Brewery: Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Chico, California

Brewery Description: “Our Summerfest is a refreshing, pilsner-style lager. Its incredible smoothness comes from an extra-long lagering period. Lighter in body than our ales but just as complex in character, Summerfest quenches your thirst with big aroma and a tangy hop bite.”

Brew Style: Premium Lager, 5.0% ABV

Recommended Glassware: Lager

The Ugly Truth: I suddenly realized yesterday that I hadn’t written the beer review yet. I went digging in the fridge and the first thing to hit my hand was Sierra Nevada’s Summerfest from when I did some moving a few weeks ago. I’ve got this random assortment of beer in my fridge right now, so the next few weeks may seem a bit strange as I work my way through beer that people brought over and left. I’ll warn you now that some of it is not pretty and I’m not looking forward to it. Oh well, the cross I am forced to bear on my journey. To the beer.

Sierra Nevada has always been a good brewery in my eyes, but any beer I’ve had from them has always had the same problem and the summerfest is no exception. To my taste, I always feel as if all their beers are brewed in vats made of pine. Doesn’t matter which of their beers I have, I always end up getting this taste of pine in there somewhere. The summerfest was no exception. It poured an absolutely beautiful straw yellow color with a foamy white head that was just short of a finger width in height. The aroma was decent, kind of light in my opinion. The taste was pretty good. Depending on if it was in a bottle or in a glass, the sharpness of the initial taste varied a lot. I found it to be fairly mellow, with some spice/citrus taste to it that was kind of hard to pin down exactly. The body was very light and overall the taste was smooth after the initial taste. The finish did have the tangy bite mentioned in the description, but again this is where the pine thing came in and sort of killed it for me. Still, overall not a bad beer. It didn’t blow me away, but I don’t think you would be wasting your cash on it. Its worth a try.

Verdict: I’m on an absolute drought for humor lately, so I’ll just say its a 7 out of 10 bottlecaps. Wait…summerfest…drought…you get droughts in the summer…OH ITS THERE I CAN FEEL IT!!! SONABITCH!