Upstream Honey Raspberry Ale

Brewed by Upstream Brewing Company
Style: Fruit Beer
Omaha, Nebraska USA

(Draught) Pours a reddish-bronze color with little to no head. Tastes sweet, but not like real raspberries.

Draft sample at Upstream Old Market. Poured clear amber color with an average fizzy white head that mostly lasted with good lacing. Moderate raspberry aroma. Medium body and soft carbonation. Medium raspberry sweet flavor with a medium sweet finish of moderate duration. Average fruit beer.

The body was dark gold to amber with an off white head. The aroma was strong with the raspberry and it was hard to smell anything else. The taste was dry raspberries with some light almonds. Overly cloying, I don’t know how anyone could take a pint of this stuff.

Hazy reddish copper hue with good white head and lace. The aroma hinted of sweet honey, toasted malt, biscuit, pear, and floral hops. Where is the raspberry? Sweet and sour taste. The raspberry is detected on the palate but still an undertone only. Acidic and bitter finish with some yeast in the background. The mouthfeel is thin, watery, and crisp. Lacks character and there is too little fruit.

Has the look of pink grapefruit juice. This is super-sweet without any real raspberry character that I could discern ... more like Kool Aid than anything.

On tap at the original brewpub. Light yellow in color. Very fizzy. Weak to no body. Faint aroma of chemical raspberries. I refuse to belive that there is more than a tablespoon of honey per gallon of this ale prior to fermentation. A watery beer typical of this joint. I’m ashamed that I ordered this tonight when I should have just been drinking Ebeneezer.

Awful pink lemonade color. The beer does not taste as pink as it looks. Reasonably dry pleasant rasberry flavor. I don’t get much honey. Pretty decent beer for a style I have little interest in.

On tap at the brewpub. Pours a pale, cloudy, pink grapefruit juice color with a thin whitish head. The nose is a mellow raspberry that leans towards the sweet versus tart/sour side of the flavor/aroma spectrum, and it is devoid of the soapy extract note I’ve gotten from many other brewpub raspberry brews. Light bodied and thin with super-soft (almost flat) carbonation and zero finish. This is a super clean and quaffable fruit beer. The flavor follows the nose with not much more going on. I detect no honey whatsoever, but what this brew lacks in flavor and/or complexity it makes up for in drinkability; not a bad raspberry brew.