Sunday Night Suds New Belgium Frambozen

This week's Sunday Night Suds (the last Sunday Night Suds before the Passover holiday) looks at New Belgium Frambozen.

I admit it. I was conflicted tonight. Over Shabbos we had company for Friday Night and Shabbos lunch and we had shared a bottle of the Henry Hotspur Hard Pressed Cider (certified kosher by the Va'ad of Detroit) with our lunch company. I wanted to review the Hotspur Hard Cider, but I also had a few bottles of the New Belgium Frambozen that I had picked up in Virginia and which had a best before date of mid-April 2015. Since this would be the last Sunday Night Suds post before Pesach, I decided to chill a bottle of the Frambozen and crack it open this evening with my daf.

Boy did I get this one wring. The Frambozen bills itself as a Raspberry Brown Ale, but for me it struck out on all three accounts. My initial sip revealed a small amount of tart raspberry - not enough to cloyingly sweet, but also not subtle enough to meld with the Brown Ale. However, the Brown Ale was not assertive and I found little malt and no hops to speak of.

The resulting beer was like drinking flavored seltzer - you know that there is an essence of something in the bottle, but its not strong enough for you to figure out what it is without reading the label. Although in this case I knew what I was drinking, I was not impressed with it and found myself wondering if I had the willpower to finish the bottle instead of pouring it out.

Oh well, even a great brewery like New Belgium can have a skunk every once in a while.

New Belgium Frambozen is under the Kosher Supervision of the Scroll-K of Colorado. Although the beer does not bear the kosher symbol on the label, the Scroll-K kosher symbol can usually be found on the bottom of the six pack holder (as I bought this is as part of a mix your own six pack, I did not see the holder, but I have found that to be the case with all the NB beers under the Scroll-K).

Please note that not every brew produced by New Belgium is under kosher supervision. For a list of the New Belgium brews currently under supervision, please click on the link on the left side of my home page for my latest Kosher Beer List.

To see what the experts on Beer Advocate think about New Belgium Frambozen, please follow this link beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/192/1910. As always, please remember to drink responsibly and to never waste good beer unless there is no designated driver.

If you've tried this beer or any others which have been reviewed on the kosher beers site, please feel free to post your comments (anonymous comments are acceptable).

Finally, if you have seen this post being carried on another site, please feel free to click www.kosherbeers.blogspot.com to find other articles on the kosherbeers blogsite. Hey its free and you can push my counter numbers up!