Red Raspberries are one of the most traditional fruits used in wild and sour brewing. They provide one of the best experiences when refermented properly in well-made wild and sour beers. Their flavors, their jammy-ness and their ability to maintain a lively, energetic, youthful presence in sour beer is what makes them a favorite of mine.
Over the last 5 years at Side Project, I have been unable to locally source the amount of Red Raspberries I needed to make a full production batch of beer with them. I have sourced Black Raspberries locally in the past, which are known for their spicy, spruce-like, forest floor, high tannin flavors, which we've exemplified in Side Project Fencerow.
It was time to referment a blend of our Missouri Wild Ales on Red Raspberries to illustrate the differences in Red and Black Raspberries. Fortunately, some friends of ours (thank you Jeff and Averie of Jester King), pointed us in the direction of Decker Farms in Oregon to help us source a huge amount of beautiful Red Raspberries for this new beer - Raspe.
Raspe is a blend of blond Missouri Wild Ales that were fermented entirely with our Missouri cultures and aged in French oak until maturity. At maturity, a blend was chosen and then moved on top of more than 4,000 lbs of Decker Farms Oregon Red Raspberries in one of our American Oak Foedres from our friends at Foeder Crafters of America. The result is a lively, jammy, vibrant beer that showcases the quality of the fruit that was selected and the maturation time of the whole process to produce Raspe. For reference, we used as much Red Raspberries in Raspe as we used Black Raspberries in Fencerow!
Raspe will be released to-go and for on-site enjoyment on Saturday, June 23rd at both The Side Project Cellar and the Brewery tasting room. Raspe will be $20 per 375mL bottle and allocations will be based on the turnout the day of the release.
Important Release Reminders:
- The Side Project Brewing parking lot will be closed to all vehicles. Please park in any public Maplewood parking, like the large parking lot next to The Side Project Cellar at 7373 Marietta Ave. Do not park in any private lots like CVS or the funeral home.
- Open containers are only allowed in our parking lot - on our property until 12pm. Open Containers are NOT allowed on any public Maplewood sidewalks. Any and all bottle sharing must cease at 12pm when our tasting room opens.
- We will rent additional restrooms to set up in our parking lot.
Thanks for taking the time to read the release details for our new beer, Raspe, and we hope to see you on Saturday.
Cheers,
Cory and Karen King
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