The Bud Light Seltzer Fall Flannel pack is a plaid-wrapped curse on your refrigerator. The Pumpkin Spice one tastes like nutmeg ghosts. The Toasted Marshmallow tastes like carbonated fluff. Apple Crisp and Maple Pear? They’re interesting, but get tiresome.
Here’s what is going to happen if you buy this. You’re going to try a flavor, take a few sips, say “Oh, that’s interesting,” then leave the half-full can untouched for the rest of the night before begrudgingly throwing it away by the next morning.
It’s appropriate that these will be available for Halloween, because the remaining cans will go on to haunt you like a cursed specter that lives in the back of your refrigerator. Every time you open it up and look back there, you’ll think “Oh, I need to get rid of those at some point.”
This will lead to you trying to pawn them off to guests over the next 12 months, to the tune of “Want something to drink? Oh, I’ve got those fall seltzers. You should totally try one.”
They will not try one. These will still be living rent-free in your icebox come next April, when you’ll be looking for an expiration date that you hope will help you justify just chucking it. You will not find one.
Bud Light Seltzer Fall Flannel Variety Pack
The new flavors in the Fall Flannel pack -- Pumpkin Spice, Apple Crisp, Maple Pear, Toasted Marshmallow -- are ambitious and even venture toward “sort of good” in some instances. However, the flavors are pretty loud and abrasive. The first couple of sips can be enjoyable. But halfway through the can, it starts to get tiresome.
These are best sipped a few times and then never consumed again. They’re like a catchy song that’s fun at first, but starts to drive you crazy after you hear it too many times.
There’s a reason that light, refreshing flavors like lemon and pineapple tend to dominate the seltzer game. Seltzers work best with light flavors that are easy-drinking and don’t linger with odd, syrupy aftertastes.
PUMPKIN SPICE
This tastes like if you taught a robot what pumpkin spice was, but couldn’t actually taste anything.
“Pumpkin spice” used to actually mean something. Now, it’s just an empty and hollow concept that society has come to accept as “pumpkin spice.” In this case, that means a buttery nutmeg carbonated concoction. It’s like a clarified pumpkin beer that has the aftertaste of pumpkin-flavored 7-Up.
This seltzer opens up with the same sort of dry, spicy drag that a pumpkin beer does, but then it hollows out and reveals itself as an empty imitation. You pick up the pumpkin spice and nutmeg, but no cinnamon, no pumpkin.
Pumpkin flavor no longer has any shape or form. It’s a ghost in the collective machine. It’s a socially accepted flavor simulacrum that’s wormed its way into the cultural lexicon but has long escaped any tether that once bound it to actually taste like pumpkin. Now we just have to sit here and accept that this carbonated robot-pumpkin juice is going to appear on store shelves when it’s time to go back to school.
APPLE CRISP
This is an upgrade. This tastes like an alcoholic, carbonated version of the gallon of apple cider you buy at the grocery store. There’s a hint of fall spice flavors that are pleasant.
For a moment, this is awesome. It’s fall flavors in a can, then it all comes crumbling down. The more you drink it, the more the illusion unravels. It’s like a leaf pile built too high that comes crashing down, leaving you with nothing but wet leaves and expectations crushed underneath.
At first, it does a pretty good job of hitting the deep caramelized sweetness of apple crisp with that buttery, sweet quality. Then the aftertaste kicks in, shattering the mirage that you’re actually drinking something with real ingredients as you come crashing back to Earth. The cinnamon on the back end reminds me of a stick of Big Red gum.
MAPLE PEAR
This is probably the best flavor of the bunch, carrying a surprisingly tactful tingle of maple flavor. It’s reminiscent of maple hard candy. It has a dry flavor like an apple cider and finishes with almost a caramel-apple vibe.
It’s not super sweet. Instead, it carries that buttery hum that you get in maple syrup.
It’s sweet and interesting at first, but the glossy flavors are ultimately a bit thin and wind up getting abrasive. It’s like a song on the radio that’s all treble and no bass. It’s just the same thin beats over and over that finish with the same flat, artificial finish.
TOASTED MARSHMALLOW
Yup, this tastes like carbonated fluff, which is as offputting as that may sound.
The marshmallow flavor here is reminiscent of the filling in a Moon Pie, or any time you find factory-made s’mores candy.
This flavor is wild. It almost bouncing off your tongue like a trampoline. It opens with a spike of caramelized marshmallow flavor before fading back into a more neutral sweetness. Then it finishes with a bizarre, syrupy aftertaste.
Technically, it’s accurate. It’s also not something I’d voluntarily drink again.
So are they any good?
If someone offers a can of the Maple Pear or Apple Crisp, it’s worth a try. Preferably, have someone open a can and then pour some of it into a glass.
Under no circumstances should you take responsibility for an entire can or -- even worse -- an entire case. Let someone else carry that curse.
The final word
Now that hard seltzers have marked their territory in liquor stores and bars across the country, we’ve now reached the point where companies are experimenting and rolling out wild flavors in an effort to stand out from the crowd.
That’s right, we’ve reached the Oreo business model of non-stop flavor alchemy hitting store shelves. You think I’m joking, but come back to me in six months when “Bud Light Birthday Cake Seltzer” is available at your local packie.
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“I ate it so you don’t have to” is a regular food column looking at off-beat eats, both good and bad. It runs every other Thursday-ish at noon-ish.
You can send any praise/food suggestions to nomalley@masslive.com. Please send all criticisms and complaints about all these newfangled seltzer flavors to wkatcher@masslive.com. You can check out the rest of the series here.
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Bud Light Pumpkin Spice Seltzer review: I drank all the fall flavors so you don’t have to - MassLive.com
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