Hanami Ale

Now I have no clue why I thought it would be a good idea to try Hanami Ale by the Smuttynose Brewing Company. It says right on the bottle that this beer was brewed using “cherry juice and other natural flavors”… a word to the wise, never drink a beer that has to use labeling reminiscent of a juice box. Ok, I’ll admit it, it was the packaging; I’m a sucker for cutesy pseudo-Asian pop art.

This brew pours a dark reddish-brown with a minimal white head. The smell is slightly malty and fruity… not a good fruity or even a bubblegum fruity, but a sour, pissed-off fruity, like an alcoholic drag queen with a hangover. I immediately regretted my moment of weakness in the face of successful packaging.

The taste was like no other beer I have ever had before, it’s stringently sour and inappropriately cherry flavored with a medium malt flavor that seemed to be there purely to remind you that this was beer and as such you should be planning desperate measures to deal with the remaining five bottles.

I managed to pawn a couple off on my Friday Beer Night co-drinker and co-worker Shoenberger, one went to Jenny (where it went poured but not drank), and one to my pictured beer model Connoisseur Jon. Everybody’s reactions were similar, ranging from disgust to abject terror. Sometimes at night, if I’m really quiet, I can still hear the final bottle of this cursed brew plotting with the mustard, butter, and Chinese Food Leftovers in the back of the fridge. They speak in hushed voices of the day that they will bring me down, and once again my sleep is troubled with fitful dreams of vengeful condiments led by the spurned bottle of Hanami Ale.