Mutually fruity

Bit of an unusual move from me today. Collaboration beers aren't exactly rare on this blog, but I tend to group things together by the production brewery. Today's are centred around one of my locals, Rascals, but are all beers they've made with other breweries, and all share the Rascals fondness for whacking in the fruit purée.

We start at HQ, and Pash 'N Fruit. A note of appreciation goes to that single hanging apostrophe which I'm reading as a tribute to a certain Los Angeles-based 1980s hair metal band who have the same unorthodox orthography in their name. Something for the dads, there. Collaborating on this New England-style IPA are Lervig and The Garden, only one of which is named after a song on Use Your Illusion I. And of course there's passionfruit in it. The can blurb describes it as a "refresher", but it doesn't look like one, being a dense and soupy orange and a sizeable 5.4% ABV. The aroma is quite gently fruity, suggesting a lightness and coolness of the refreshing sort. There's a certain slickness to the texture but it's not soupy and the mouthfeel is light overall. The passionfruit completely dominates the foretaste in a very unsubtle way, starting on a fresh sorbet zest and building quickly to a more artificial metallic-tasting concentrate. There's no room for any IPA characteristics under this, and frankly they've a bit of a cheek calling it one. Equally, it could pass as one of those non-sour "sours" that remain inexplicably popular. While I'm getting the digs in, I can't see how it took three very skilled and creative breweries to create something so basic. It's not a bad beer, and I don't get any of the common problems with contemporary cloudy stuff. But it's nothing fancy either. 

The Garden returned the fruity favour with Rosehip & Orange Sour, although Lervig weren't invited to Zagreb. There's a cliché about this sort of beer looking like carrot soup but it really really does. It's a modest affair at 5.4% ABV and is one of those highly attenuated beers where one suspects that the yeast has chomped through all the interesting stuff. I don't eat a whole lot of rosehip but there's nothing in here that suggests its involvement. Flowers and/or fruit are thin on the ground. There's a broad and vague vegetal funk in the aroma and then a tangy acidic flavour, like a kettle-soured blonde ale without any added ingredient. Again, they say it's "refreshing", and the blandness would be forgivable if it were, but it's not. This is weighty enough to taste sweaty and harsh. Usually the problem is that they're sickly, but this doesn't have enough fruit character for that, nor any proper sourness. The result tastes flat and dull. Collaborations are all about experimentation, and it makes sense that some of them simply fail. This is one of those, unfortunately.

I don't have the matching other half of the final one because I reviewed it back in June. Rascals paired with Mad Scientist to create Loco in Inchicore. The return leg in Budapest has given us Go Loko, allegedly a gose, and I guess the letter from Leipzig's lawyers hasn't yet arrived, because this is brewed with vanilla, cinnamon, rhubarb and raspberry in a way that gose very much isn't. Loko indeed. It's a dense and murky purple in the glass, smelling sweetly dessert-like, of trifle and compote. It's 5.8% ABV, which is hefty, and it has a body to go along with that, aided by the vanilla to create a sweet and smooth sensation. The flavour charmed me instantly with a surprise kick of ripe black cherries -- real, not concentrate -- and even a twist of cakey dark chocolate for the Black Forest effect. It's supposed to be sour, and there is salt in the ingredients, so while I accept it's an absolute affront to common decency to pretend this is gose, there is a sour bite in the finish. That prevents the gateau aspect from turning cloying, giving it more of a cherry yoghurt effect. I like a cherry yoghurt and don't mind drinking one as a beer. More than anything, this is fun. Tying it to your Großvater's salty sour style was a mistake; it's its own thing, and more enjoyable for that. The fruit pops, the sourness zings and the vanilla pushes up the intensity of all of it. Gloopy purple beers of this sort rarely do it for me, but I think I've finally found one that works. 

This sort of beer gets a bad rap from boring people like me, and rightly so, quite frankly, for the most part. That last one gives, me pause, however. Rhubarb and raspberry, with vanilla and a sour culture? It merits further investigation, is all I'll say.