Red Racer Low Rider Raspberry
Central City Brewers + Distillers

Summertime stuff I think. Tart up front with a bit of bitterness and dryness. Sharp on the palate from carbonation. Lots of raspberry aroma and flavour with a noticeably beery finish. Just fine if you light fruit beers, this one comes across as done honestly enough, an interesting spin on something like a radler or Berliner Weiss with a dose of syrup.

473 ml can served cold into a pint glass. Review #1,500. An LCBO purchase for $3 CDN.

Appearance - faded pink colored beer with two plus fingers of pinkish off-white head. Fairly hazy and the head retention is pretty modest with no lacing to speak of.

Smell - Raw, unadulterated raspberries with very little else. Some sweetness and faint leafy hops. This is most definitely a raspberry beer.

Taste - Raspberries all the way, almost like carbonated raspberry juice. Some milky sweetness at the end and a pleasant light raspberry tartness throughout. Quite good for what it is.

Mouthfeel - Heavily carbonated and very fizzy. Body is light with a slightly tart and astringent finish. Too much carbonation for me.

Overall - A well crafted fruit forward beer that doesn't try to do too much, it just focuses on the raspberry star and works with it. Not something I'd want to drink a lot of, but as a nice little end of summer treat this is quite good.

 

Finally a raspberry beer that has strong raspberry flavour

473 mL can from the LCBO; coded C2118 52.4.565. My guess is that "C2118" translates to Mar 21 2018, and the rest of the code is just internal info for identifying specific canning runs if there's a QA issue (I must also strongly emphasize the 'guess' part). Served slightly chilled.

Pours a hazy reddish rosé colour, topped with nearly an inch of loose, fizzy light pink-tinged head that boils off within a minute or two. No lacing whatsoever, and no cap either - a sickly-thin collar of scant froth is all that remains. It smells tart, juicy and just a little sweet; mashed raspberries take the lead role, supported by lesser notes of lactic acidity and vaguely doughy pale malts. I do like raspberries but this is a pretty one-dimensional aroma, even by fruit beer standards.

Simultaneously sugary and tart, it tastes mostly of raspberry juice, buoyed by light hints of bready pale malts and milk sugar sweetness. The sour lactic acid presence is quite minimal, as is the vanilla - both of these elements appear towards the tail end of the sip, fraternizing briefly with a flash of grassy hops. The aftertaste includes more berry juice tartness, along with some lightly lingering suggestions of vanilla, though both of these presences fade from the taste buds within a second or two. Light in body, with assertive carbonation levels that prickle the palate continuously early on in the glass, though they soften out quite a bit by the time you get to the last few sips. Refreshing stuff, and quite easy to toss back.

Final Grade: 3.65, a B grade. Red Racer's Low Ride Raspberry is pleasant enough for what it is, though certainly nothing too exciting. The lactose sugar helps to cut through the tartness of the berries, as well as the sourness of the lactic acid, giving the profile a bit of balance. At the end of the day, I've had better raspberry beers... but if you enjoy the taste of raspberry then this one should make for an acceptable quaff, as the other ingredients mostly just blend in without drawing too much attention to themselves. Worth a try, but I still think it's pretty pricey for a can of light beer, which will limit how often I return to it.

 

 

From a 473ml can served almost straight from the fridge at 8 degrees Celsius into a TeKu glass. “Production date: see bottom of can.” I'm having a hell of a time deriving meaning from 211852.4.565 11:47 52.SL.196. Fail. My expectations are below average.

Look: The beer pours a veiled pink (~17 SRM) with 4cm of thin, bubbly, light pink head that fades away completely within 1+ minutes. No lacing with poor retention. I like the colour but not much else.

Smell: Moderate strength and balanced. Loads of raspberries with some supportive malt character and a tiny bit of yeasty funk. No hop aroma. The dry aroma is filled with notes of raspberries and a bready-doughy malt.

Taste: Follows the aroma with moderate strength, good balance, and low perceived bitterness. The tart palate opens up with notes of raspberries which slowly make way for a pleasant and surprisingly pronounced bready-doughy malt. The medium length finish is balanced and of moderate strength with notes of raspberries and the aforementioned malt.

Feel: Medium body with high carbonation. Prickly, fizzy, and sharp. No apparent alcohol warming or astringency.

Overall: Central City's Low Rider Raspberry is a refreshing brew with high drinkability and decent flavour. It's simple and suits the summer well. Nuff said.

 

355ml can - yes, this is definitely the week of raspberry beers, the crappy weather outside notwithstanding.

This beer pours a clear, bright medium magenta colour, with three fingers of puffy, finely foamy, and somewhat bubbly pale pink head, which leaves some decent island chain profile lace around the glass as it quickly blows off.

It smells of rich raspberry puree, bready and doughy caramel malt, a hint of earthy yeastiness, and some plain weedy, leafy, and floral green hop bitters. The taste is grainy and bready cereal malt, raspberry cream pie, a hint of lemony tartness, banal yeast, and more well-understated earthy, musty, and floral hoppiness.

The carbonation is fairly active in its palate-coddling frothiness, the body a so-so middleweight, and generally smooth, with nothing really getting in the way of an average time here. It finishes off-dry, the muted raspberry and generic malt 'fighting' for lingering dominance.

Overall - this comes across as an adequate fruited-up brew, with the raspberry essence kind of yo-yoing in its effectiveness. Simple, and easy to drink, I suppose, but not something that, as mentioned, might help with the subzero temperatures and multitude of snow still in my backyard at the moment.