Just about the time you think they have run out of ideas for new beverages you learn that, they haven’t. At a recent family reunion my niece gave me a can of Hell or High Watermelon wheat beer brewed by 21st Amendment Brewery out of Cold Spring, Minnesota. I chilled it down and watching the day’s temperature approaching 90 and decided something tasting of watermelon would be just the thing.

Hell or High Watermelon is an unfiltered, full-bodied, amber wheat brew with the subtle flavor of, you guessed it, watermelon. Unlike the brews I’m usually enjoying it lost its head very quickly and there doesn’t seem to be much carbonation. I don’t like that, I like a beer with a head that says “I’m fresh and full of life” to me. With three-quarters of the glass to go it looks more like apple juice than beer. Yuck!

I really don’t see why it’s necessary to add watermelon extract/juice to a beer. Beer is like good BBQ, it should be able to stand on its own merits and not need much sauce to mask the real flavor. Maybe the people in Minnesota, being so far removed from the South, just need something that smacks of summer to help them make it through those God awful winters.