During my second senior year at Georgia Southern University, I developed a taste for things I couldn’t afford. It wasn’t farm-to-table restaurants, $60 video games or even $250 pocketknives — it was the $9 six-pack that did me in.
I was introduced to the magic of non-PBR/Rolling Rock beers at the age of 22, and I never looked ba’ — no, I continue to return to those beers. Statesboro, Georgia, is below what’s locally known as the gnat line. It is a not-quite-defined zone of southern Georgia where breezes are fictional thing and gnats live their absolute best lives terrorizing every other living being. Beer is a coping device in these times, and after discovering Bell’s Brewery’s Oberon Ale — a delightful, 5.8% ABV, malty and just-hoppy-enough wheat ale — my wallet would never be the same.
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The $8.99 six-pack was college student nouveau riche. I haven’t stopped drinking it when the days grow longer since. And then, just last week, a beer-inclined coworker posted a number of eye emojis in the company slack: Bell’s tossed some mangoes into it.
It’s not new, apparently — Bell’s has served Mango Oberon at its brewery general store for some time — but it will be new to non-Kalamazoo, Michiganders very soon, as it gets its very first national rollout through mid- to late-July. I can’t — and won’t — imagine a world wherein the hoppy, citrusy goodness of Oberon doesn’t work flawlessly with mangoes, a very likable fruit. Seek it out.