Golden Road’s Melon Cart

As a detour from my writings as of late, I won’t be assaulting your eyes and minds with vitriolic thoughts about the country’s state. Mainly because I’m exhausted.

I had a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday where I cooked ALL the foods. Then I came down with some sort of illness over the weekend. I’m still feeling rundown, and now the boyfriend seems to have it. So you will just have to settle for a strict beer review week. Don’t worry, though, two weeks is plenty of time for me to recover and get angry again.

So as promised two weeks ago, I am reviewing another Golden Road favorite: Melon Cart. I will not be reviewing the mango as I don’t like mango beer and feel that it has no place in a civilized society. Melon is another story; however, so far, I have only tried one melon beer I have not liked – let’s keep it that way, shall we. Fortunately for you readers, I don’t have to bore you with a brewery’s history since this is the third or fourth beer from GR about which I’ve written.

I love the color of the can, not quite red, not quite pink. The shade is like a watermelon, and a ruby red grapefruit had an alcoholic baby. Adorned, of course, with the ubiquitous fruit carts and complementary vendor. I’ve actually never eaten anything from one of those carts. One, I’m not much for eating large quantities of fruit, and two, there’s something about fruit sitting out that bothers me. Yes, the fruit is on ice. I’m just weird with food.

So while at first glance you may think this is just another watermelon ale, look again! It’s watermelon, honeydew, and cantaloupe. Personally, I’m not much of a melon fan in real life. Give me artificial watermelon in Jolly Ranchers or a honeydew margarita any day – but fruit salad where melon is the star? No, thank you. However, this beer was a pleasant surprise, especially because every other watermelon beer I’ve come across is strictly watermelon only.

Appearance-wise, Melon Cart is a pretty standard wheat beer. The liquid is a pale yellow, completely hazy with a bit of wheaty detritus floating around. It is almost identical to the pineapple cart, but they are both fruity wheats, which make sense. There is a decent amount of carbonation. However, I wouldn’t have minded a bit more. It’s always fun to see bubbles dancing around your beer glass of choice.

The aromas are quite tantalizing, far more attractive than the look of the drink. I mainly picked up notes of strong juicy watermelon and sweet honeydew. The nose is very realistic, the fruit notes smell like real juice, not fake candy sweet. I detected no whiffs of bitterness, but that is to be expected in this beer.

Now onto the main event: the taste! This beer is good, no bones about that. I would say it is in the top three of the best watermelon beers I’ve sampled over the years. Melon Cart tastes a lot like it smells, as simple as that. The mouthful is low to medium, but the liquid’s wheaty-ness is probably giving the beer a bit of bulk.

I first picked up watermelon (duh), but it was more of an artificial taste than fresh watermelon. Many fruit beers will have flavoring added, in addition to fermenting with fruit, so no surprise here. Fortunately, I dig the slightly artificial taste. Watermelon is rounded out by strong notes of honeydew. The honeydew tastes very realistic, almost like you plucked a piece right out of a fruit salad. Fortunately for me, the watermelon pairs nicely, and I actually like the taste. If you slurp across your tongue pretentious enough like I do, you will get some ending notes of cantaloupe. Of the three, cantaloupe is the melon I find most objectionable. Still, I like honeydew. And I don’t mind it mixed in with the others. The two melons really help to round out the watermelon, giving a complexity lacking in other watermelon beers. These bad boys are only 4%, so drink away, but drink responsibly. Melon Cart is a year-round offering at Golden Road, and I can find it at pretty much every store that sells beer. Nerdy tells me that the mixed pack is also available in Mass, so happy hunting!

4 out of 5 watermelon Jolly Ranchers.