The Purple: Fresh Hop Cuvée
de Garde Brewing

750ml bottle, believed to be a 2020 release, poured into a stemless wine glass. Enjoyed on 03.19.2023, reviewed from Tasting Journal.

The beer pours a nice beet red color, opaque with purple hues and a pink and white head with nice retention and lacing. The aroma is nice, funk hop, earthy pine and grass, light dough, musty oak, soft raspberry and stone fruits with a more lingering candied hop. The flavors are nice, bright, jammy and fresh raspberry, lots of sweet and earthy candied hop, slightly bitter, buggy oak, lots of bacterial funk, lemon, green raspberry tops, stone fruits linger. The mouthfeel is good, coating, lively and tart, medium body with a creamy finish.

Verdict: A nice wild ale from de Garde. The fresh hop qualities play nicely with the jammy raspberry nature of the beer and helps create a more earthy and nuanced experience.

It’s called Purple for a reason - it pours a thin head/crown on top of a majestic dark purple, blackberry body. The juicy berry notes is a double helping of fruits, one by nose and the second by taste. The taste has a crisp finish and tart. There’s also some pine and earthy tones that come through in the mouthfeel - which for me knocked a couple of points off. And then there’s a hint of dark cherry which I’m going to assume comes from the oak barrel aging. That was a plus.

This one pours a fairly hazy dark purple-ish color, with a small head, and lots of lacing.

This smells like fresh juicy black raspberry, piney hops, some citrus, and red wine.

I'm surprised that the dry hopping actually cuts through the tsunami of raspberry flavor in this one. It's clean, slightly bitter, and citrusy, and plays super well against the seedy and juicy black raspberry character here. There's a bit of oak and wine, and it's just super crisp on the finish.

This is light bodied, clean, and juicy, with a fantastic drinkability.

The Purple is already a pretty fantastic beer, and this is a very wonderful twist on it.

 

Delicious.. moderately dry, otherwise big black raspberry presence, mild red raspberry sweetness. Fairly hefty tannic and oak presence, good carbonation, a bit drier than I'd like, owing to both the brett and fruit.