Weekly Beer Geek: Railyard Raspberry Wheat

Weekly Beer Geek: Railyard Raspberry Wheat

Article by Luke G
|
August 11, 2011
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Railyard Raspberry Wheat

Mt. Pleasant Brewing Company

$2.19/Bottle

Grade: B-

The Beginning

In the midst of a move, I bring you BEER. The modern world does many things good for us. I mean, you’re reading this on the internet, and that’s pretty cool. But there’s just something boring about moving in a car, with an assist from a buddy with a pickup truck- you pile stuff in, you carry cardboard boxes, you drive. Wouldn’t it be neat if it was like the old days, when everyone had fancy leather luggage and rode on trains from place to place? When the women wore fancy dresses and the men wore bowler hats and monocles and you could smoke cigars wherever you pleased? OK, so that would be a little bit lame, because you’d have cholera and live to the ripe old age of 50. But still, I like trains, and I like gambling, and this is brewed in Mt. Pleasant (home of Soaring Eagle casino).

The Brewer’s Pitch

This isn’t a raspberry beer, in the sense of being made from raspberries. Instead it is a simple American wheat blended with raspberry juice during the brewing process to blend the flavors. The brewer recommends it to go with fresh fruit salad or dessert- or even to be dessert in and of itself. Nevertheless, they say it’s far from a “powder-puff beer” and will appeal to all drinkers, even the most rugged.

The Beer

Railyard is an orange-red color with the barest hint of pink, and an immense white head (admittedly, the size of the head could have to do with the fact that I carried the beer on my bike). It has a wine smell, sharp alcohol contrasted with a sticky sweet fruit juice base. The flavor isn’t so much beer with juice, as it tastes like a grainy wine. The fruit flavor is quite strong, and the alcohol is sharp on the tongue. This is backed up with a more subtle malt taste, making this definitively NOT wine- the roast is smooth on the tongue and counteracts the edge of the alcohol. The body is fairly full but does not seem to linger or coat the mouth- it dissipates quickly and leaves only a tingle and aftertaste of berry.

The Breakdown

This was much more boozy than other fruity wheats I have had- they quite often seem to start with a sweet wheat and add sweet fruit. This, on the other hand, was reminiscent of both beer and wine without any syrupy aspect from the raspberries. That’s not a bad thing (although I’d certainly never have this as dessert), but pairing it with something like fruit salad would likely make the beer taste overly bitter by comparison. Instead, I would recommend this as an after-work beer, ice cold, to both wet your whistle and put a tingle in your mouth. Ultimately, though, this will never be my favorite because it’s too sweet for a good ale and more powerful than I like when I’m in the mood for something fruity.

The Bottom Line

Having reflected, I remembered that the last time I rode on a train we sat on the track for two hours while they moved a tree. Screw trains.