Tommyknocker Tundrabeary Ale

Brewed by Tommyknocker Brewery
Style: Fruit Beer
Idaho Springs, Colorado USA

Pours a scary looking pink with no head. It's as if I poured a bottle of Bartles & James wine cooler into a glass. Aroma is rather light, with hints of raspberry, and the subtlest malt. So far, it's a wine cooler. Flavor is initially mildly tart, again with the raspberries, but quickly turns south as the tartness changes to sourness. Some dry grains rear their head at the tail end, and the finish is mainly watery and uneventful. This stuff is like sugar-free Kool Aid with a dash of vinegar. Avoid.

Yikes! After just trying Willoughby's Railway Razz this last weekend, the difference betweent a brewer using 300 pounds of fresh berries (Willoughby) and one using "Fruit Juices" is striking - this is thinly syrupy - like a concentrated "Hey Kool-Aid!" with some added fizz. I just have no excitement for this one whatsoever.

Rasberry colored body with a thin, white head. No lacing.
Not much aroma to speak of...
Flavor is rasberries with a very dry finish. Not too much complexity.
Palate was dry, scraped all remnants of flavor right off my tongue.

2/1/03: bottle. frothy white head with a slight pink tint. slightly cloudy- almost a mauve colored body. nose of strawberries and blueberries. sour strawberry- blueberry taste with hints of yeast. very smooth and refreshing. this beer was actually a bit upsetting… i am SO tired of all this cold and crappy ohio weather. i think that this beer would be more enjoyable during a nice warm summer day.

Just a bit of social commentary before I start... Is this really beer? I think if you gave a glass of this "beer" to someone at a bar and didn't tell them what it was, they would likely assume it was a bad pink zinfindale. I had to double check the bottle to make sure it said Ale (it did). I had a tough time rating this "beer" as the aroma is sweet, of berries (rasberry, but it is so strong of berries there is no normal beer aromas to be found. The apperance is of a pink zinfindale, again not much like a normal beer at all. The flavor is again of a zin and alot of water. The "beer" goes down very smooth, I guess this beer is designed for people who don't like the more tradational taste of real beers. Overall I just can't even really call this a beer, I will just leave it at that. P.S. One nice thing about TommyKnockers, I bought a 6-pack at the local Liquor store which had one of each of 6 brews by this brewery... Nice Idea, hopefully the others will be much better than this one... Give me a mass marke light beer before this one.

Looks like a cheap bubbly rose wine; very little snow-white fast-dying head. Nose is raspberry syrup, too sweet and with no "beer" character to mention; flavor has some hints of malt but is overly sweet and artificial; thin. I hope the rest of this mixed 6 is better...

I don’t like many fruit beers, and this one is not very good. Reminds me of the New Belgium Frambozen, but not even as good as that mediocre one.

Head is initially small, fizzy, white, fully diminishing. Body is medium amber. Aroma is lightly yeasty (dough), lightly malty (grain), with light notes of cherry and raspberry. Flavor is modereately sweet, moderately acidic, lightly bitter. Finish is lightly bitter, lightly acidic. Light to medium body, watery texture, lively carbonation. The aroma is pretty weak, but there’s enough sourness to make the flavor balance enjoyable (although there’s not much in the finish).