If you were at Snallygaster last week you may have come across a peculiar beer, Xül Beer Co.’s PB&J Mixtape (6.5% alcohol by volume). The Knoxville, Tennessee brewery made a clever–and yes, this word choice is very intentional in its damning with faint praise–beverage that’s eerily reminiscent of a Smuckers Uncrustable. Peoples’ reactions to it were so divisive–“I don’t think I can’t give a proper reaction,” a brewer told me when I asked for a comment on the beer–that we had to write about it.
PB&J Mixtape appeared on our Fun With Untappd list and a friend and I ordered a taster at ChurchKey at a pre-Snally event last Wednesday thinking maybe we’d have some chuckles, Mystery Science Theater-style, heckling it as if Statler and Waldorf were beer snobs. But the joke was on us, and a third friend made his way over and agreed. The aroma transported me, Anton Ego-style, to a specific place and time. Boom, I’m a latchkey kid again, getting home and opening the crinkly plastic wrap on an after-school snack. I immediately updated my power rankings, but my attempts to boost its score didn’t work. That’s what happens when you’re one of five people voting on a beer, especially a beer that I thought–and more on this below–falls into the category of kettle sours, a process by which the water and grain mixture called wort is intentionally soured with lactobacillus and then boiled to kill the bacteria. With some exceptions–hi Union and Westbrook!–we at DC Beer tend to shy away from these beers, which often taste like liquid Sour Patch Kids. Taken as a cohort, we didn’t rank a single one of these beers over 1.1.
We make fun of Untappd scores around here. Each year I add a disclaimer to the annual “Fun with Untappd” post noting the scores of classics like Allagash White (3.8/5), or three-time Great American Beer Festival medal winner Port City Oktoberfest (3.63). Xül set out to make something that tastes like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in alcoholic beverage form, and they undoubtedly succeeded. To me this is a “buy a ticket, take the ride” situation. Mixtape sits at a 4.48 Untappd score because it delivers exactly what it promises; you might order a dunkel, take a sip and then decide it’s not for you, thus two stars. You don’t know what a dunkel is, but when something is called PB&J Mixtape, and if the label looks like this… well then there really can’t be a “buyer beware,” can there? What more could anyone possibly want from this?
As it turns out, this fermented malt beverage (FMB) isn’t a beer at all. I thought it a kettle sour, but no. Xül, understandably, is a bit cagey about how it gets made. “The two biggest points I can provide is that it’s totally gluten-free (on a seltzer base) and made with real roasted peanuts. We’d like to play the finer details a little close to the vest if you know what I mean,” Xül’s co-founder and co-owner Brad West told me via email. Brewers are often not shy about sharing their techniques, but this parlor trick of a beverage is so well done I understand why Xül doesn’t want to discuss the brewing process. They’re onto something here, and they know it, which is why there are also grape and strawberry editions of the beverage. When gently nudged for more information, West notes “It’s real fruit, but that’s another detail I don’t want to get into.” Fair enough. So here we are.
I’m not a “guilty pleasure” kinda guy; what’s to feel bad about?, but here I am, a little mad at myself for liking it. It’s upsetting that I enjoyed this abomination of a beverage. I’d say I have to turn in some sort of beer nerd or beer snob card, but heavily fruited–or frooted–alcoholic beverages are all the rage among fellow nerds who open an app and rate something that tastes like a peanut butter sandwich in liquid form. Maybe I have to turn in my “old school” card?
Beer is, in a way, a zero sum game. You’re only drinking one at once, I hope. Xül’s Mixtape comes at a time of declining sales for mixed fermentation beers, a trend that began before the pandemic. While a fruited kettle sour, and whatever we’re calling Xül’s offering, can take less than two weeks to go from grain–well, dextrose–to glass, some mixed fermentation beers can take 2 years. The rise of kettle sours are at least a partial explanation for why Washington, DC doesn’t get any of Jolly Pumpkin’s beers anymore, and why Goose Island no longer makes Halia, their peach mixed fermentation beer. “It’s definitely more challenging selling wild beer than it ever has been for us. We have reduced our wild program by at least 50-60%,” Matt Tarpey, Head Brewer and Co-founder of Richmond’s The Veil told us earlier in the year. So yeah, I feel a little bad.
And yet, to be transported, to be moved to a time and place, to be entertained,… isn’t that what this is all about? Xül’s PB&J Mixtape may still be on tap at Churchkey, but who knows for how long. Outside of a trip to the brewery, where cans often sell out the day of its release, you may get lucky with shipping if Tavour features it. DC and northern Virginia may get “3-4 drops throughout the year,” which will include kegs of PB&J Mixtape, says West. If this sounds like something you’re even remotely curious about drinking, or if you like overthinking things–and you just read over a thousand words on a beautifully executed pretty weird gimmicky beverage–you should be on the lookout. By the way, the comments below that post on Facebook echo my thoughts on Xül, but they also include one that notes, “Although I did love all the Dopplebocks and Dunkels from the Germans as well.”
