Raspberry Vanilla Smoothie IPA

Style: Fruit IPA
Brewery: Good Guys Brew
Origin: Sweden
Size: 33cl
Alcohol: 6.5%
Price: 40kr
Systembolaget: 30548

Good Guys is based in Karlstad, where they began as home brewers in 2013. The brewery was officially opened in 2017. They also have a pizza restaurant and taproom attached to the brewery.This beer contains raspberry for flavour and lactose to give a creamier body, and is brewed with Mosaic hops. When I was researching different IPA to have in the selection, I came across this rather strange beer. It’s not often that you get a fruit based smoothie IPA, and as it has links with a lot of modern sour beers in terms of style, I thought it would be a great fit for the night. Unfortunately, the sum of its parts didn’t come together to produce an amazing beer.

This had a dull strawberry hue to it along with a thick white to pink head that held very well. The fresh raspberry notes came through prominently in the aroma, but pretty much everything else was hidden by the massive red fruit. The raspberry again overpowered pretty much everything in the taste, but the hop bitterness clashed with the fruit in the aftertaste and ended up tasting a bit astringent. This chemical note lingered on the palate for a fair amount of time. Unripe grapefruit was also noted in the taste, but it couldn’t salvage the disinfectant notes.

This was not a favourite, unfortunately. Everything just became a bit muddled and I really didn’t enjoy drinking it. I’ve had much better fruit beers, especially in this tasting, so for me, it’s hard to recommend this at all. Such a shame, but not every beer can be a winner.