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SABMiller ain't hidin' what they did to ol' Henry Weinhard. On the packaging, they all but admit that their new orange- and ginger-flavored Henry's alcoholic sodas are some kind of joke.
"When Portland unveiled a new public fountain in 1887, brewer Henry Weinhard offered to pump beer through it for everyone to enjoy," reads the ad copy. "Today, Henry's playful spirit lives on in this refreshing hard soda."
Well, old Weinhard didn't just make that offer on the fountain. He poured a whole lot of beer. His beer poured in Portland every damn year until Miller bought our oldest brewery and closed it and turned it into a giant hole in the middle of downtown that's now a Whole Foods, which doesn't even stock these crappy 4.2 percent alcoholic sodas.
The orange flavor is off-brand Fanta with an aftertaste like a new car smells—all plastic and vinyl—but with the added ingredient of shame. The malty ginger soda, on the other hand, covers up the aftertaste better. So if you drink only one low-rent mockery of Portland and everything that ever made it good, make it a Henry's hard ginger ale. Not recommended.
Willamette Week