Review: Abita Beer’s Purple Haze

Abita is a small brewery 30 miles north of New Orleans.  They were founded in 1986 and are the oldest craft brewery in the southeastern United States.  We like finding small brewers, and we will be trying other beers from their selection.  Since we are big Jimmy Hendrix fans, we had to try the Purple Haze first.  We’re not sure if there is any connection to the legend, the website did not say.

The beer is a light yellow color.  There is a very slight purple haze to it, but you really need to squint for it.  If the beer wasn’t called Purple Haze, we might not have noticed.

The aroma was a bit grassy, something a bit like cloves.  It was not a strong scent, just a hint.

The first sip was a bit disappointing, and the experience did not improve.  It tastes like Keystone beer, with a very tiny bit of raspberries.  The flavor is almost like flat raspberry seltzer water.  There is very little flavor in this beer.  The alcohol content seems very low too, maybe 3% – they don’t list it.  Normally when you create a fruit beer, the beer itself should be very plain to highlight the fruit.  There isn’t much fruit to highlight, leaving just the plain beer.  Even the mouthfeel was too light to be a wheat beer.

This beer might be good on a very hot day where you might want anything cool – still water might be a better choice in this case.

We give these beer 3 flavorless raspberries out of 10.

Brewery: Abita Brewing Company
Style: American Wheat
ABV: Not Listed – Guessing 3%
Container: Bottle