Beer Review: Kenai River Gummi Bear Beer

Serving Type: Free sample sent from the brewer. Was a draft-only release and was canned for shipping.

ABV: 9.2 percent

Appearance: The highly anticipated Gummi Bear Beer had a deep gold tone to its body. It also had a tad of a hazy character to it, due to the yeast content. After all, it is a Belgian Tripel. It also features a slightly fizzy and white head. The can it came in was a classic, as its title was simply written in permanent marker.

Smell: I got two key things from smelling this beer. A strong aroma of boozy alcohol and something that was almost buttery. It's almost like this brew fermented in the can during shipping, which wouldn't be a surprise since there was a lot of sugar put into this. A very interesting balance.

Taste: For the most part, the beer's taste featured the alcohol and the butter I sensed in the smell. There was also a strong helping of sugary sweetness. As there was plenty of Gummi Bears put into the brewing process, there wasn't a distinctive fruit flavor for any particular Gummi Bear. The alcohol and the intense sweetness might be unbearable if not for the taste of butter and yeast being there to balance things out. With the butter  and yeast flavors, this beer's flavor seems extremely adventurous.

Overall Rating: 

I waited a good while for this beer to finally get to me. I was very excited to finally try a beer with actual Gummi Bears brewed into it. I loved the use of drastic, but still balanced flavors in this beer. Keep in mind that this isn't the most sessionable of beers, given its ABV, but is a fun drink for one or two glasses. This was a limited-release by Kenai River Brewing and was draft-only.

Could Candy in Beer Be the New Thing?

Image via Wikipedia

Want to chew your beer?

Word of this news has quickly circulated around the craft beer world. Apparently Alaskan-based brewer, Kenai River Brewing Co. is concocting a Belgian Tripel that features gummy bears introduced to the batch at some point in the brewing process.

The beer calls for 20 lbs of candy sugar and approximately 15 lbs of the childhood snack.

First of all, I want to meet the person that came up with that idea. I love gummy bears. I grew up eating them. Sometimes I still do. Hell, a few times I even came across some rum-infused gummy bears. This idea is one of those that can hit on one of two opposite ends of the spectrum. It can either go very wrong, or become a new fad. The next thing I know, I'll be walking into my local watering hole to find some eccentric drunk with gummy candy floating around in his craft beer.

It brings up an entertaining question that beer enthusiasts have been debating for years: What is acceptable to put in your beer?

Mainly, this debate has been around whether or not to have fruit in your beer. Now, there are many people that enjoy doing it as there are that consider it a sacrilege. Personally, I've grown out of putting fruits in most of the beers that I drink. I've made it well known that some of my favorite beer styles are made with plenty of fruit.

Corona has gone as far as to incorporate the lime in Corona Extra as a marketing ploy. It's also very common to see someone with an orange slice on the rim of a glass of Blue Moon Belgian White. If you've progressed from that stage of beer drinking and have moved on to bigger and better brews, you might see a few instances where someone uses a lemon or an orange with a certain type of witbier.

The debate might not ever end. I simply prefer a well-crafted fruit beer and sometimes a lemon with a Hoegaarden. Now we face the possibility of putting candy in our beers, something I've never heard nor thought of until yesterday. Jesus. With this style that Kenai is playing with, it might help. The few Tripels that I've had have tasted terrible, in my opinion. The fact that gummy bears are going to be brewed into beer is somewhat ironic. The gummy bear originated in Germany.