Raspberry Russian Imperial Stout

Fruit beers have a reputation for being frou-frou. Not so this raspberry Russian imperial stout by Widmer Brothers. It's about as serious as they come. When I looked at the label, I thought, what an odd pairing--I'm used to fruit beers being light affairs, whether they are berry beers or apricot beers, they all seem to emphasize blonde ales. So I was immediately intrigued. I also thought, raspberry is Tracy's favorite fruit and she asked me to pick up something special for her. I did suspect it might be too strong, but I also thought it was worth a try, something different and definitely special.

As counter-intuitive as it seemed when I looked at the label when I tasted it the combination was, of course, perfectly natural. Like raspberry and dark chocolate. Very dark chocolate, like 80% cocoa dark, with some coffee to make a very dark mocha flavor. Plus 9.3% alcohol and some fortifying hops. The flavor is very strong, and you wouldn't think that the hint of raspberries from the aroma would be able to hold up against them, but it does, creating a striking flavor that really works in every one of its facets.

Alas, Tracy did not like it--it was too strong. To be fair, she doesn't like 80% cocoa chocolate (truthfully, I don't tend to, either, but with hops & alcohol, I can go with it). But I really did. Highly recommended. An image of the beer itself. It doesn't do justice to the head--it's Tracy's portion poured back in the bottle to wait until I could enjoy it and it had gotten more than a little flat. Remarkably, it's still tasty that way. It's very dark, but if you hold it up to the light and tilt the glass to get a view through the thinnest portion, there's some purple there. Highly recommended!