Beer: Easy Evil
Brewery: Anchorage (w/Mos Generator)
Style: Black Raspberry Saison With Brett
8% ABV
I’m a sucker for brewery/band collaborations and Easy Evil Black Raspberry Saison is a beauty. Ironically I didn’t initially realize this was a collab. I bought it just because I love everything that Alaska’s Anchorage Brewing does. They were doing some amazing mixed fermentation brews in oak tanks long before your average craft beer drinker cared much about farmhouse ales, saisons and sours. They bring the funk to pretty much everything they put their hand to, and this one is no different.
It may be a stretch to say that this is a collab (the label reads “ale brewed for the band Mos Generator“), but since the beer is named after a Mos Generator song (from 2016’s Abyssinia) and the lyrics are printed on the back of the bottle, I’m guessing Anchorage Brewing had the Washington retro doom trio’s blessing to make it.
Not sure if the band had any say as to what went into the glass, but it’s something special. It is a deep purple-red color and looks much more like red wine than beer. It even smells like red wine with the rich blackberry, oak and funk aromas a bit reminiscent of a cool-climate French Syrah. And, yeah, it’s not too dissimilar in flavor. Tart raspberry notes dominate and there’s plenty of acidity, but the brettanomyces yeast and oak fermentation (and a good bit of alcohol) give it more complexity than a simple raspberry sour. And while it strongly tastes of black raspberries, it isn’t dominated by a berry that can either be too floral or reminiscent of cough syrup.
While I would definitely pair this beer with Abyssinia‘s cosmic doom, the experience would be even more mind-blowing with the addition of anything with dark chocolate in it, perhaps even an “enhanced” edible from states that sell such things.
