Radler Tournament - Warsteiner

We've felt a little lost without a beer tournament, so we decided to test out the radlers, including the radler-style flavored beers. 

For the first competition, we tried four of Warsteiner's radlers: Radler, Grapefruit Radler, Lemon, and Orange.  

Since the Lemon and the Radler seemed closest, we matched them up for the first competition.   

We expected they would be quite similar, but were surprised with the outcome. The Radler, not surprisingly, has the classic radler taste of light, sweet, crisp, and with hints of beer and lemon-soda. The Lemon Warsteiner, on the other hand, tasted more like lemon flavor (rather than like Sprite), though it was not bitter.  It was not sweet, though, and we barely tasted the beer. 

We unanimously chose the Radler, since it was crisper and still maintained a little beer taste.

Next up were the Grapefruit Radler and the Orange. We really had no idea what to expect.  I was somehow surprised, though, to find that the Grapefruit had actual grapefruit taste, rather than some artificial flavor that was called "grapefruit." I love grapefruit juice and will eat them plain, but the grapefruit in my beer was just a little odd.  But, big points for authentic taste...it tastes exactly as described!

The Orange, on the other hand, had an orange taste that was closer to a sweet creamsicle-y orange rather than a citrus fruit. It was light and refreshing, and clean and sweet with the orange taste coming as a very light taste at the end. 

We wouldn't say the Grapefruit Radler is bad, but the Orange is much better and refreshing.

So, then we have a final taste-off for the first spot in the Radler Final Four (yes, this really is an abbreviated tournament!):  Warsteiner Radler vs Warsteiner Orange.

It was a really close call - both the Radler and the Orange tasted very similar at the beginning of each sip.  They were crisp, light, and refreshing.  But at the end of the sip, the tastes diverged.  The Radler had the classic Sprite taste and the Orange had a light creamsicle taste.  I just found the Orange to be more enjoyable tasting, but Herr J voted for it because he could still taste a little bit of beer in there.  And even though it is a flavored summer beer, he still wanted it to be a beer.

Next up, we'll taste some of Beck's many offerings and some classic Munich radlers.  We'll also compare bottled radlers to home-made.