Is it beer or is it juice? That’s what I was wondering when my mug of Harpoon UFO Big Squeeze Shandy arrived before me at Taco Mac. That’s because the beer had a hazy hue much reminiscent of a freshly squeezed glass of juice (it looked like orange juice, though the beer is made with grapefruit). “UFO” here does not mean your beer will suddenly start hovering over your table, but rather that this is an UnFiltered Offering.

Speaking of unfiltered, it seems that there are some issues with the 2015 Harpoon UFO Big Squeeze Shandy crop. Harpoon asks that the beer not be stored in growlers from a tap fill, and warns that some bottles of batch "Enjoy By 092 08/15/15 ####” are refermenting in the bottle “and in very rare cases, the bottle may fail under the increased pressure”. AKA, they may explode, a phenomenon most home brewers will be familiar with. Harpoon says that the beer poses no health hazard all the same. If you have bottles of Harpoon UFO Big Squeeze Shandy with this date code you can learn more about the problem here.

Harpoon says of the beer on its website:

When we first started thinking of a UFO summer seasonal, we knew we had our work cut out for us. We loaded up the vans for the beach and spent days “researching” every combination of fresh fruit juice and beer we could think of until we discovered a combination that made our decision easy. 

Harpoon UFO Big Squeeze Shandy has an alcohol content of 4.5% by volume with 13 IBUs. I paid just $5 for a 20-ounce mug at Taco Mac and got a beautiful Big Squeeze logo glass to go with it. It runs $8.99 in six-packs here, though I am assuming most of the 2015 batch has been pulled from store shelves. A shame, because this is really a beautiful beer.

My mug of Harpoon UFO Big Squeeze Shandy arrived a very hazy juice-like orange color with a very minimal film of head and a nose like fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice. The beer has a medium light maltiness underneath but the grapefruit really steals the show here. Grapefruit juice flavor abounds and refreshes the palate, and grapefruit bitterness dries the finish.

If you love grapefruit juice like I do, this beer is a natural for you. A shandy can be a beautiful thing on a hot summer day, and this one really works. Hey, we love the grapefruit aromas and flavors some hop varieties can impart tin beer, so why not real grapefruit in a shandy? This combination really works for me.

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