Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week:" Farson's Traditional Shandy

By Chuck Sudo in Food on Aug 27, 2008 6:00PM

Back in the Dark Ages of the "guest" commentor we selected Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy as
"BotW." This led to a lot of hand-wringing from "guest," "guest" and "guest." Their basic argument being that Leinenkugel sucked and (by extension) so did we for choosing the beer.

You might want to brace yourselves, then. We found another shandy that we would kill a "guest" to get our hands on. And it's a real shandy, from Malta, of all places. Farson's traditional shandy is a mixture of ale and lemonade; they also market a lager and lime shandy. It only comes in at around 2.2 percent alcohol by volume, but a shandy isn't supposed to get you drunk fast. We had some Farson's at a beer expo at Mrs. Murphy & Sons Irish Bistro the other night and were blown away. Bob Lempianen, regional vice president for Distinguished Brands International, told us that interested customers should start seeing Farson's shandy at Sam's, Binny's, Armanetti's and other fine liquor stores real soon, if they aren't in stock already

A shandy makes for a perfect summer drink. Since we throttle summer for all it's worth here, it's wise to go out and pick up some Farson's traditional Shandy, Chicagoist's "Beer of the Week."