The Abita Brewing Company is good at localizing their beers while making them palatable to beer drinkers outside of Louisiana — most of the time.
Abita has a series of beers called “Harvest.” Strawberry, pecan and satsuma flavors are added to simple beers throughout the year depending on the presiding flavor’s season. At this point in the year, Strawberry Harvest is beginning to make its way off shelves, to the dismay of many, and Satsuma Harvest is beginning to make appearances in stores around the nation.
Like Strawberry Harvest, Satsuma is a wheat beer at its base, with pilsner malts included in the brewing process to deepen the flavor profile. The difference, however, is that unlike strawberry juice, which is extremely sweet and has quite a domineering effect on a weak wheat beer, satsuma juice and peel do not have this effect, and coriander isn’t making the party any sweeter.
Coriander, by the way, is just a fancy word for cilantro — the salsa ingredient.
Satsumas, a citrus fruit local to Japan, are essentially just small, sweet oranges with thin skin that grow particularly well in southern Louisiana. Since Louisiana-themed beers are Abita’s main shtick, it makes sense for them to capitalize on the citrus fruit’s abundance during this time of year. Unfortunately, this one misses the mark.
The beer pours a slightly hazy golden color with a tint of orange, and produces a creamy, pure white head that rose about one inch. The beer’s pretty appearance is rudely interrupted by the aroma, though, as it skips all the sweetness Abita promised in its product description and only alludes to the orange peel in the brew with a very bitter smell.
Not one to judge a beer solely by its aroma, I kept an open mind. The taste, while marginally better than the aroma, left much to be desired, even after only one sip.
The mouthfeel is watery and thin, and lacks the right carbonation for this style of beer. A beer with this flavor profile should have a crisp, refreshing finish, but this one leaves my throat feeling coated in a thin film as if I just drank a glass of whole milk.
The flavors Abita promised on its label are indeed all present, but none of them take center stage, which is ultimately this beer’s downfall. A beer with ‘satsuma’ in the name should have a strong, almost overwhelming citrus presence. Abita certainly didn’t hold back with strawberry flavoring in Strawberry Harvest or Strawator, why hold back on satsuma flavoring here?
Instead of being sweet and bright, this beer takes on more flavoring from the orange peel and coriander, giving it a bitter aftertaste that lingers in the worst way possible. Wheat beers do not often have a bitterness in their flavor arsenal, so adding it to this beer doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I have tried this beer in a myriad of ways. I have had it straight, both from the bottle and poured into a lager glass. I have had it with a slice of orange. I have had it with a slice of lemon. I have even mixed it with orange juice (my Beastie Boys fans will appreciate that). But, to my dismay, none of these flavor-enhancing methods made my experience any better. This is simply just not a good beer.
Fortunately for Louisiana locals, Abita does not have a track record for producing bad beers, and still offers a wide array of delicious brews. For now, stick to their year-round beers, at least until the next Harvest beer hits the shelves.
Connor Tarter is a 21-year-old communication studies senior from Dallas, Texas.