Red Rock Bending Branch and Shades Blueberry PB&J 

• Mike Riedel

Red Rock - Bending Branch: This Peach Hefeweizen features 650 lbs. of real peaches, and was made utilizing a classic German Hefeweizen yeast strain. This beer pours a hazy, pale golden-yellow color, with a near-teeming tower of puffy, loosely foamy and bubbly off-white head, which leaves some random sudsy island group lace around the glass as it quickly blows off. It smells of grainy wheat malt, some peach and nectarine orchard fruitiness, toasty saltine crackers, a touch of hard water flintiness and some weak earthy, leafy and grassy green hop bitterness.

It tastes of light and airy fruit on some flaked wheat that is honey-kissed—tall, golden sweet wheat. That wheat has a bit of under-ripe tartness, and the earthiness is woven into the mouthfeel—soft but a bit malty, with a touch of weight and creamy with effervescent carbonation. Further generic earthy stone fruitiness rounds out the end, with a touch of estery yeast, and some still hard-to-pin-down leafy, weedy and floral hoppiness. The bubbles are fairly innocuous in their plainly-rendered frothiness, the 5.0 percent alcohol body a solid medium weight, and generally smooth. There's nothing really capable of running interference here, willing to stick its fool neck out, y'know? It finishes well off-dry, with both the malt and stone fruitiness taking on the day with a fervor of sorts.

Verdict: A nice fruit beer. If you enjoy it cold, you'll miss some of the banana and clove from the yeast, so let it warm slightly for the full flavor profile. This one is hefty and heady enough to overcome the temperature/flavor fluctuations, and makes for a titillating and refreshing late-summer quaffer when all is said and done.

Shades - Blueberry PB&J: This new peanut butter-and-jam themed beer features Shades signature Kveik yeast for its base beer. This time around, the featured fruit is blueberry, and the color very much reflects it; it has a pleasant purple hue that is not quite opaque. The head retention on beers like this is pretty much non-existent, which is fine, since these are quite aromatic on their own. I get powdered peanut butter, honest-to-goodness bread crusts and sweet/tart blueberry jam—quite authentic in each part, and very true to the sandwich, with only a little weirdness as a sour beer foundation.

The flavor is similar, and the peanut butter is the weak link for me—the proportion is good, but it's not as real-tasting as it was in some of the previous versions of the PB&J. It's quite nutty and toasty, but with less peanut butter, which comes off somewhat powdered and sort of dusty to me. The blueberry jam part is crazy good—better than the original, all on the finish, very authentic. It almost seems made with the jam rather than real fruit, and the breadiness of the malt is expert, truly creating a sandwich vibe. Sourness in this 6.5 percent ale is moderate, so while it's tart, I could do a whole can of this for sure. Bubbly like a soda, medium in body, pretty fast finish, the sliced bread taste outlasts the peanut butter and the jam.

Verdict: A nice beer overall, and it's nice to see some of Shades' crazy Kviek beers return. It's better than your typical novelty-type beer, even though that's what it might seem like from the description.

Blueberry PB&J is thankfully available in 12-ounce cans; 16 ounces tends to be a bit too much for beers like these. You can find this at Shades' beer store to-go, or to enjoy at their pub. Bending Branch, however, is exclusive to Harmons Grocery stores, and is available in 16-ounce cans. As always, cheers!