Veltins Radler

Veltins Radler by C. & A. Veltins is being evaluated as a Cat 29A Fruit Beer as per the 2021 BJCP Guidelines. This is a lightly alcoholic lemonade-based brew designed to be a Summer refresher. It has beautiful visuals, but the overall flavor balance could be slightly improved to enhance its refreshing qualities.

Strong lemon and citrus characters dominate the aroma, delivering a very bright, clean and refreshing character. The base pilsner notes are very subdued behind this onslaught. The fermentation is very clean with no apparent off-notes. The beer is brilliantly clear and sports a light-golden color as well as a fantastic long-lasting, white small-bubble head. Very impressive!

Flavor-wise, the lemon citrus dominates the palate from start to finish. Sweetness levels are rather high, but bitterness and/or sourness is quite low. This delivers a rather sweet and flabby finish with the sweet lemon notes lingering on the palate long after the drink. The sweetness comes through as an unfermented sugariness, which makes sense if lemonade was just being blended with the base pilsner, completely masking any flavor or aroma that might have been from the base. No alcohol is noted. Body is quite light, and carbonation is moderate.

Overall, this brew’s impression is that of an overly sweet lemonade that is simply out of balance in respect to the sweet and tart balance. Boosting up that tartness in the finish would really clean the palate and deliver an extremely refreshing beverage. As it is, if sweet lemonade is your thing, this would work very well for you as a thirst-quencher.