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I need some cheer. It's an overcast day, it's kind of cold, and I have to get myself in the mindset of the holidays. Will Shiner help me out? I may have mentioned that a friend from Texas introduced me to my first Shiner, and he really thought it was the best beer ever. It was a good enough beer, and I was certainly appreciative, but it didn't strike me as being in the top 25% of beers. I'm not even sure I would put it in the top 40% of beers, but maybe I didn't have the right one. Maybe this is it.
The beer is both remarkably clear and remarkably dark for an ale. It is a very nice ruby read. I know that people (possibly myself) say that Guinness is a ruby red at its core, but this thing out-rubies the stout. This is the right kind of beer to be this color, and it is doing it nicely. Will the 5.4% ABV mean that this beer won't be able to hit me with the taste? Well, the smell is very, very fruity. And these aren't the normal hops-as-fruit smells. This smells of apricot, peaches, and pecans. I smell apricots first, and the label doesn't say anything about them, so I might be far afield.
First sip is cheerful. Spices are on top of - and it's pretty unmistakable - apricot. The assorted spices are pretty damn assorted. Normally, if I say something has spices, I am making a reference to things like cinnamon and maybe some thyme... honestly, the ephemeral and squishy nature of taste makes the subjective experience kind of hard to quantify at times, so I just experience the taste, wrap it in the closest words I can find, and send it off into the night. This one has spices that are so muddled that I dare not suggest what they might be.
Tip-in is apricot, spices, and a little carbonation, but not much else. The middle becomes a strange see-saw of carbonation at the bottom and top of the mouth as the mouth goes through its normal process of gulping. The apricot seems to be the only real flavor on top of spices. The finish is a splash of apricot before heading into the trail off.
Bottom Line: Just not much to it.
1.75/5
