Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy is a Bit Namby Pamby

Jeff

Leinenkugel's summer offering is a shandy beer with honey and lemonade flavors. I had high hopes for this beer. Lemon and shandy seemed like a natural pairing and it really sounded like it could be summertime in a bottle. However, hoping for something doesn't always make it come true.

First off, the lemon flavor is more like a bland Country Time flavor than anything resembling a real lemonade. There's nothing even slightly tart or sour about it- not even a hint of the complex flavors found in actual lemon. This beer was incredibly sweet as well. Even H agreed that it was a bad sweet- not fruity or honeyed, but a bland sweet almost like something made with corn syrup. If it was any sweeter it'd be a Smirnoff. 

Besides the fumble with the flavorings, it's also just not a very good beer. It doesn't have a BEER flavor and it went flat almost instantly, even when very poured while very cold. It tasted almost watery in it weakness of flavors.

Honestly, I hated this beer. I've liked other things from Leinenkugel but nothing about  this beer worked. The flavors are weak and boring, the sweetness is bland and simple, and it just isn't satisfying in any way.

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Haley

First off: boo to the Leinenkugel logo. Just boo. It's 2017, I'm over it. Beyond that, I think this label is a pretty good representation of what's in the bottle in that it is also pretty weak and overly sweet. It's not really a designed label so much as pictures arranged together. I like the colors and it does read summer but it does it in the most basic way possible, with no artistic touches or flair. 

Maybe I'm being too harsh but this just seems like a very safe design more suitable for the cover of a summer camp pamphlet than a beer bottle.