Rieder Lemon | Brauerei Ried

3.15/5  rDev n/a
look: 3 | smell: 3 | taste: 3 | feel: 3.5 | overall: 3.5

A radler from a more northern German persuasion, or so I have been told.

This beer pours a very pale hazy yellow straw colour, with one very anemic finger of fizzy white head, which leaves zilch in the way of lace around the glass as it quickly consumes itself.

It smells of sweet lemon pie filling, a bit of citrus freezie, and a mild cereal graininess. The taste is more sugary, saccharine grainy malt, thinned mightily by a strong lemon-lime fruitiness, and not much more, I'm sad to report.

The carbonation is pretty much inert, the body a sturdy enough medium weight, and fruit juice smooth, there's just no other way, I suppose. It finishes sweet, the lemon Pledge association growing fractionally.

Refreshing, I have to admit, but with the barest of beer elements (less than half, by the label's proclamation). I suppose that is the purpose, style, and appeal of this type of offering, which provides this in spades, without any overwrought cloying or pithy sideshow.

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