Abita Purple Haze

Hazy amber with small white head, some lacings. Aroma is raspberry. Light bodied beer with some raspberry flavor. Not too bad for a flavored beer.

Pours a cloudy pale yellow. Thin white head that fizzles out quickly. Very faint aroma, with just a bit of breadiness and raspberry. Flavor is equally faint. Mouthfeel is very thin--watery and fizzy. Even if this style is up your alley, there are better examples out there. Can’t really find much to recommend this one.

12 oz bottle. Pours slightly hazy straw yellow body with a very quickly fading fizzy white head. The aroma is a mix of sweaty grain, wheat, and light raspberry puree. The flavor is pretty low on the fruit with much more of that sweaty sickly wheat than anything. A little yeastiness and an earthy very seedy note on the finish with a lingering mineral note. It reminds me of poor quality wild raspberries where there isn’t much juice, but lots of those tiny grainy seeds. Mouthfeel is limp and thin with an excessive amount of prickly fizzy carbonation. Overall, not only is this a bad fruit beer, it’s just a bad beer period.

Bottled. Poured out a cloudy amber color. Head foamed up nicely with many larger bubbles and disappeared fairly quick. Smells faint of rasberries, but the taste is very subtle. Goes down very smooth. I can see this being a good beer for people who don’t drink much beer (women, freshmen college students..).

Bottle from Total Wine in Roseville, CA. It’s what is advertised: a raspberry wheat beer. The taste was a little light, and the carbination was a little heavy. It’s also fairly drinkable, but nothing to write home about.

Cloudy pinkish, pink lemonade like pour with a bright bleached white head that doesn’t last. Smell is a bit wheaty, and mostly raspberry as expected with a touch of a metallic smell that lasted after the head faded. Taste is mostly raspberry and a bit of wheat in the finish, but its slight. I didn’t like this as much as I remember liking it when all I drank was bud light and hard ciders. Its an ok beginner beer I’d say, as my girlfriend liked it, and so did I when I hadn’t tried or gotten used to many of the different styles or bolder flavors that I really enjoy now.

Poured into a pint glass. Hazy brown-orange with an off-white head that leaves a little lace. Aroma is obviously raspberryish with some wheaty esters. Flavor combines the insipidness of banana pith with the saccharinity of raspberry syrup. Those two aspects even out into mediocrity. Really light and drinkable, just not interesting.

(Sample from February 23, 2007 Beer Club Meeting) Chick beer. Too light, too fruity, and really missing a lot. Not bad, though… just lacking and wacky light and fruity.