Cinabar bought me this huge bright red coloured 750ml bottle of Hoegarrden Rosée to torture me with. I did try to hide it, but unfortunately the bottle was so big that I couldn’t find anywhere large and dark enough to shove it (and it’s too late for any suggestions… thank you). I’ve always liked Hoegaarden beer, but this was described on the (far too large) bottle as; “A spiced white beer with natural raspberry flavouring”, which made it sound like one big red bottled nightmare. I’ve tried plenty of fruit beers in the past for this blog. There have been good beer tasting ones, such as Brussels Red Fruit Beer and fruit pop tasting ones such as Liefman's Fruitesse. This Hoegarrden Rosée was made with a minimum 10% fruits of which 6% was raspberry. Prepared in Belgium (where most fruit beers seem to come from), it contained wheat and malted barley, and was brewed with sugar and sweetener. Hoegarrden Rosée was also low in alcohol at 3% volume! Gah! Where was the beer…?
On popping the cork there was quite a strong raspberry smell, which started some alarm bells. There was a pinkish red colour to the beer on pouring. Cinabar had first taste (who likes children’s fruit pop and hates the taste of beer) and liked it, and so the alarm bells became louder in my mind! This beer definitely smelt more of raspberry than of beer, rather than smelling more of beer than of raspberry. One tasting though, I was surprised to find that there was definitely more beer flavour than raspberry, which made a refreshing change and confused me where Cinabar’s taste buds were concerned. The taste was noticeably Hoegaarden beer, and flavoured lightly with fruits, mainly raspberry, rather than like a kid’s raspberry pop drink. This Rosée beer tasted good and refreshing, and would be a perfect summer drink on a sunny day on the beach, in a park or just relaxing in the sun in your own garden, maybe even after a barbecue if you’re lucky with the weather!
By Spectre
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