This raspberry beer by the Van Honsebrouck brewery in Flanders is a fruit flavoured variation on Bacchus, a beer of a traditional West Flanders style. I don’t usually go for fruit beers but for some reason this one called to me as I wandered down the beer aisle in my local supermarket. It is 5.0% ABV and it comes in a half-size champagne bottle with a paper wrapping instead of a label.
It certainly looks good, both in its packaged presentation and when poured. It has an orangey-red colour and a curious aroma that combines malt and sweet fruit. It is very sweet, the wrapping claims that it is sweetened with both sugar and “sweetener”, and the sweet fruit almost masks the flavour of the beer completely. There is a malt flavour underneath all the sucrose but it is dominated by raspberries and sugar.
To be honest, I would rather be drinking normal Bacchus than this raspberry flavoured version. I don’t even know what normal Bacchus tastes like but it has to be better than this. The undercurrent of beer, when my tastebuds can filter it out from the sugary fruit, is quite pleasant. But this is just too sweet for me. I love raspberries but not with this much sugar and not in my beer.
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