Superb summertime shandy beats all the cloyingly slick competition. Orange-juiced lemonade freshness sticks out above sweetened ginger ale herbage. Mild lemon pucker accompanies limey center. Hard-candied Jolly Rancher apple tartness, ruby red grapefruit tang and briskly carbolic 7-Up resilience fit perfectly with bittersweet lemon-sugared pucker.

Marginally hybridized Brit-styled summer shandy/ German radler offers spritzy grapefruit-juiced tartness to ginger-spiked lemonade sugaring, orange-rotted lime parch and syrupy woodruff sinew. Frail white-breaded wheat cracker spine softens over time. Subtle green apple nuance beckons beneath the surface.

Decent amber-hazed, yeast-clouded, soft-bodied citric shandy brings tangy navel orange, mandarin orange and tangerine zest as well as sweet orange peel respite to sharp hop-fizzed coriander spicing, picking up minor astringency along the way. Seltzer-watered orange sherbet tartness and floral orange blossom nip seep in.

On tap at Three Wise Monks, refreshing lemonade alternative beats cloying Leinenkugel Summer Shandy hands down. Tart lime-salted citric twist recalls frozen Margarita. Mead-like honey spicing and ginger-leafed herbage increase zesty lemon puree briskness.

Mundane reddish-hued ginger ale-like soda pop with candied watermelon, strawberry and cherry flavors gets increasingly cloy above sticky corn-sugared malting. Slick hop astringency ruins wine cooler aspirations.  

What can be said about a bright red “beer spritzer” made with artificial flavors? As fizzy head flattens out, cloy ginger ale stickiness leaves disdainful sugary coughdrop tartness on tongue, building oncoming hangover. Better than Zima, barely (but not 7 Up). ‘Tis nearly impossible to get through half a 12-ounce bottle before tossing into garbage.

Ineffectual cane-sugared lemon-lime theme affects carbolic 7-Up sweetness of yellow-bellied pearly-headed ‘malternative.’ A tad glutinous and cloy, muting bruised apple and red grapefruit nuances to ineefectual backdrop. As of ’08, no one’s made a distinct shandy.

Quenching light-bodied beige-hazed American wheat beer with natural lemonade flavoring maintains cloy lemon soda appeal and carbolic quinine water flow. Tart hard-candied Jolly Rancher souring deters frail cereal-grained corn malting.