The blueberry flavor itself is not entirely awful, but is immediately followed by a nosedive into a harsh chemical aftertaste, making the “beer” highly unpleasant. The first sip is overly carbonated, which I expected after watching the head fizzle away in mere moments. There is already an apparent artifice at work here and I haven’t even tasted the beer. The blueberry scent reminds me more of Boo Berry cereal than anything handpicked in Maine. Sometimes you want a glass to accentuate aroma, in this case I wish it didn’t. That combined with a total lack of head or lace have set my hopes pretty low. Mainly, the smell of blueberry fills the room, which means however this beer was created it was surely overdone. The beer looks crisp and clean, but there is already evidence that this will not be good. The appearance is yellowish/orange with more filtration and clarity than one would expect from a wheat-based ale.
As is usually the case with cheap fruity beers, the pour looks and behaves more like a soda than a wheat beer. Quickly ripping off the twisted cap, I race to get a good poor and capture at least some of the short lived fizzy head. It takes only a sip to remember all the reasons I have warned people against Sea Dog, which I present now. It is one of those beers that lives on the social wall of shame and like other extreme fruit beers like Sam Adam’s Cherry Wheat, is hard to even give away if someone has had it in the past. My fist experience with Sea Dog Blueberry Ale was years ago and I remember vividly feeling outright accosted by the flavor.
Purchased at Trader Joe’s, it was not long after cracking this beer and experiencing the full nature of its poor quality that I did some digging around on the internet, discovering that Kennebunkport Brewing Company and Sea Dog are in fact one in the same, both brewed by their parent company Pugsley’s Brewing Projects International. The other extreme, which I present as a cautionary tale to all who will listen, has always been Sea Dog Blueberry Ale. It is a skillfully made ale, contract brewed by Ipswich Brewing, that has blueberry flavor without making it unbearable. On one hand, there is Eagle Brook Blueberry Ale, which I became fond of while working at the saloon of the same name during college. When people say “blueberry ale” I am immediately reminded of several experiences across two extremes.