I smell smoke. I don’t even have to try. A carefree wisp wafts out of the glass. Such a great start after having a bit of a difficult time with the last beer from Sketchbook (nothing personal). Today’s beer, Grodziskie by Sketchbook Brewing out of Skokie, Illinois (or is it Evanston?) is a solid effort from a brewery that I need to learn more about. A Grodziskie is a Polish style smoked wheat beer that falls on the lighter end of the beer spectrum, and this rendition falls on the lighter side of Grodziskies, really light. Just about every Grodziskie I’ve had (Gratzers included) usually has an undeniable wheat beer base to it, along with cloudiness, but not so much in this one. Sketchbook’s Grodziskie delivered a strong and proud degree of smoke power on the nose and palate, and it kept the abv. down pretty low at 4.1% which is indicative of the style, but the wheat beer elements tastes to have been swapped out with Coors Light as far as I can tell, or even one of those Bubly Sparkling Waters that everybody is drinking nowadays (wouldn’t a smoke flavored Bubly be a pleasant surprise?, regardless of it’s financial viability). But, it says on the back of the can that this beer won the Sam Adams Longshot award, and oddly enough, SBM reviewed another Longshot award, which was also a smokebeer, because that’s all we review here. I think all smokebeers should win awards. Honestly, SmokeBeerMinistry should give out awards, but that is an idea for another day. In conclusion, this beer is awarded 5 out of 7 smokestacks. And I look forward to whatever else Sketchbook smokes up next.

And Sketchbook has a decent website so we have their link below, but you really have to go to their Facebook page to get the low down. I hope we’re not actually going to do this move everything Meta thing.

https://www.sketchbookbrewing.com/