When you combine a light-weight, portable beverage carbonator with beer concentrate, you end up with what I nominate as the best invention of the decade:
We’ve written about Pat’s Backcountry Beverages Carbonator, the Nalgene-size system for fizzifying your drink of choice where ever the trail takes you. And while we’ve talked about Pat’s alcohol-packed beer flavors—the world’s first beer concentrate, according to the company—we haven’t put them to the test. Until now.
As a backpacker and a booze writer, when I heard about Pat’s first two beer flavors(complete with alcohol!) I couldn’t resist checking them out. After all, who among us hasn’t fantasized about some sweet suds at the end of a long, hot hike? But could these “beers” pass the taste test of an admittedly picky beer drinker? The short answer—Yes.
You add a 1.7-ounce packet of Pat’s liquid beer concentrate ($10 for four) to cold water and use Pat’s Backcountry Beverages Carbonator to charge it with CO2. The result sounds pretty good:
So what’s the bottom line? While it’s a struggle to get the drink as carbonated as you’d want (the best I ever got was analogous to a draft beer that had been sitting out for a good half-hour), the flavors are on-point. The Pale Rail is still a tad too sweet, but the Black Hops is most definitely worth the price of admission. I’m absolutely bringing it on my next trip, and if you’re a beer lover, I suggest you do the same.
I haven’t been backpacking in years, but this might just tempt me to pack up and head out this summer. One question: are bears attracted to beer?
