Les Brasseurs du Temps La Framboyante

Brewed by Les Brasseurs du Temps
Style: Fruit Beer
Gatineau, Canada

In short: An surprisingly successful and tasty blend of raspberries tartness, rich caramel and leafy hops bitterness. Kick-ass.
How: Tap at brewpub
The look: Partly cloudy beautiful dark-red body topped by a long-lasting small of-white head
In long: Nose has a lot of raspberries as well as some sweet notes and leafy hops. Taste is a perfect mix of raspberries tartness, rich caramel sweetness and leafy hops resinous bitterness. None of these three flavour elements dominates the others. This is a tasty beer, almost a sipper. A very original beer. On paper those three main flavour elements shouldn’t not blend so well together but here it was surprisingly cohesive. This is a beer that truly throws everything at you but the water heater. In Quebec we don’t throw the kitchen sink last, we throw it sixth and throw the water heater last. It’s a cultural thing.

On tap, at les Brasseurs du Temps. This one started really well -- pours amber-red, with the ideal small, creamy white head. Raspberry aroma. But then...oh boy. Appropriately sweet, and very bitter (but still not THAT bad), but that finish was... bitter, to say the least. I thought it would have made an appropriate beer for dessert (actually, I had tried, like, five of their others at that point), but, I was wrong. I’ll give it another try, as an appetizer instead. Until then, it’s a best-forgotten experience.

Draught at the brewpub. Pours a clear deep amber-red with a small creamy off-white head. Aroma: Wow, that’s nice: Lightly tart raspberries along with a good amount of hops, caramel malt and a hint of spices. Flavour’s different then what I expected but not at all in a bad way, it’s very good: Slightly tart raspberries backed by caramel malt, hops, some light spices and a long, mild bitter finish. Medium bodied. Very, very good!

On tap at the brewpub. Nice ruby body with a thin off-white creamy head. Enjoyable cherry/raspberry aroma with some spicy hints. Sharp hoppy/fruity taste with woody notes. Ends with a good, long bitter/sour finish. Well done.

2009-11-17. Crisp reddy brown body with a pink tinged beige head. 3+ Strong aroma of raspberry has leafy touches and moments of candy/perfume like strangeness, raspberry seeds. Flavour is similar, fruity but with an odd touch to it. Almost herbal or herbaceous. Average palate. Bit strange, did not particularly love it. On tap at the brewpub

Draught. At the brewpub. Slightly hazy copper with an average diminishing creamy head. A truly amazing aroma - tart strawberry/raspberry (with seeds), a touch acidic on the nose, and a background that made me think somewhat of red wine vinegar. Tart taste as well, berryfruit and seeds, an intense crushed seed bitterness developed into an extreme bitterness of almost crushed black pepper proportions. The beer itself was of only average body, but very acidic/astringent, and an extreme and extremely long peppery finish - wow, really interesting, if perhaps unbalanced after thinking on it.

A copper red ale with a thin lacing white hwad. In aroma, pleasant raspberry pulp with light caramel malt. In mouth, a light oily malt, light raspberry notes, some light hopping, medium bodied. On tap at brewpub, Oct. 18 2009.

My Bottom Line:
This characterful Raspberry Ale is the scene for fresh raspberry juice and bitter resinous hops, both thriving on a bed of light caramel and pale malts.

Further Personal Perceptions:
-A veil of foam tops the cloudy deep red.
-That raspberry aroma is beautiful.
-That Centennial hop bitterness is quite intense, and thus unexpected for a fruit beer. Its link with raspberry seeds is very interesting flavorwise.
-This is balanced until the finish, where the hops’ bitterness overtakes everything else.

On tap at the brewpub.