Abita’s Purple Haze is the perfect beer to kick off the beer installments of The Rivershack Tavern’s blog. Why, you ask? Well, say I, because it’s a little funky, a little fresh, smooth and sweet – just like us. For those of you who haven’t tried it, Purple Haze is Abita’s year round fruit finished ale. After brewing, some of their amber is taken to a secret laboratory where mad scientists cloaked in hazardous material suits whip a secret raspberry puree recipe into the still-frothy mixture. The result is a beer whose bitterness has been vanquished by the forces of deliciousness, reprogrammed to fight in the name of foamy justice on the bar tables of America.
OK, I made some of that up. What’s true is that Abita Purple Haze is insanely delicious. The raspberry is tart enough to disguise the normal beer bitterness and sweet and flavorful enough to surprise you every time you take a sip or swallow. It’s a great Metairie beer because it’s warm and cool, and it goes great with anything. If you think a raspberry beer is too fruity for a man, think again, it’s good and strong and full flavored. If you’ve ever drank sweet tea, you’ve got no excuse not to down a Purple Haze.
Abita’s other flavored beers are Pecan – which is also great, but perhaps a little too smooth for most beer drinkers – and Strawberry Fest, a seasonal strawberry ale that celebrates the strawberry harvest in what I consider the perfect way. By making it alcoholic.
