Scratch Beer 254 - 2016 (Raspberry Gose)
Tröegs Brewing Company

 

Purplish-red-amber, with pale pink head.

Smells of unidentified artificial fruit, or an attempt thereof. Essentially, a Kool-Aid-ish aroma.

Flavor is similar to aroma, but tart, rather than sweet. There is a very slight malt flavor. Comes across like a tart version of Abita Purple Haze. Seems more like a Berliner Weisse, than a gose.

Carbonation is medium-fine, producing a pleasant prickle, on the finish of an otherwise soft-feel.

Overall, this was drinkable (It was 90F at the time. ; ) ) , but that's the best I can say about it. A rare miss by Troegs.

Appears light red with slight head and decent lacing. Smell and taste are very similar, both of sour raspberry chew candies. Feel is a touch juicy, not very dry. Ok, but not great.

I had been working, for a short time, at Molly's Carryout here in Lancaster, PA, when I came across this bottle in our cooler. Being a curious fellow, I purchased it at the end of my shift & brought it home for consumption & review.

From the bottle: "Handcrafted by the Troegs Bros."; "Years before our brewery opened, we spent countless hours sampling beer, jotting down notes and developing recipes from scratch. Our earliest roots start with a six-gallon pot, a beat-to-crap stove and a burning desire."; "Today, we brew each Scratch Beer on our custom small-batch brewhouse with the same aspirations to endlessly ponder, sketch, brew, tweak, flip, sample, gather your feedback, and happily return to the drawing board."

Today, I Pop!ped the cap & began a gentle pour, in keeping with my New Year's Resolution. Aggro pours from bottles are now (mostly) a thing of the past. I am really coming to embrace a vigorous in-glass swirl since it is much less likely to bungle things up. This go-'round raised two fingers of foamy, rocky, pinkish head that resembled cotton candy before falling away to wisps. Color was Amber (SRM = > 7, < 9), but with a slightly pinkish cast, rendering it N/A, and NE-quality clarity. Nose smelled strongly of raspberries, which was nice, but it did not smell like a Gose. Mouthfeel was thin-to-medium, not watery, but not far from it, either. The taste was tangy, but overwhelmingly of raspberry, leaving the salt in the dust. I know that it is customary to add either red (raspberry) or green (woodruff) syrup to Gose, but they added too much red (raspberry) to this one for my taste. In fact, I generally eschew the syrups in favor of unadulterated Gose. Finish was tart, but that was largely due to the raspberry. How can I rate to style when this is not really indicative of the style? I'm just going to do my best & let the chips fall where they may. If I am an outlier, so be it.