Traitorade Key Lime Sour

 

Review Date 5/25/2021  By John Staradumsky

OK, football gods, couldn’t you have left 2020 alone? The year was bad enough as it was, but then you had to go and make it worse with the awful news that Tom Brady was leaving my beloved New England Patriots! He ended up winning another Super Bowl ring with his new team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and I am happy for him truth be told. Still, I could not watch the game: it is just too painful watching him play for another team.

Brady’s departure from the Pats was disturbing to many people, among them, the fine folks at Smug Brewing of Pawtucket, Rhode Island (I was born in Pawtucket, by the way). And although Buccaneers having Brady as their quarterback leaves a bad taste in my mouth, Smug Traitorade Key Lime Sour leaves a decidedly good one there.  

Traitorade is Smug’s beery statement on the situation, and although they do not sell their beer in Georgia, I got a can from my brother back in Rhode Island last August. They say about the beer on their label:

We came up with the idea for this beer a year ago, then we decided to retire it. We said we were going to come back to it, but we never did. Now, we decided to release it. We developed a beer with the right amount of sour, and a little bit of saltiness. We blended all that together with the best Florida key limes we could find. The aroma of this beer, alone, reminds you go getting old and having to retire in Florida.

Smug Traitorade Key Lime Sour has an alcohol content of 7% by volume and I have no idea how much it costs. I drank my can shortly after I got it in August of 2020 but as that was a very busy month at work, I never got around to posting it.

Smug Traitorade Key Lime Sour pours to a hazy yellow color with a light head of foam and a wonderfully sour nose that is salty to boot. Taking a sip, the beer has a puckering sourness from the first to the last of the sip. It is packed with tart citric lime notes and finishes with tart lime peel and more puckering sourness, with a pinch of salt for good measure. This is truly an excellent brew, and the lime fruit and peel come through loud and clear. The Gatorade theme is well presented as well.

On its own merits, I would rate this at four stars for an American generic “sour” ale, with a half star tacked on for the creative naming convention.

And remember, try a new beer today, and drink outside the box.

*Pricing data accurate at time of review or latest update. For reference only, based on actual price paid by reviewer.

(B)=Bottled

(D)=Draft

 

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