Fourth of July Beers

I’m usually a pretty big fan of various imported beers but in honor of Independence Day I thought it would be appropriate to put up a link to a story posted last year on WashingtonCityPaper.com. The article gives a few American alternatives to popular imports. I’m not too familiar with most of their suggestions outside of Sierra Nevada’s Summerfest, which I agree is a great alternative to Heineken or Stella Artois. That one isn’t just a good replacement because of patriotism but in my mind it is just a better beer.

If you have a suggestion for a good American beer to replace an import for the fourth of July then please let me know and I’ll share it with everyone.

Okay, one more link from last year. This one comes to us from the website Brian’s Belly. This site usually has posts all about beer, guy movies, and food. Last year there was a post titled Two Six-Packs of Truly American Beers for the Fourth of July. The post is about as self-explanatory as possible, he just lists out twelve different American beers he thinks would be appropriate for drinking for the Fourth.

Deep Fried Twinkies

Yesterday we had another beautiful night here in Illinois. I sat down with another ideal summertime beer, Zōn, which is apparently Flemish for “sun,” from Boulevard Brewing Company. Zōn is a Belgian-style Witbeer only made available from Boulevard during the summer months. Zōn has a nice flavor that is almost, but not quite, overpowered by the citrus and coriander. It is just enough to distinguish itself from most other Belgian ales without losing the characteristics of the style.

The low alcohol by volume of 4.4% is perfect for what I look for in a summer beer. It means that I can easily sit down and have a couple without worrying about ending up on my ass.

Now here is the carnival-goer in me coming to the surface. Last night I broke out my deep fryer and fried up some zucchini with homemade ranch to dip it in made by my wonderful friend Jessie. We also battered some goat cheese balls, rolled them in crushed pecans, and fried those. Then to wrap it all up I made a carney classic, fried twinkies. I’m only bringing up all of this fried food from last night to mention that the twinkies were perfectly complimented by the Zōn I was drinking. That really speaks pretty loudly as to what kind of blogger I am, my beer pairings are about what goes well with a deep-fried twinkies.

I always enjoy beers from Boulevard Brewing but my favorite things to do is always to get their variety pack with two bottles of five of their year round beers and two bottles of whichever seasonal they’re producing. If you get one of the variety packs now it will include Zōn as the summer seasonal. Especially if you’re not already familiar with Boulevard’s beers I would strongly suggest that you skip on the six of Zōn and instead go for the variety 12-pack. That’s a good rule of thumb for most breweries you aren’t familiar with, but I think it holds particularly true with boulevard.

If you do go with a six of Zōn then to give you the best idea possible of what you’re going to get I would say that as far as Belgian white/wheat ales go it is better than a Blue Moon, but not as good as Hoegaarden. It is absolutely something I would, and will, but again!