This Year's Beach Beers

Did they taste better on the sand? You be the judge

Hi, friends! I decided to give the TTB an extra day to drop some new labels since we (and the Federal Government) had a nice long weekend. With that in mind, our usual label email will come out tomorrow, and to tide you over, here’s something that I hope you’ll think is kinda fun.

This year, my wife and I spent a lot more time than usual at the beach. We’re lucky enough to live a short drive away from Lake Michigan and decided to take better advantage of that proximity. Naturally, drinks were involved, and throughout the summer I’ve brought a variety of beverages to the sandy shores of America’s Fresh Coast.

Since Labor Day weekend is the spiritual end of summer, I thought it’d be a good time to look back at some of the beers I selected for beach-based imbibing and pass along a few notes about how they performed under the afternoon sun.

This year’s beach beers, in no particular order:

• Grand Armory’s Grapefruit Wheezin’ the Juice

• Off Color’s Beer for Bags

• Brewery Vivant’s Tropical Saison

• Spiteful’s Grapefruit Radler

• Three Floyds Coconut-Lime Vodka Soda

• Bell’s Oktoberfest

One of these was a genuinely happy surprise. Let’s start with that one: