One of my favorite local microbreweries is the Weyerbacher Brewing Company. Although I was somewhat disappointed by their Imperial Pumpkin Ale when I reviewed it at Halloween, I love their Double Simcoe IPA and Old Heathen Barleywine. Over the past year or so I’ve been staring at their Riserva 2010 Raspberry American Wild Ale every time I checkout at The Foodery, and I finally broke down and bought a bottle. As Riserva is a bottle conditioned wild ale (translation: a sour ale that was carbonated by yeast after it was bottled, for all the non-beer fanatics out there), every year is significantly different, and even within a year bottles will vary depending on age and storage conditions.
Weyerbacher is a moderate sized microbrewery located in Easton, PA. The brewery was founded in 1995 by Dan and Sue Weirbeck, and in 2005 purchased Victory Brewing Company’s 25 barrel brew system, and since then has continued to upgrade their brewhouse and equipment. Among the upgrades is a new bottling line that increased their capacity to 250 cases per hour, which along with the new brewhouse has allowed the company to expand distribution to 18 states.
The beer poured a deep, clear red amber with golden highlights; these highlights were accentuated by the fact that virtually no head or lacing was present. When I initially uncorked this beer, I noticed that there was very little positive pressure in the bottle, which to be honest scares me a bit. Weyerbacher, however, actually noted this on the side of the bottle, stating that the elevated acidity inhibited the carbonation in the beer; this makes sense, as a lower pH will reduce the viability of the yeast needed for bottle conditioning. The aroma was low, but was dark and almost spicy, drawing significantly on the non-sweet, tangy notes from the raspberries.
The initial impression from this beer is of a very intense sourness; so sour, in fact, that I got the jaw-locking sensation I recall from Warheads candy. I noticed this intense sourness even before I noticed any of the mouthfeel, which is quite unusual, but despite its intensity it lacked the complexity of the Russian River sours I’ve tried. Russian River gets this complexity by mixing multiple types of bacteria with multiple strains of Brettanomyces, so it’s likely that Riserva uses a substantially less complex mix of souring agents. The mouthfeel was fairly thick, and grew to be almost cloying during the aftertaste. The carbonation was quite low, but at the very end of the sip had a very subtle and fine fizziness, accentuated by an acidic bite. The taste of this beer was dominated by the raspberry character, which actually reminded me of fake raspberry flavor. This likely resulted from the large amount of puree that was added to the wort; the sugars fermented, leaving behind the only the flavor-causing compounds. Despite the overpowering raspberry, this was a surprisingly sweet beer. I suspect the sweetness is from sugars added to carbonate the bottle, but which were unused due to preserving action of the acidity. The last thing I noticed about this beer is that it lingered, leaving an unpleasant sourness in the mouth long after I had finished drinking it. I like sour, but I also want to have my taste buds intact.
I actually like this beer, but I think it’s got some room for improvement. I’d like to see the complexity of the sourness increased, although that may come with age, and I’d like both the sweetness and the raspberry to be dialed back a bit. If you like sour fruit beers, give this one a shot, but other than that I would leave it alone; the price coupled with the sourness make this a hard beer to justify unless you know you like the style.
Price: $21.50
Size: 750 mL
ABV: 11.4%
Appearance: 4 /5
Aroma: 3.5/5
Flavor: 3.5/5
Mouthfeel: 4/5
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