The Original Session Beer: Four Great Summer Shandies

Beer purists view the shandy, a beer-and-ginger-ale cocktail from 19th-century England, as a crass concoction — a cheap way to water down good brew. Our take? Exactly! It's summer. You want a drink that goes down easy before noon, when you're lashing your cooler to an inner tube. Thankfully, the craft world is now turning its attention to lighter, less-alcoholic brews with a refreshing citrusy kick. As well as producing bottled shandies and radlers, which use flavored sodas instead of ginger ale, many brewers are devising IPAs with a shot of grapefruit juice to amplify the hops' natural pop. Sure, some still taste like liquid candy. But some, like the four below, are great — and perhaps the only reason to own a pair of those bottle-opening flip-flops.

BEER: The 101 Best Beers in America^[1]

Stiegl Grapefruit Radler
^[2]Stiegl makes a 40-60 blend of its Goldbräu lager and grapefruit soda. The aroma is bright, and the body is so crisp that you may forget you're drinking beer.

Leinenkugel's Grapefruit Shandy
^[3]Leinenkugel's saw the potential of the beer cocktail a decade ago, and its Grapefruit Shandy is its most refined yet, with a mild sweetness and balanced finish.

Widmer Hefe Shandy
^[4]Widmer's Hefeweizen is the original American-style wheat beer, and the Portland, Oregon, brewery adapted it for summer with Lemondrop hops, which add a citrus bite.

Boulevard Ginger Lemon Radler
^[5]Kansas City's Boulevard has a talent for refreshing brews, and the ginger and lemon juice in this wheat-beer-based radler bring an extra level of zing.

The Homemade Radler
The radler is a relatively foolproof beverage, and it's worth experimenting by mixing various flavors of soda into your favorite beer. The traditional recipe calls for a 50-50 blend of a lager that's mild on hops, such as a Session Lager, and grapefruit or lemon soda, like Sanpellegrino Limonata. To get adventurous, try a crisp but funky style like a German Berliner weisse or gose as the beer base. You can even add an ounce of aromatic gin along with the soda.

References

1. ^{^} BEER: The 101 Best Beers in America (www.mensjournal.com)
2. ^{^} Stiegl Grapefruit Radler (www.stiegl.at)
3. ^{^} Leinenkugel's Grapefruit Shandy (www.leinie.com)
4. ^{^} Widmer Hefe Shandy (widmerbrothers.com)
5. ^{^} Boulevard Ginger Lemon Radler (www.boulevard.com)