Review: Stiegl Radler

Every once in a while, when I encounter an unusual enough beer, I'll buy it out of morbid curiosity. While I'm in no way an experienced beer judge, I thought I'd share with you a review of my newest acquisition, a .5L bottle of Stiegl Radler. 




This beer was advertised as a "Beer with Lemon Soda Malt Beverage Speciality." Reading the back label, it says it's 50% lager and 50% lemon soda. Now I've heard of a shandy, but never had the dubious pleasure of trying one, let alone a premixed one such as this.

After pouring, the first thing I did was swirl it, then take a smell, while pretending to know what I was doing. It smelled... lemony. There wasn't much else. It wasn't sweet smelling like soda or lemonade, more like lemon juice or lemon-scented cleaner. This did not increase my anticipation for tasting it.


Nonetheless, I braved a taste. The flavor is dominated by lemon soda. It doesn't clash with the beer taste, just completely overpowers it. The only thing the beer does is mute the sweetness of the soda. This results in a drink that isn't sweet enough for a soda, but way too sweet for a beer. Worst of all, to me, the sweetness doesn't even taste like real sugar, more like splenda or sugar substitute. I have no idea if this is the case, as the ingredients weren't printed on the label.


The aftertaste wasn't as bad as I'd feared. A bit malty, with a hint of lemon at the end.

After a few sips, the sweetness got overwhelming and I started to feel sick. This may also be because of my aversion to lemon-flavored alcohols brought on by an unfortunate incident with lemon vodka in college. Or it may be because the lemon soda just wasn't very good.


I would not drink this again, especially not .5L of it. I do think I'd like to try the lager by itself, from what I could get, it doesn't seem bad.


It's an interesting concept, maybe one I'll try and replicate this summer - hopefully with better success than they have.