Abita Purple Haze

Brewed by Abita Brewing Company
Style: Fruit Beer
Abita Springs, Louisiana USA

Serve in Flute, Shaker

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Tap at Annapolis 5K Beer Run. Pours hazy amber with average, off-white head. Aroma and flavor are heavy mixed berries, mostly raspberry, caramel and cookie malts, light floral notes and faint vanilla; sweet from start to finish. Light/medium body and medium carbonation.

I didn’t enjoy this. It had a slightly sweet smell, but there was hardly any flavor at all. Watery. Too crisp. A bit of an artificial, jello-like sweetness was kinda floating around on the roof of the mouth, but mostly it was boring.

I gave this one a shot because I’m guilty of having a real sweet tooth, and while beer is not an incredibly merciful domain for someone who’s grown up on soda pop and chocolate milk, everything I heard about this beer pointed to it being a nice sweet treat. Once I tried it I was... quite disappointed. It pours golden amber with a weird purple hint, not unexpected (given the name) or immediately unpleasant. The aroma was underwhelming, an off berry scent with notes of sour yeast. Didn’t really prepare me for what I got. This is only one man’s opinion, but I can vouch there was no dramatic change in temperature that could have so drastically affected the beer, and I even tried a second bottle from a separate box with much the same results. It tasted like nothing. Literally nothing. Yet I can understand where people start calling this a sweet beer. Not because it’s sweet, but because there is just the right amount of sweetness to overpower and negate the natural bitterness of the brew without actually adding a detectable note of flavor. It’s like the berry juice ruined a perfectly good beer without making it taste like yummy berry juice. It is neither a nice bitter beer, nor a sweet fruity beer. I could only recommend this to someone who was just getting acclimated to the taste of beer and couldn’t stand more than a very tiny amount of it. Since that’s just what you get, a very tiny amount of flavor.

This is a good beer if you're looking for a fruity beer. If you're not it tastes like someone melted a purple Ice Pop and spilled it in your beer. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone

Definitely fruity, just not very good. Lacks a lot of complexity. Pretty hard to drink all 4oz I was served.

This is a great fruit beer, highly drinkable. Pours with a hazy brownish red pour and has hints of fruit and wheat in the aftertaste. Not too sweet as most fruit beers and highly drinkable

Light sweet aroma, washed out straw color with a white head. Sweet flavor with a light fizzy finish.

This is essentially a wine cooler. The aroma is is medicinal with a hint of tart, under-ripened fruit. The appearance is reminiscent of a V-8 splash, a bit pulpy and sort of a cloudy juice color. The malt gives more wheat character than anything else, with the thin crispness of the berries at the end. I find the body much to light to support the fruitiness of the beer. Overall, better than Shock Top Raspberry but not something I will buy again.

12oz bottle. Pours amber-like and I almost see a hint of purple to the color. Foamy off-white head that dissipates quickly. Yeasty aroma with slight sour fruit. Light to medium sour berry flavor and fizzy on the palate. Overall reminded me of wine cooler more than a beer.

Like the name says, a long long strange trip. This beer doesn't know what it wants to be. Not really an ale and not really a lambic. Smells like medicine. ---Rated via Beer Buddy for iPhone