Berry Bogle
Newbarns Brewery

a neat little bottle of beer i packed back from scotland, cracked it this week with my brother, a fruited berliner of high order, done in collaboration with holy goat, apparently a version of their strathmore berliner, done up with black currant, strawberry, and raspberry, we loved this. tons of real fruit character, not super sour, and the core berliner remains central to this, not a generic kettle sour, an intentional and to style berliner that would be very good on its own too i am sure. pretty pinkish red color to this, but rather thick and murked out, hazy and dense, not sedimented or gross, but not as delicate as i like a berliner to look, even a heavily fruited one like this, some head and fine carbonation on it, but it could appear a bit more refined, lovely color though. the nose is tart with strawberry first in front of the other fruits, jammy and a little sweet, ripe and very real, with some wheat malt and clean lactic souring behind it, the currant and raspberry add compatible juicy pucker, there is a hint of lemon, and this seems really summery and fruit forward. the flavor is the same, strawberry first, the most recognizable of the fruits, but the others are there, tart and clean, definitely authentic, boldly dosed. the base beer is nice, wheaty but light, tart but clean, not too sour to drink hard on, i would have had more than one bottle of this for sure, not as sweet at the end as it starts out, and the mix of fruits is great. perhaps a tad unvarnished, but its hard to be critical of a beer that tastes like this, i love the fruit in it and i love how it doesnt run over the base beer. very nice execution here, a great collaboration brew for the summer months.