Beer Reviews - Acai Berry Wheat and St. Peter's Cream Stout

Acai Berry Wheat - Eel River Brewing Company, CA

When Rob and I saw this in the beer aisle at our local Fred Meyer, we were both pretty skeptical. Fruit beers are pretty hit-or-miss in my experience, and the acai berry has a pretty potent taste. In case you're not familiar with this particular fruit, go to your local grocer or drug store: Acai berry products are all over the place, usually marketed as a dietary supplement. Some people claim some pretty outrageous stuff about this little purple berry, but whether or not it's a panacea superfood, it definitely has a unique taste (and they're high in antioxidants, too!).

With all this in mind, I was concerned that an acai flavored wheat beer might be overpoweringly strong. Nevertheless, we decided to be adventuresome and picked up a couple bottles. My conclusion? This stuff is actually pretty damn good! It smells very fruity, more like juice than beer, which did nothing to allay my fears that the taste might be overwhelmingly foul, but it is actually much milder on the tongue than it is on the nose. It definitely tastes like a wheat beer, with only a very subtle flavoring of acai as well - less acai taste than I imagined. There is a lingering aftertaste that is somewhat bitter, but generally speaking the beer goes down quickly and smoothly, and was thoroughly enjoyable. I think this might be one of my new favorite fruit beers!

Andrew's recommendation: Try it! 4.5/5 berries.

St. Peter's Cream Stout - St. Peter's Brewery, Suffolk, UK

The second beer we purchased was much less adventuresome than the first - a simple cream stout. I've seen the very attractive St. Peter's bottles in stores before, but this was my first time ever tasting one. Although I had never tried an acai berry beer in the past, I have had plenty of cream stouts, so I had a particular set of expectations which I brought to the table here. In general, I think that Rob and I got what we expected with the St. Peter's - not a bad beer by any means, but nothing very revolutionary.

The stout was very smooth, as most cream stouts are, with very little aftertaste. As a matter of fact, the beer went down so smoothly it was almost easy to forget you had drunk it upon swallowing. "Like a ninja in your mouth," or "a hooker in the night" were the operative phrases we were throwing around - it went down quickly and all but disappeared once it left your tongue. There was a slight taste of toasted chocolate one might expect from any stout, but what grabbed our attention the most about this particular beer was the strong whiskey-like taste at the front. As the beer entered my mouth, I could almost swear I was taking a sip of rye whiskey, which, although it surprised me, was not an unwelcome experience. There are definitely some interesting things going on here, but all-in-all the beer was underwhelming.

Andrew's review: 3.5/5

Robert's review: 4/5