Hell or High Watermelon

So it turns out, when you start writing about beer, your friends start thinking of you when they try new and/or weird beers. That's how I came across this beer here. I was at a friend's house one evening and she remembered she had something for me. As she ran to get it I remember her saying, "It's really awful but we thought you should try it." That's something to really strive for, in my opinion at least.

It was 21st Amendment Brewery's Hell or High Watermelon Wheat Ale. As we've seen, I do enjoy trying flavored beers. It intrigues me to see how a brewery gets certain flavors into their beers and how well they actually succeed. Watermelon is a particularly tricky fruit which you'd know if you'd had anything artificially flavored like watermelon. Sometimes, it's fantastic...others not so much.

Unfortunately, this beer fell firmly in the latter category. The beer was a straw color that was slightly cloudy which disappointed me a bit as I was hoping there'd be at least a slight pink hue to the beer given the color of the fruit. The nose then gave away what I was in for. It had a sickly, sweet watermelon smell to it that I could barely get past. The flavor was similar to someone dropping a watermelon Jolly Rancher in a beer for only a few moments so that the flavor was just enough to ruin the beer. It was very watery and not very appealing at all. Overall, it was a grand disappointment. As I got the beer as a gift, there was no cost for me.