"I'm-a put watermelon juice in my beer!"
~Someone at Texian Brewing Co.
Like most people, I spend a lot of time thinking about what I love most about beer. Clearly, it is the essence of malted beauty. Yeast is man's greatest domesticated pet. Its liquid state makes it perfectly accessible via my mouth. It unlocks bonus dance moves and gives me +2 to charisma. And, not to be overlooked, has no fucking watermelon in it. I'm from Texas. I love watermelon. Watermelon is part of the soul of summer, and so is beer. It therefore makes sense to keep them utterly separate. Unless, that is, you are in Richmond, Texas, where bad ideas go to for $5 handies.
Meet Texian Brewing Company's Summer Sandia Watermelon Wheat. A seasonal offering meant to evoke the ideal drive through the Texas landscape punctuated with stops at roadside watermelon stands. A lovely thought in honey-amber. 22 fl oz with an unstated ABV of wheat ale into which has been dumped a bucket of watermelon juice. What assholes.
Steak and ice cream. Movies and conversation. Naps and bonfires. Orgasms and freshly cut grass. Watermelon juice and wheat beer. Not all great things go great together.
I knew this had to be terrible when I saw it on the shelf. How could it not be? Surely, no one would ever conceive of such a union, much less convince someone else it was a good idea. But, like the second person to get a circumcision, people can be talked into anything. So, there it was on the shelf, there I am looking for different and unique, and I love a great bad idea. So, I buy it, bring it home, pour a glass, bottoms up, and down the rabbit hole we go.
It was a bad idea. I have regrets.
I remember a time before I tasted this beer. Back then I still thought of myself as a good person. I was capable of acts of beauty and kindness. I deserved the love of a good woman. I contributed to the betterment of society. No more. Now I must be scum, shunned by polite society, embraced only by the skinniest of hipsters, the surliest of Australians, the most successful of bankers, and the rest of the cream of the scum soup of humanity. But, shed no tears for me. I strayed from the good path into the watermelon patch of shame.
Tom Hall sang about old dogs, children, and watermelon wine. Thank god he never had the beer. When I am old and flatulent(er), I don't think I'll look back on this bottle with fondness and nostalgia. Hate. I'll look back on this bottle with white-hot hate. I feel like something important has been stolen from me and replaced with this changeling beer. For fuck's sake they put watermelon juice in beer! Why would anyone be so cruel? I bet this is what despair tastes like.
Hoping to die horribly, I tried a sip after a bit of almond biscotti. Sadly the flavors of the beer were neither transmuted nor simply muted, and then my mortal coil failed to shuffle (merely two-stepped). If you're wondering what this beer taste like, simply buy a delicious watermelon agua fresca, and a mid-range wheat beer, combine them 1:4, take a fistful of sleeping pills, and chug that mother down. I'm kidding. The real stuff doesn't have that satisfying of a finish.
None of this is a surprise to anyone. I knew what I was getting myself into. You read the title and made an accurate assumption. The brewers sacrificed a two-headed goat to their cloven demi-god and got what they asked for.
An unholy, Richmond-defining, waste of all things good in the world, including anyone who drinks it.
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