Today I will be doing the last of the Sam Adams Longshot beers for this years winners. Today’s beer is a Cranberry Wit, which would be the BJCP category for Fruit beers with a base style of Witbier. As you may recall from earlier posts, when evaluating a specialty beer, or a fruit beer, you need to take into consideration the base style for the beer. You could have an apricot pale ale, or a cherry wheat and either one should show some of the fruit character plus the attributes of the pale ale style beer, or the weizen or wheat beer style. So since the base beer for this one is a witbier, we will keep an eye out for some of the major attributes. There should be a sweet and spicy aroma from the wheat malt, some detectable spice and citrus notes from the use of coriander. The flavor should be a bit sweet and fruity, and if we are lucky just a touch tart (but that part is not required, I just prefer it). There should also be some detectable spice as well in the flavor, and all this should also have at least a low level detectable amount of cranberry as well. So, let’s get started.

The beer pours a hazy orangish color with some nice dense foam for the head. The head also sticks around for a while, and slowly disaptes to the very thin bubbly layer.
The aroma is mostly citrus fruits, possibly from the coriander and wheat aroma combined. There is some very low amount of cranberry aroma, and very very slight spicy aroma, but I suspect that is from the yeast since it does not smell like coriander or pepper. Overall the aroma is fairly unassuming, mostly citrus and sweet malt.
The flavor is quite nice, with some sweetness up front, and the tartness of the cranberries comes through quite a bit here as well. The sweetness and cranberry tartness rides right on through the middle and into the finish. This beer is quite refreshing, and I think Bud Light has a lot to fear from this beer because when it comes to “drinkability” this beer blows Bud Light out of the water. There is a some tang from the wheat malt and hint of coriander and orange zest in this beer as well. Overall this is a fruity, refreshing, easy drinking beer. The mouthfeel is medium/light and the carbonation is a the medium level as well, I would expect the carbonation to be a bit higher.
This one is a tough one for me to grade. From the standpoint of drinkabilty and being quite refreshing, this beer gets an A. From the standpoint of a fruit witbier, I would give it a B. I would like to see a bit more depth to the spice character in this beer, and that is the one area it fell short. The fruit was very nice, and at a complimentary level, not a “hit you in the face” level and I like the complimentary level a lot better because it showcases the beer. However, the beer side is the weakest side of this beer. Still, the beer as a whole gets a solid B and is not a disappointment, just not what I was expecting. This beer is quite good, but not great.
-Jason Johnson