Slushy XXL - Billions
450 North Brewing Company

Let's just forget about beer for a second. 450 North isn't just pushing the limits of ale, they're pushing the limit of what slushy can be. Rich, rife and unrelenting in its fruity display, their boysenberry, apricot and blackberry Berlinerweiss is something out of the spent fruit pieces and parts after the juices have been squeezed out and sent to market.

Rich in its opaque purple, lavender and mauve tapioca-dense display, Billions (Slushy XXL) turns and churns out of the can like a cement mixer that's dangerously close to missing its deadline, a patient and clumped foam eventually pulls from the fruity mortar and pulls the nose close with the straight forward scent of dark berry and stone fruit puree. Macerated fruits coat the early palate with fructose, cereal and pastry dough in cobbler-like fashion.

Tangy with fruit acidity, the middle palate is chocked full of dark berry flavors and textures to dwarf anything beer-like underneath. Hints of cider, wine and grain are only whimsical and suggested thoughts while the battery of fruit and their seedy, stemmy, leafy tannins add a semblance of spice for balancing the back end.

Full bodied and fruity, the beer finishes fruity with a long linger of fruit. Lacking balance, complexity or variety any connection of this product to beer is merely a stretch. Aside from its grainy, gritty and fruit pulp sediment, the beer tastes pretty good, just as a fibrous juice box and not a beer.