Beer of the Week

The beer: Blackberry Kölsch Ale

The brewery: Ellicottville Brewing Company, Little Valley, New York

Description (from the website): "Brewed with refreshing, mildly dry wild blackberry flavor and aroma.  Light, crisp and delicious. Natural, earthy berry sweetness."

Would I buy it again? This is a wonderfully simple, refreshing beer to drink. Nice and light, with just the right amount of blackberry flavor balanced out by the light maltiness of the beer. It would be ideal on a nice, mid-spring evening, but the middle of January is hardly a bad time to drink this beer. Since I like blackberries (well, the taste of blackberries, anyway), I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for this beer in the future.

Not-a-Beer of the Week

The cider: Black Widow

Brewed by: Original Sin Cider, New York City

Description (from the website): "The black widow is fruit-forward, yet tart, with a tantalizing complexity, made with blackberries and freshly pressed New York apples"

Would I buy it again?: Unlike last week's cider, this one actually does taste like blackberries, rather than a regular hard cider with a little bit of blackberry flavor thrown in. So because of that, I prefer this one. I would buy this again, but it wouldn't be a very common purchase. Hard cider is okay from time to time, but overall I prefer beer.

Not-a-Beer of the Week

The cider: Blackberry Cider

Brewed by: Chesapeake Cider Company, Annapolis, Maryland

Description (from Untappd): "This fruit forward cider is conditioned on pureed blackberries."

Would I buy it again?: So we're going to be taking a brief vacation from the beer and take a 2-week excursion into the world of blackberry ciders. This is the first one, and overall, I thought it was okay but it could have better. The blackberry flavor was a bit on the light side, if I'm being honest. It was perfectly drinkable, but I was hoping for a bit more.

Beer of the Week

The beer: Blackberry Barrel Porter

Brewed by: Lexington Brewing and Distilling Company, Lexington, Kentucky

Description (from the website): "This bold and dark beer has a nose of fresh blackberries, and features notes of roasted malt, chocolate and vanilla on the palate.  Finishing with the flavor of blackberry jam reminds you that spring has almost arrived."

Would I buy it again?: This is the first time I've ever had a beer with blackberries in it, and I was kind of excited to try this based on the description. I like blackberry jam (is there a difference between jam and jelly? Well, whatever.) And you know what? It absolutely tastes like I'm drinking blackberry jam. But we run into yet another case where it tastes a bit too much like the flavor and not enough like a beer. I'm actually kind of tempted to buy a peanut butter–flavored beer, mix the two together, and make an alcoholic PB&J. If I do that, I'll definitely post the results. I could be onto something here. Otherwise, I'll probably give this beer a pass in the future. It was okay, but I didn't love it.