Beer: Raspberry Uber
Brewery: Nickel Brook Brewing Co (Burlington, Ontario)
Style: Sour – Berliner Weisse
4% ABV / 3 IBU

Nickel Brook Brewing Co’s Raspberry Uber is a genius riff on the common practice of cutting the sourness of a berliner weisse with flavored fruit syrups: Both elements are present in one beer. This Gold medal winner from the 2016 Canadian Brewing Awards strikes a perfect balance. One of its most impressive features is its rich ruby red color, presented without the opaque cloudiness that the style is known for. From that perspective, Raspberry Uber doesn’t really look like a typical berliner weisse;

Raspberry Uber offers a sensory overload of raspberry aromas and flavors. Straight from the bottle, the nose is sweet and fragrant, like a clamshell container of fresh raspberries. When poured into a wider-mouthed goblet, you can start to smell – and taste – funky malt notes and lactic tartness. The dominant flavor is raspberry uber alles, but there’s just enough sourness, just enough carbonation, just enough crispness, and just enough Styrian Goldings hops to balance it all out.

This Ontario brewery is not immune to trends, particularly the push towards mixing it up with other fruit flavors. Uber also comes in more expressive flavors like peach, tart cherry and sea buckthorn (a mega-tart berry), but Raspberry Uber follows a more staunchly traditionalist form. At 4% ABV, it’s more punchy that your typical berliner weisse. Well, slightly more punchy, but all in all, a really flavorful low-gravity brew that’s fun to drink. Why bother with boring-ass lagers when you can have this?