Barefoot Radler

Brewed by South Australia Brewing (Lion Nathan Co.)
Style: Fruit Beer
Thebarton, Australia

Clear light orange in colour with no head, slight citrus aroma, mild lime flavours, short crisp dry finish.

Sweet lime aroma with a dash of hops. Clear yellow colour with fair head and lacing. Sweet malt hop flavour with loads of lime for good measure. Fizzy palate. Good to have on a hot day.

Bottle -- Clear, light yellow with a bit of head but not much retention. A little lacing. All lime and lemon, the aroma does nothing to suggest you have a beer in your glass. The flavour is a lot like an alcoholic lemonade, with the palate to match, and still also does very little to suggest beer. This isn’t the most horrible beer of this type I’ve tried (that accolade goes to Miller Chill... Brrrrrrr!) but it does get a bit much before the end of the bottle and the aftertaste is a rather unpleasant, wishy washy, watery sweetness. Maybe on a hot day in the hot sun, but I think I’d prefer a Schweppes.

They do pack a fair amount of citrus ino this , which made this an interesting but refreshing drink. For what it tries to do I think it acheives a reasonable result

Bottle (330ml). Poured golden yellow with a white frothy head which was mostly diminishing. Aroma was fresh lemonade (traditional) with lemon zest, touch of lime and a few spoons of sugar. Taste was sweet lemonade, lemon sherbet, lemon zest, a squeeze of lime, hint of ginger and some odd soapy notes. Light bodied with fizzy carbonation, watery texture, fizzy mouthfeel and a short finish. Wow I thought Monteiths radler was bad but this one was so terrible I could not finish it.

Very sweet, too much so. However, it seems to be the best lime/lemon combo out there for the beer market... Doesn’t taste like real beer, but it doesn’t offend.

Bottle: This looks to me like an attempt to capture some non-beer drinkers and ’female drinkers’ (why they are so different never seems to be recognised as cultural rather than sensory... anyway). This is basically Toohey’s Red with lime cordial - something I used to do when I couldn’t stand drinking it. It’s clear gold, it’s got big bubbles, it has a nice limey aroma, it tastes like cheap lager with lime. Inoffensive and insulting.

Another marketing department-driven stab at the market for teenage drinkers who want to get pissed but don’t like the flavour of alcohol. This looks like any other Lion Nathan lager - why wouldn’t it when most drinkers will swig from the bottle. Smells like a particularly lemony lager shandy with a squeeze of lime. Inoffensive odour, with enough citrus to cover any skunking from the green bottle. First taste had me thinking of Thai restaurants - strong lemongrass, which obscures any beery characteristics, like malt or hops. Weak malt backbone, negligible bitterness. Basically, another alcopop. It’s refreshing but I’d rather have a glass of cordial and then a beer. (330ml bottle, bb 2/9/08)