Shipyard Brewery's Summer Ale

Shipyard Brewery fired up in 1994, right around the same time Jose Canseco won the award for comeback player of the year playing on the Texas Rangers. Also, am I the only person who thinks the Pirates should trade Neil Walker to the Rangers; so he can be "Neil Walker: Texas Ranger"? But I digress. Shipyard is based out of Portland, Maine and is the 15th largest microbrewery in the United States. If started up at Federal Jack's Restaurant in 1992. It was a bigger hit than crystal meth was to Jodie Sweetin and soon had to expand their operations to to their current establishment.

So Fred Forsley and Alan Pugsley opened up this brewery to meet the market needs and also thought it'd be a smart idea to make soda; because who the heck doesn't like soda? Diabetics maybe...and communists. So Forsley and Pugsley are now under control of Shipyard, Sea Dog Brewing company, and Casco Bay Brewing Company, which Merrian-Webster (Webster's Mom) considers "aggressive".

These guys put out about 12 beers years round with almost half of those being seasonals and they release one soda, or as hillbillies call it: pop.

This is their Summer Ale. Summer ales are good beers if you want to drink a lot of beer really fast, which is one of my top 10 favorite ways to drink beer. This bastard uses Pale Ale, Munich and Wheat malts, Hallertau hops (holla!), with English yeast. I give these guys full marks with the amount of information they have about their booze on their website though after trying a few beers from Shipyard I find their taste a little to be desired. There isn't too much in this or any Summer Ales, mostly floral fragrance. Drinkability of this beer is high and leaves almost no aftertaste in your mouth. It even tastes light for a Summer Ale but does have an ABV of 4.8% so these thing can catch up with you fast! I picked up this variety pack for $16 bucks for 12 bottles. Thats a pretty good deal; or you could buy 8 packs of baseball cards. I'm not sure but when I convert costs of goods and services to baseball cards, I end up only buying baseball cards.

This beer is a great way to beat the heat at a BBQ if you are trying to get refreshed and drunk at the same time, but if its not 100 degrees outside, there isn't too much hurry to stock up on this or any Summer Ale, in my opinion. Plus the label has a lobster sunbathing on it which is just about as cool as a design on a 10 year old's T-Shirt.

Drinkability: 8/10

Taste: 3/10

Value: 4/10
Curb Appeal: 4/10

Overall: 4.8/10