Style: Hard Seltzer

ABV: 5.0

89/100
Aroma: 12
Appearance: 3
Flavor: 17
Mouthfeel: 4

American Solera PSS

What the brewers say

Hard seltzer aged four months in Balcones bourbon barrels, with pumpkin-pie puree added.

What our panel thought

Bright, light, cream-soda color. Boozy eggnog aroma—cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger wrapped in bourbon vanilla. Dry flavor is surprising—sweet tart, apples, pears, white-wine grapes, high vanilla notes. Spicy bite. Finishes a touch tannic and bitter. Interesting complexity.

What our editors thought

Strange aroma for a seltzer, yet familiar and endearing: vanilla, caramel, light pumpkin spice, hints of ginger, cardamom, nutmeg. On the sip, ginger beer–like spice arrives with low-key wood and bright flavor. A hilarious stunt, but not one we’d go back to.

Review printed in: Beyond Beer: Hard Seltzer, Hard Kombucha, and More (Apr-May 2021) (View All Issues)


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“Funky, horsey nose. Acidic up front but quickly moves into more complex notes of earth and dry sherry with dry lemon. Dry finish feels appropriate. A wild ride from acid to complexity to clean, quick finish.”

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Bright gold with lush foam and lace. Bright Noble-hop aroma, spicy and grassy, with Sprite-like lemon-lime notes and clean, bready malt. Soft smoke-and-spice phenolics. Soft, light, grainy flavor, with simple but pleasant herbal-grassy bitterness and notes of pepper and light fruit. Lively. Fairly bitter. Dry finish with lingering pepper-spice. Tastes like a well-made pilsner given an expressive fermentation. Very nice.

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