United Nations of Beer

Snoreau beer

by D'Arcy Gray
(Beer Delegate, QC, Canada)

Snoreau beer
Brasseurs RJ, Montreal, QC, Canada

Sno-reau row your boat
Gently down the stream
Merrily merrily merrily merrily
Life is but a dream

Off in search of a Holiday beer by a Quebec brewer, I stumbled on this bottle with a scrawny guy wearing a scarf and hiding a snowball behind his back.

Hmmm, that could be ME on that label, I thought, so I grabbed Snoreau by Les Brasseurs RJ and took it home for a tasting.

Brasseurs RJ are famous mostly for the Belle Guelle line of beers, all of which I quite like. One of these is even a LAGER - a rarity for these parts! All of that being said, I had high hopes for this beer, even though it claims to be a "cranberry beer" and I, for the most part, don't get all that excited about fruit beers.

Snoreau beer, which weighs in at 7% ABV, is indeed all about the cranberry.

The colour is a lovely cloudy orangy-red. Lots of peach on the nose with tart cranberry and citrus in the mouth.

The aftertaste is a bit overbearing with a VERY bitter cranberry taste. (We may agree to differ here, as I think cranberries are sour. So is Snoreau. Ed.)

Once the initial shock was over, I more or less enjoyed Snoreau beer, but broke my usual two-drink rule and stuck with just one. I'm not sure I could have dealt with that icky aftertaste much longer. I had to have some nice sweet cake to get rid of the bitterness.

I had some questions about the process of making this beer, so I emailed the customer relations people at RJ. I'm mainly curious whether the process they use is similar to that used to make the Belgian Kriek beers. Well, it's been almost two weeks and I haven't heard anything from the numb-nuts who answers their email.

So, I'll have to assume that my first impression is correct and that they use rotten vomit-berries to make this beer. Okay, just kidding, but now that I mention it that bitter cranberry taste does kind of remind me of... well, never mind, that's just gross.

Anyway, I don't think I'd bother about Snoreau again. It's the typical example of what I DON'T like about most fruit beers Skanky rotten fruit bitterness - ICK.

My number one fruit beer is still the McAuslan Apricot Wheat ale. See, I'm not TOTALLY anti-fruit-beer. Off I go, then, down the stream of rotten beer looking for an enjoyable fruit beer. Wish me luck... I'm probably dreaming.

Cheers and Merry Christmas!