Waterloo Brewing Co. Radlermass

I (Jeff) was in the LCBO yesterday and found this beer: Waterloo’s Radlermass. I had no idea what it was but it was labeled as a “lemonade lager.

WTF?!?! I had never heard of a beer mixed with lemonade. I thought maybe this was Waterloo Brewing Co.’s (made by Brick Brewery) answer to Bud Light Lime (to me, that beer just tastes like lime cordial). 

Luckily, the back of the can had something more to say:

Known as the Cyclists’ Thirst Quencher: After World War I, bicycle riding became popular in Germany. A local innkeeper opened his own watering hole and arranged for a bike trail through a forest from Munich to his alpine meadow, only to find some 13,000 cyclists had descended upon his establishment and almost depleted his fine beer. Quick thinking led him to mix a stock of lemon soda with his remaining beer and he called it Radlermass (Radler means cyclist in German, Mass means a litre of beer), which became a wonderful refreshing summer drink.

Yep. There’s a reason they said “summer drink” instead of “summer beer”. I can taste the lemon and sweetness from the lemonade but there’s nothing here to make me think it’s beer. No maltiness, no hoppiness. It ends up tasting like watered down lemonade. Part of me thinks this might have worked - but the beer flavours can’t be overrun by the lemonade into non-existence.

This was definitely an offering to the Bud Light Lime fans. Maybe they’ll like it - it’s not my thing though.