What exactly is blue raspberry?
It’s a flavour for Slurpees and other similar sugary snacks, sure, but that’s just manufactured flavouring and food colouring to create something that appeals to kids (and kid-like adults like myself).
That’s certainly not what it means when it pertains to one of the most sought-after beers out of Twin Sails Brewing, a popular stop along Port Moody’s brewery row.
The Would Crush Blue Raspberry Wheat Ale is a summer staple for many British Columbians and can be found at liquor stores across the province.
“This beer started as a traditional American style wheat ale, packed with flaked and malted wheat. We selected a yeast strain with a lower ester profile than its traditional European cousins,” explains the Twin Sails website.
“We then loaded it full with raspberries until the lid blew off. This beer is teeming with raspberries, backed up by a creamy mouthfeel and light crisp malt profile.”
What the website description doesn’t say is that the delicious wheat ale actually contains just as many blueberries as it does raspberries.
The brewers at Twin Sails put 400 lbs of raspberries and 400 lbs of blueberries in every 4,000 litres of Would Crush.
“Each sip contains 20% of jammy goodness,” an Instagram post from the brewery notes, adding that it’s perfectly crushable for every occasion (they're right).
So in reality, it seems as though the colour of the beer and the potential for a catchy, recognizable name meant that blueberries would be more of a shadow figure in this delectable beer.
But this wheat ale is packed full of both tasty fruits with zero artificial flavouring or food colouring, and it’s begging to be tried before the summer weather ends.
Josh Duncan is the NowMedia news director and a craft beer lover. Reach him at [email protected]. His beer column appears every Saturday afternoon in this space.
