Cucumber Beers: Stars Of The Summer?

Saraveza is a Portland beer geek bar dolled up as a Midwestern blue-collar dive adorned with Old Style and Schlitz breweriana and Packers paraphernalia galore. Yet perched in front of me is a Budweiser branded chalice with a cucumber slice garnish. Virtually zero beer halls in Wisconsin would deign to serve a beer with a veggie on the rim, but it flies in Oregon, where lumberjacks have given way to “lumbersexuals” and at least four breweries across the state, to wit, have brewed beers with cucumbers. The particular one in question is Oakshire’s Sun Made Cucumber Berliner Weisse made in Eugene. It’s as light, tart and refreshing as expected, and the kiss of cuke smacks of spa water or a cosmetic face mask.

Yes, there are oddball adjuncts appearing in beers today—Stilton cheese culture and beard cultures, civet poop coffee and elephant poop coffee, bull testicles and dung-smoked whale testicles—but as much as cucumbers seem weird to throw in a beer, once shock wears off, deft and delicious beer remains.

I’m not sure which is more astonishing: that there are several beers made with this vegetable or the fact that cucumbers aren’t veggies at all. They are, botanically speaking, a gourd fruit, making them closer to watermelon than zucchini. Just don’t tell that to the salad bar or pickle jar. Speaking of which, the key to these beers is probably keeping said beers from tasting like pickle juice. Then again, one such Oregon beer is the dry-pickled Dill Dose, a collaboration between Portland’s Coalition Brewing and Moon Brine Pickles designed to mimic a “pickle back” for all your whiskey or cheeseburger needs… CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY AT ALL ABOUT BEER