“12 Beers of Christmas” Review: Shiner Holiday Cheer

In Beer Reviews by The Guys

Shiner says:

“We hope you enjoy your Shiner Cheer, an Old World Dunkelweizen brewed with Texas peaches and roasted pecans. The malty flavors of this dark wheat ale are enhanced through the use of malted barley and wheat. And Kräusening ensures a smoothness that makes the subtle peach and pecan flavors all the more satisfying.”

shinercheer2Shiner Holiday Cheer
Dunkelweizen, 5.4% ABV

Karl: I got the feeling while drinking this selection from Shiner that I liked it a lot more than my Guy compatriots. Yes, this isn’t your typical Xmas brew or winter warmer. But, if this is what the holidays are like in Texas, then book my ass a ticket to Austin and I’ll see you in January. This beer is indeed, as promised, peach, peach, peach. (Side note: Without googling, is there a Georgia peach beer? There’s gotta be.)

We were promised pecans, though, were we not? If you give it a couple of minutes it starts to open up and develop that pecan flavor – but only just a touch – and gives it a hint of pie crust or cobbler. If some mad scientist of beer can figure out how to take the pie crust wave of flavor that we saw in the Short’s Key Lime Pie or the Southern Tier Pumking and wrap that into the peachiness of this beer, then my friends, we would have a true winner. As it is, this is a damn fine beer. Or in Texan parlance, this-uh is a dayum fahn beer. Yeehaw.

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Really, you know what this is? Porch winter beer. If you’re in an area where the weather gets down into the 50s at worst, and you want something to break up the monotony of watery lagers and sweat killer beers, you might want a holiday beer that’s fruity and light and refreshing. So I get this.

As it opens up it actually develops like a literal bite of peach. It starts with that bright fresh “sweet as a peach” flavor, then gets tart for a second, and then bitterness. A nice journey of beer. Could I have more than a few of these? No, it would probably get overly cloying after a bit, but I could definitely do a couple while opening up presents. Shiner Cheer mimosa, anyone?

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shinercheer

Ryan: Well, Karl, you hit the nail on the head with this one. You did like it a LOT more than I did. Now that’s not to say it’s a bad beer but it is a one note beer. And that note is peach. You can pick from any of the following to describe this beer; (a) peach cobbler, (b) peach pie, (c) peach ice cream, (d) peach jello, (e) all of the above.  All you get in the nose is peach and all you taste is peach.  Sure, you do get a bit of nuttiness in the finish after a while but it’s still too peachy for my liking.

This beer was fun and sparkly though, but not in a Berliner Weiss sort of way.  No, it was fun and sparkly in a wine cooler sort of way.  I kept looking around waiting for the guys from the old Bartles and James ads to thank me for my support.

Not to steal your thunder (bro), Andrew, but this did taste like a peach Jolly Rancher…dropped in to a bottle of Zima.

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Andrew: I liked the Shiner Holiday Cheer – it was much different as far as Christmas beers are concerned. My problem was with how one-dimensional the beer was.

It poured a very nice clear, ruby-red with a slight white foamy head which dissipated quickly. The nose was nothing but peaches. Same for the flavor of the beer – peaches, peaches and peaches. In fact, it tasted like a peach jolly rancher. The bottle indicated that pecans were also present, but you’ll be hard pressed to find them – totally overpowered by the peaches.

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Written by many, compiled by one, this is a collaborative post with contributions from at least two writers at Guys Drinking Beer.

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