St. Ambroise Framboise

Five bucks for this bottle, and all you get for this money is a muddled blend of raspberry syrup and bland, vague malts. Didn’t notice the "sun-ripened hops", which makes sense because hops don’t ripen and all hops are grown outside anyway. Whether they are merely trotting out their old raspberry beer in a pretentious package or not I don’t know, but charging real money for this blend of bland is criminal. They better not do this with my oatmeal stout!

Any first impressions?
-Prosperous whipped cream of a head sits atop the pinkish regal red, drawing tons of lacing.
-Faint raspberries pierce the sturdy foam.
-The mild balance of raspberry sweetness and tartness whispers simple refreshment.
-The expansive carbonation provides a frothy, festive mouthfeel, increasing drinkability.

What if you dig deeper?
-Some bittering hop resins nicely dry out the back of the palate.
-Wooden hops shyly accompany the meek raspberries in the nose.
-The overall flavor spectrum is too restrictive and shy for flavor-seeking tastebuds.
-All in all, this is a well-crafted, boring recipe.

Bottle; no date.

Hazy dark reddish to purple ale, with an extra thick lacing pinkish head. Fresh raspberry aroma, with seeds, very pleasant. In mouth, a dry crisp malt with puckering fruits, rather refreshing, and not artificial, but this puppy loses points for being way too expansive! 5.39% a bottle, come on! I was expecting freaking Boon Framboise here.

Sampled draught at the Mondial de la Bière in Montreal, 2006. Dark purple-red in color, with little retained head and no lacing....nicely balanced sweet-sharp fruity nose, hints of biscuit, but very simple if not pedestrian overall....the body is tart and sour predominantly, rather thin and lacking in a real malt background but for a touch of dry cookie dough....becomes pretty jammy and syrupy towards the finish, and a nasty metallic edginess intrudes on the otherwise tolerable finish, becoming really harsh as the sample warms to cellar temp....I had trouble finishing this, what a bummer from this fine brewery.

Strong, jammy, raspberry aroma with some grain character notable but a mildly soapy note is distracting. Clear, amber brown coloured body is topped by a decent, fine bubbled, pink tinged white head that lasts nicely. Toasted malts are balanced nicely with lightly tart raspberries in the flavour with a lingering sweetness in the aftertaste. Medium body with moderate, fine bubbled carbonation that invigorates the tastebuds. Mondial 2006.

Sampled at Mondial 2006. Dark red body with a pink head. The aroma was definitely sour raspberries with tart candy smells. There was some fresh hay. The taste is a little tart with raspberries and some hay. A nice mild beer tat is dry and refreshing. Nothing close to a lambic, but somewhere in between that and the typical fruit beer.

A fruity aroma in a mildly purple colour, nice soapy head, fresh from Montreal. A blond like characteristic, injected with the raspberry puree, not quite natural berries added right in but also not too synthetic. Nicve summer beverage.

Hazy, dark woody look, whit smallish top. Creamy nose, maltose, light aroma, citric, woody and vanilla. Medium bodied, berry like fruitiness, chewy texture. Smooth dark malty finish.