Only a few days ago, I awarded Creature Comforts’ Tropicalia IPA the highest rating I’ve ever given a beer while writing for Paste. That beer is one of four year-rounders that the 8-month-old brewery is hanging its hat on, the others being an amber rye ale, a pilsner and a classic Berliner weisse. But of those four, the Berliner is the only other currently in cans. And it’s safe to say that the young Athens brewery made another wise decision here with which beer they wanted to package.
Athena is a Berliner weisse, a style that has surged in popularity over the last few years as a champion of tart beer’s more approachable end. Rather than making every American wild ale a barrel-aged fruit bomb, Berliner weisse’s show drinkers that sour beers can be low-alcohol, subtle, refreshing and on the drier side. These are important distinctions to make when so many of the sours getting awards and attention are huge, fruit-laden sugar bombs.
With that said, there’s plenty of flavor in Athena, perhaps moreso than in most Berliner weisse examples that haven’t had fruit or other flavorings added. Its aroma is immediately tangy, implying its tartness, with a whiff of salt water, wheaty graininess and fresh lemon zest.