Beers in Review: Racer 5 IPA and Bud Lime
Tonight I was able to make to Healthy Spirits bottle shop in San Francisco. I picked up a few Christmas beers and other interesting bottles that I hope to get to review in the coming days. To make room for them in my beer fridge, I had to take some of the older beers out and replace them with these newer ones. Racer 5 IPA was one of those bottles. I don’t think I’ve formally reviewed this beer on this site just yet so I set aside a bottle in order to do so.
The Bud Lime happened to be at a friend’s house on the night of the election. Besides Blue Moon, this was the only thing he had in his fridge. Since I had never tried it before, I thought I’d give it a while. Here are my thoughts for both beers.
Racer 5 IPA, Bear Republic Brewing Company, 7% ABV
The very first time I tried this beer, it was at the Bear Republic brew pub over in Healdsburg, CA. I was in the area to go wine tasting but stopped by Bear Republic for lunch. I ordered a sample platter of all their different beers. At the time, I didn’t think any of their beers were really that notable but when examined in greater detail with a bottle’s worth of beer, you can really get the fully experience. The bottle I have I picked up a few months ago for my Let’s Get Lit beer, food and cigar pairing event.
This beer pours out a slightly pale amber to caramel in color with an off-white head. The beer really isn’t really bright, not is the beer clear. I can clearly see particulate matter in suspension. Reading the label, it would appear this beer is bottle conditioned and I assume the particulate matter is yeast. The aroma is a combination of assertive citrus and floral hops with a clean, sweet-ish, slightly bready malt compliment. Slight alcohol is noticeable at warmer temperatures. The flavor is primarily hop driven; it is assertively hopped with a high level of bitterness that lasts into the finish. Thankfully the malt flavors of the beer are sweet and pronounced enough to balance the hop bitterness. While a great tasting IPA, the flavors seem slightly muted but that may be because I’ve had this bottle for a number of months. I’m almost certain a fresh bottle will taste even better. The beer is medium-high in body with a high level of carbonation.
Bud Lime, Anheuser Busch, ~4.2% ABV
What can I say? I was curious. I had a picture that I took with my friend’s camera that he failed to email to me. In the end, it didn’t matter anyway.
This beer pours a pale gold/gold color, is brilliantly clear and has a white head. This beer smells like 7up but with a little bit more lime character. This beer tastes like 7up. Bud Lime is medium-low/low in body with high carbonation.
I took a couple of sips, enough to get a good idea of this beer. While amazingly easy to drink, this beer (if you can even call it that) reminded me more of lemon-lime soda 7up than it did a beer. That’s why I have a picture of 7up for this beer. I understand that A-B made this beer to compete with the other “malternative” malt-based beverages out there but this is not really a beer. Whatever beer flavor there was is easily overshadowed by a higher than expected level of sweetness and lime character.
So whenever people ask me about this beer, I can say I’ve tried it and it sucks. Unless of course you like your beer like you do your lemon-lime soda, then I would suppose this is good then.
November 8th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Racer 5 has to be drank fresh. You can find it on tap at a lot of places, and I highly recommend it. Just had it on Friday, my gym has it on tap. Yeah, talk about motivation to go to the gym.