It’s hard to know when you’ve had a subpar shandy.
The beverage — a mixture of a beer and a soft drink, usually lemonade — is aided by its construction. You can mask a bad brew with sugary juice and hide the flaws in both.
There’s a quality gradient applying to shandies to be sure, but just like with craft beer as a whole, there is increasing innovation within the category. Wisconsin’s Leinenkugel’s makes what could be considered a traditional version, but there are now IPA shandies and cider shandies vying for space in your cooler. Below is an assorted sample — some good, some not so much — of what’s out there.
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Old Fashioned Lemonade IPA, Omnipollo, and Evil Twin Brewing (7 percent ABV): A Swedish brewery and a Danish brewery manufacture this beer right here at Dorchester Brewing Co. There’s unmistakably an IPA in here — spicy, piney, and full bodied — juxtaposed with what can best be described as Country Time lemonade stirred with an extra scoop (like you used to add when mom wasn’t looking). There’s also a pink lemonade version, brewed with raspberries.
Del’s Shandy, Narragansett Beer (4.7 percent): Founded as a single cart in 1948, Del’s Lemonade is a Rhode Island original. Narragansett brewers take the concentrate for the soft, frozen lemonade and add it to their signature lager. The result is something that barely works — the extract is overpowering, presenting more like lemon Pledge than lemonade.
Summer Shandy, Stowe Cider (5.5 percent): What happens when you combine a mostly dry cider, pressed from fresh Vermont apples, with house-made lemonade? You get summer in a can. Tart-on-tart works surprisingly well here, and will make you wish all lemonade was this refreshing.
Ginger Lemon Radler, Boulevard Brewing Co. (4.1 percent): The words “shandy” and “radler” are basically interchangeable, though the latter has German origins rather than British. The Kansas City brewery uses spicy, fresh-juiced ginger to play off the maltiness of the beer and tartness of the lemon extract. Given the low ABV and intense flavor, this may be the best of the bunch.
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Porch Rocker, Samuel Adams (4.5 percent): Sam’s take on the classic Bavarian radler combines a golden Helles with a blend of real lemons. There’s a nice balance here between cracked grain and fruitiness. It’s not quite the John Deere of lawn mower beers, but it’s also not something you’d turn down after finishing your yard work on a hot day.
Gary Dzen can be reached at gary.dzen@boston.com.