a week off

For all those devoted readers of my blog, I apologize I had to go back to Fort Collins this week. There are few things that would cause me to cut the trip short; personal injury, a death of someone I knew and the re-release of Frambozen.

Frambozen is New Belgium’s holiday release that is usually on the shelves between late November and December. The luscious raspberry based beer has a tart taste and smooth texture.

But contrary to NBBC’s Web site which steep Frambozen in Lambic tradition, the beer is not a Lambic. In fact, it is only a fruity brown ale.


“Enjoying Frambozen is much more than drinking a beer, it is a sensory experience full of tradition…inspired by the Framboise beers of Belgium, where the use of raspberries in beer outdates the use of traditional hops.”

Right next to this statement are the ingredients to this beer of which hop are the top one.

According to beeradvocate.com in Lambic beers, “Malt and hop characters are generally low to allow the fruit to consumer the palate.” While in Frambozen hops are the main ingredients.

And even though many Lambic style steps are taken in the brewing and fermentation process, the result is only a fruity brown ale, with hints of Lambic tradition.

Now that I got that off my chest lets talk about the beer.

The re-released batch of Bozen has the same great dark-ruby color and tart aroma of the winter release.

The beer’s flavor seems to have mellowed a bit however. Now instead of an especially tart flavor the beer took on a sweeter near-wine flavor.

The body also seems to have weakened a bit, and the head collapsed quickly. This compounded by the beers low carbonation gave the beer more wine-like qualities and made it quite enjoyable to drink.

If you’re into Frambozen, I would go down to NBBC and grab a growler before they run out. Allegedly, they just had a distributor return a couple keg or something along those lines, but it won’t last long.