General Beer Hater Tries Out Santa Fe Brewing Co.

I’m pleased to announce that this beer review is slightly different from the ones proceeding it-for the first time, this is a sponsored post! Thank you to my friends at Santa Fe Brewing Co. for taking interest in my writing and sending some beer my way. I feel inclined to disclose this one post sponsorship both because I am proud that someone is reading my work but, most importantly, for discretion. My review today will still remain unbiased, as usual. I don’t know enough about beer to convincingly make you think my opinion could be anything but the truth.

I am able to enjoy beer the most when it isn't my first drink of the night, so to give the 7K IPA (catchy) a fair chance at winning me over, I downed a glass of Schnucks finest $5 sweet red wine first before taking the can out of my fridge. 7K IPA is brewed seven thousand feet above sea level, and I’m not sure if that’s stated on the back of the can because high altitude correlates with quality of alcohol or if it’s just the background behind the clever beer name. It’s supposed to be a dry, citrus beer, which I picked up on as soon as the can was open. The beer scent that usually makes me recoil was replaced by grapefruit, which, in my opinion, in infinitely better and more enticing. Tonight, I paired this drink with a binge marathon of Netflix's Big Mouth, a grown-up rendition of puberty with humor as dry and sweet as 7K claims to be.

The grapefruit smell definitely carries over into the taste of the beer, which is unmistakably sweet and bitter at the same time. For most people, this would be their ‘summer’ beer, which tastes the best when served outside when the temperature hits 80. For me, this beer would taste the best if it was watered down with lemonade and made into a shandy (a compliment from someone like me, who has physically spit out sips of $10-per-can craft beers in the past with no interest in ever combining it with anything else for consumption). Now that I think about it, 7K would taste really great in a lot of beer mixed drinks. A beer-mosa made with 7K would be refreshing and one of those huge margaritas where a bottle of beer is screwed to the top would probably taste a lot less like a bud light with salt and a lot more like a real mixed drink if this beer was included. El Burro Loco should definitely be taking notes from this post.

Is 7K the perfect beer for me? Probably not on it’s own. But in my journey to actually enjoying beer, I think I’m going to start having to get a little more creative with how I drink it before I can successfully drink a full can on it’s own. Thanks to my friends at Santa Fe Brewing Co. for putting their product on the line for an extremely amateur review. I'm interested in trying more of their products because I find their minimal packaging appealing and their website very cool (yes, I do judge a book by its cover). Try one for yourself at the Gaslight bar.

Do you think your drink could be the magic product that changes the way I feel about beer? Get in touch, I’ll drink what you have to offer and give your product a write up.

Rebecca Davis is a current content producer for Gaslight. She graduated from Illinois State University in 2017 with a degree in journalism. Rebecca loves dive bars, singing 'Linger' by The Cranberries at karaoke, and pineapple on her pizza. Her dislikes include the Trader Joe's parking lot, accidentally falling asleep with socks on, and summing up her personality in third person self-written author bios.