Boston have enjoyed longstanding success with their fruited sours. Their 2017 release, Afterglose, was one of the first Western Australian sours to truly connect with drinkers and quickly became a core range release. And, while fruits and flavours have come and gone, the needle has mostly remained in the sessionable zone, which makes sense when you’ve got a venue that’s a few kilometres out of a town with no taxis or ride share options.
However, that’s all changed with Raspberry Smoovy, a beer – and I’m using that term loosely here – which is closer to frozen yogurt or Boost Juice concoction in texture and appearance than any crisp slaker. In fact, it’s probably worth quarantining any considerations of whether this is or isn’t beer and focus on whether it’s any good as a fun beverage. Thankfully, the answer is overwhelmingly: yes!
Now armed with a fancy new pasteuriser, the Denmark brewers added more than half a tonne of raspberries to a lightly soured base, rendering a flavour that recalls soft serve syrup without the sweetness. Fruit tartness adds balance, if there’s any concept of that here, and there’s a mere 4 IBUs of bitterness lurking somewhere in the dense drupe muddle to ticks the "beer" credentials.
Whether you believe this is beer or something deserving of a cocktail umbrella, there’s a lot of fun to be had with Smoovy; if successful one could imagine a Smoovy series of heavily-fruited sours in line with US breweries like RAR’s Out of Order, Burley Oak’s J.R.E.A.M. or Imprint’s Schmoojee.
Guy Southern
Published March 18, 2024 2024-03-18 00:00:00
