piece that recently posted on their site about alco-pops and the new wave of shandy-radler-hard root beers. The end sentence being, “I don’t hate them or want to see them go away, I’m just leery of where this is heading.”
One can be anti-radler or pro shandy or on the fence about hard root beer. (Which you should not be, I have had one and it was too much, and not in a good way) You can have your inside information about why they are being made. Economics or style exploration. But first, before any judgment can be passed, you have to try at least a couple if not more. After that, you have to filter it through the lens of history. These are not beer styles ripped out of whole cloth, these have been made in the past and will probably continue to be made in the future.
If, after that, you wish to call them an abomination upon the earth, then by all means vent your vitriol. But I would instead ponder that Full Pint question. Where is this heading? And why? Is it being led by consumer preference? A return to Old World roots? An attempt at more shelf space? Or is it some dark scheme aimed at underage drinkers?
Personally, I think it is a little from each of the columns.