Double Award Winning Raspberry Gose 🏆🏆

April 21, 2023

This week we were delighted to announce that our flagship beer, Raspberry Gose, won, not one, but two(!) Gold Awards at the SIBA South West Independent Beer Awards; One in the Sour & Wild Ale category, but more importantly... Best Overall Keg Beer.

To see a fruited sour beer win an award like this, when stood up against over 100 different beers, with styles mainly consisting of pale ales, IPA's, lagers and bitters, is a fantastic moment for us and a sure-fire sign of the times too. Tastes are changing! Could fruited beers and sours be at the forefront of this? We certainly think so.

Here's the back story for our Flagship Fruit Beer...

We first brewed Raspberry Gose in the summer of 2019; our first year of trading.

The idea was that the heavy dose (nearly 200 grams per litre) of locally-sourced Raspberries would take the centre-stage, and were pushed forward by the yoghurty acidity of our mixed culture fermentation and a lick of Cornish sea salt, much like traditional gose beers of Germany.

We knew that this simplicity was the winning formula for a great tasting, and refreshingly drinkable beer. But we had no idea how quickly we would win over the hearts of drinkers around the UK.

The first batch sold out in the first month and the demand has been there ever since. Cans are a mainstay in many shops and bars, and we've picked up permanent keg lines along the way too.

It was also the inspiration for most of the other beers we're known for today.
Our background as a brewery has always been more than just sour beer and fruit-loaded beer smoothies, but seeing that beer drinkers are as passionate about fun and fruit-filled beverages as we are, we just knew that this style is where we needed to focus a large part of our time. So you can thank Raspberry Gose for beers such as Plum Fool, Blueberry Muffin or Rhubarb Cheesecake.

But it hasn't been all plain sailing for this fruit-loaded favourite...

In 2022, due to poor fruit harvests and a lack of fruit pickers in the UK, we saw some massive price increases on soft fruits. Raspberries were amongst the worse affected. The cost per kilo nearly doubled and the future of Raspberry Gose was put in to question. Increasing our prices wasn't a sensible option; it was already difficult to explain the price of a beer which contains nearly 90 grams of fruit per can! Instead, we swallowed the cost in the hope that better harvests would bring the price down again. Unfortunately, nothing has changed yet and the future of Raspberry Gose is still up for debate.

But! Let's try to stay merry. Raspberry Gose is still here. Our fruit-heavy flagship is now Best in Show and will be put forward again when the competition "gose" national, sometime in the next 12 months.