June 25, 2016 - The very first time I ever tried Half Pints' Bikey McBikeface at the annual Flatlanders Beer Festival in Winnipeg, I still remember it clearly.. it was simply awesome, it was a Radler/Grapefruit Lager that was sweet, hoppy and a party in my mouth. A few weeks later it made a special appearance at Manitoba Liquor Marts' now defunct growler bar. It became a beer that if I saw it on tap, I HAD to order it, which is exactly what we did when it was randomly on tap at the old Prairie Firehouse restaurant (RIP), myself and my buddy Grant bought each other several pitchers of that beer that night. The beer became so popular that they finally made it one of their core (or at least seasonal) packaged products.
Fast forward to now, I found out in the early autumn that they came out with a second beer in the Bikey series(?) called Bikey McPeach Fuzz Peach Grapefruit Lager. The beer made a brief appearance at my local LC but was removed from the shelves a couple weeks ago, but I still have a couple cans of the beer left and the beer is great, so I'm going to review it!
From the label: Bikey always gonna do Bikey, and Bikey gonna do peach now, bruh. Still a hoppy grapefruit lager? You know it. But now peachy? Bingo. Kinda like Bikey took a ride through a peach grove. Or orchard. Or whatever it's called where peaches hang around. 4.5% ABV
Appearance: Opaque and has a Good Host iced tea kind of amber/honey appearance to it, with a slight grapefruit-peach hue to it. The head is light-to-moderate with a peachy beige hue to it.
Aroma: My first impression on the beer is that I get a moderate graininess to it - a cereal vibe to it. Once past the cereal notes I get a sweet happy peachy aroma to it, followed by a bitterness from the grapefruit. Out of the two fruits, peach pops out more than grapefruit.
Taste: Quiet a grainy and cereal-forward lager again. There's a moderate amount of bitterness that I can describe as pine, pepper and grapefruit. The beer is quite sweet but not too sweet, so you're not going to get an overly Sour Peaches candy flavour that you get in many peach-flavoured beers out there. Hints of lemon, leafy hops and a bit of a fresh doughiness at the end.
Overall Thoughts: As soon as I smelled this beer, I knew it reminded me of something - Back in the summer I made a summer cocktail called The Gimli Rydler which contains simply beer and Crown Royal Peach Whisky, while I didn't use Bikey McBikeface for the blog post, I did add Whisky to Bikey but I found the flavours to clash a bit much... but the addition of peach for this beer has more of a sweet meets bitter flavour to it, so it works much better... but I feel like I need to buy another bottle of Crown Royal Peach to see how it would be with this. Sweet but not too sweet, moderately spiced thanks to the grapefruit and bitter/leafy hop presence.
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