Beer Review – Passion Fruit Kicker

Overview

Passion Fruit Kicker is an American Pale Wheat Ale brewed by Green Flash Brewing Co. in California. It has an ABV of 5.5%.

About the Brand

Green Flash was founded in 2002 by Mike and Lisa Hinkley. Since launching with the West Coast IPA, Green Flash has seen significant success with its line of perennial, seasonal and experimental brews.

Green Flash has maintains a strong commitment to helping the community through a series of charitable programs, including Treasure Chest which has donated more than $300,000 to breast cancer research.

When viewing Green Flash’s portfolio of brews, the volume of IPAs is quite noticeable.

About the Beer

Over the last month and a bit, I have tried a number of fruit-based brews including Abita’s Strawberry Lager, Shiner’s Peach Wheat, Sea Dog’s Wild Blueberry Wheat Ale and Abita’s Purple Haze (review coming soon). This is fairly unusual for me as I have not enjoyed them previously. That said, I have been fairly surprised by most of the aforementioned brews.

Hoping to keep my happy streak going, I picked up a can of Passion Fruit Kicker. Luckily for me, Green Flash rose to meet the call.

When poured into a glass, Passion Fruit Kicker has a hazy, yellow appearance with a passionfruit pulp hue. Its smell also included a fairly strong tone of the exotic fruit.

On tasting the brew, I was happy to find similarity to Abita’s Strawberry Lager and Shiner’s Peach Wheat in that, only the pleasant attributes of the fruit were present. There is a strong kick of passionfruit’s trademark tangy sourness without being overwhelmingly sour or sweet to the point of detracting from the beer.

Passion Fruit Kicker is incredibly easy to drink, almost scarily so. While the idea is fairly out there, Green Flash pulled it off masterfully.

TL;DR

Don’t let the obscure flavor profile fool you, Passion Fruit Kicker is a wonderfully drinkable beer. I highly recommend picking it up if you see it on your adventures. You can thank me later.

Rating: 9/10

Questions of the Day

What unusual beer would you recommend to a friend? Let me know!