Old man yells at Claw

A change from your regularly scheduled beer reviews today. I shouldn't know what hard seltzer is. It shouldn't be part of the beer discourse, any more than wine coolers or pre-mixed cocktails are, but for some reason the industry analysts over in the US have marked it out as part of our world, impacting on beer sales and therefore worthy of study or concern. It's flavoured fizzy water with alcohol and sugar added. The alcohol presumably is of malt origin though it's definitely not beer. There is no head and all the versions are colourless.

Brand leader is White Claw, and I have John to thank for these three cans. The Natural Lime one is probably the blandest. It's quite thick, feeling like sugary white lemonade, with a similar high level of burpy fizz. The lime is is no more than a squeeze, and tastes quite artificial, ironically. My favourite of the three was Ruby Grapefruit which smells incredibly authentic and tastes realistic to a certain extent too. It even has the concentrated pepper effect I associate with grapefruit peel. There's no finish of any length, however; a reminder that you're drinking sparkling water. Raspberry is probably the silliest of the lot, strongly flavoured with raspberry candy, a tooth-rotting taste that I haven't experienced since I was a nipper.

Despite the clanging sodapop flavours, these are all very easy to drink. I was not long getting through over a litre here. But the experience is very very unbeery. I cannot fathom why anyone would switch their preference from that to this. White Claw is not (yet) available in Ireland but you will find very similar products from Oskar Blues and Ska, both of whom should know better.