The Session #6: Berkshire Raspberry Strong Ale

The SessionBerkshire Brewing founders Chris Lalli and Gary Bogoff first brewed Raspberry Strong Ale for Christmas in 1990 using three-quarters pound of whole raspberries per gallon and it became in instant Christmas tradition.

When they started making it commercially in 1996 they stuck with real fruit, which is why it seems like an excellent choice for today’s Session. [The Session is a virtual gathering of beer bloggers on the first Friday of the month, all writing to the same theme. Greg Clow hosts today.]

They cut back the raspberries a bit, using one-half pound per gallon, adding them after primary fermentation. “After seven-to-ten days you can see the berries start to turn a fleshy color,” Bogoff said. That’s because the color, and flavor, has moved on to the beer. It pours a reddish-brown that takes almost all its color from the berries because the base beer is a strong pale ale.

“We made it as a Christmas treat,” Bogoff said. “We like fruit, but we thought beers made with extract or syrup ended up more on the soda-sweet side rather than tasting like beer.”

They brewed seven barrels back in 1996, while they made 60 barrels for release on Valentine’s Day this year and plan to brew 80 barrels in December for Valentine’s Day 2008.

“We did it to spoil ourselves,” Bogoff said. “We knew that if we did a beer like this in 1994 (the year Berkshire opened) we’d have been out of business in two months – it was just too weird.”

They quickly discovered that tracking down raspberries for a 210-gallon batch was a bit more of a challenge than for 10 gallons. They ended up ordering raspberries grown in Chile through Sysco. Four years ago they found a local farmer who can provide enough fruit. He harvests the berries in July and August and they are frozen and stored at a nearby ice cream plant.

The result is a deceptively strong 9% abv beer (its nickname in the brewery is “Truth Serum”) that leaves a final impression of fresh raspberry. Underlying malt complexity, the sweet-tart raspberry balance and a relatively dry finish all help it avoid that soda sweetness Bogoff was talking about.

Granted, he’s biased and has been drinking the beer for more than 16 years, but earlier this week he was just another guy drinking Raspberry Strong and he finished his glass before I downed mine (although I was liking each sip).

Had Chris Lalli been around as well I probably would have been third. After all, these guys made this for themselves.

Looking for the local beer

We’re on the road right now – ah, the lengths we’ll go to to find just the right fruit beer for The Session – but I took the time to read Lew Bryson’s monthly Buzz so you should be able to as well.

ESPN columnist Norm Chad is looking for a new regular beer, to replace Rolling Rock, and Lew has plenty of useful friendly advice. Nice and complete, so I don’t really want to add anything.

However, one point of clarification. Chad has an these ABC’s for choosing beer and the first is:

Availability. It can’t just be sold in some tri-county area of North Dakota. Couch Slouch has to travel a lot. And when I’m on the road, I don’t want to have to fall back on Michelob or Miller Lite.

Lews writes, “I want to be able to get my choice of beer anywhere, because I travel a lot too” and later “I’ve got a beer philosophy that’s never failed me in 26 years, and I’m going to lay it on you: there is more than one beer in the world.”

The way I connect the dots that means the best choice doesn’t have to mean exact same beer. What’s best in Amherst, Mass., may not be best in Durango, Colo. I pick those two towns because both have bars known for their beer selections. The Moan and Dove in Amherst and Lady Falconburgh’s in Durango.

I was shocked that the Moan and Dove doesn’t offer anything from nearby Berkshire Brewing – “Because we’re ‘the local beer,'” Berkshire co-founder Gary Bogoff explained, which sounded so counter-intuitive my brain briefly shut down. And that Lady Falconburgh’s recently had beer from only one regional brewer, Ska Brewing (good choice, though).

I’m happy to find Victory HopDevil on tap only a few hours from our house and the selection at Moan and Dove will make anybody who appreciates beer drool, but those are beers I can find elsewhere. So credit goes to those proprietors for making this happen, but when the local beers are really good – and in these cases I know they are – they are going to be my first choice.

I’ve likely wandered off topic, and there are tourist things to get to today, so to get back on track read Lew’s column.

New Beer Rule #6: Ode to the empty glass

Empty beer glassNEW BEER RULE #6: The best beer was in the empty glass.

This rule came from a conversation with Matt Trevisan of Paso Robles winery Linne Calodo for an upcoming story, and he was explaining how he blends wines.

“I start with five glasses and I pick the emptiest one,” he said. “In the end you want the blend that you keeping going back to.”

Trevisan sat in on the blending session last year when Paso Robles winemakers helped the brewers at Firestone Walker assemble the highly acclaimed Firestone 10.

“I told them they didn’t have to sit there and pick it apart to find the best one,” Trevisan said, offering advice that works for wine or beer. “You didn’t necessarily want the one you had the most to say about. Ultimately it’s a beverage to enjoy.”

How you use this rule is up to you. But I think it is a pretty good excuse to haul a treasured beer out of the cellar even though you know you’ll never be able to replace it, or a reason to spend a little bit more for a bottle.

All the New Beer Rules.

Quick reminder: Fruit beers in Session #6

The SessionDon’t forget that the sixth round of our monthly Session is Friday. Greg Clow at Beer, Beats & Bites will host and the topic is fruit beers.

Alan at a Good Beer Blog recently posted about the explosion of beer blogs. If you’ve recently started a blog this is a fine opportunity to announce it in a communal sort of way. Just drop Greg a line on Friday after you post.

And if you want to start a blog but aren’t certain how to get started, Jon at The Brew Site wrote a simple primer.

Damn Pete Brown: The best beer trip ever

Pete BrownAuthor Pete Brown – who is having way too much fun in his role as “the second-best beer drinker in Britain!” – has talked Coors into letting him take a pin (small cask) of India Pale Ale from its White Shield brewery in Burton-on-Trent and transport it to India in much the same manner the highly hopped beer would have traveled in the 19th century.

Not everybody would consider this the best beer holiday ever, but if you care about IPA and its history this might be better than a visit to Belgium or one to Bavaria. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime trip. You can go to Bamberg next year.

The Morning Advertiser provides the details (they wrote “pint” but must mean “pin”):

He’ll follow the route round the Cape of Good Hope, taken throughout the first part of the 19th century before the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 shortened the journey.

Working with Coors brewer Steve Wellington, Pete will take to Bombay a pint of IPA brewed by Steve in Burton-on-Trent, Staffs, exactly as it would have been in 1820.

He sets off from Burton by canal in mid-October, spends a month on a P&O cruise ship, jumps on a 19th-century three-masted tall ship for the passage round the Cape, then spends a month on a giant container ship before arriving in India in late December.

Martyn Cornell provides more perspective:

“I’ve been saying for several years that a British brewer really ought to take a cask of well-hopped IPA and ship it to India to see what happens to the flavour – the Norwegians still do a similar thing with Linie Akvavit, though that goes to Australia and back, rather than the sub-continent.”

Which brings us to . . . an article in the new All About Beer magazine (dated September and with Dave Alexander on the front) titled “IPA Master Class.” From Roger Protz. But only half the story.

The cover touts the “Search for Authentic IPAs.” That means, I guess, that Stone IPA, Victory HopDevil and Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale aren’t authentic.

Te article provides important historical perspective about both IPA history (credit London before Burton-on-Trent) and the impact IPAs had on pale lagers. You need to read more, right?

I just wish that Protz, or AABM with a companion story, had got to American IPAs. A heck of a lot more drinkers consume US-brewed IPAs these days than those brewed in the UK. And these are beers that showcase Northwest hops.

Protz lists his personal Top Ten IPAs, with five from America:

– BridgePort IPA
– Brooklyn East India Pale Ale
– Goose Island IPA
– Sierra Nevada IPA
– Pike IPA

Great beers every one, but are they the first ones you think of when you say I’ll have an IPA?

But back to the top, the Morning Advertiser reports that Brown intends to write a travel book, rather than a beer book, about his journey. I can’t wait.