While I was up in Scotland, I naturally raided their Lidl’s to see what Scottish beers they had in stock. One of the most commonly occurring breweries was Glasgow based Drygate Brewing Co. I’ve not had one of their beers for a little while so I picked up the lot that were available. ‘Rancho Rosa’ sounded like the weirdest of the bunch. It’s a raspberry and lemon rosé lager aiming to be a deconstructed rosé wine in beer format. An interesting prospect and one that I was keen to try.

Visually the beer has a rhubarb-like colour to it, very reminiscent of pink lemonade. The raspberries come through very clearly on the nose with hints of sweet lemonade as well. The base of the beer is certainly lager. There is a touch of the raspberries on the front end before the beer finishes off on a drier note. The light fruity touch with the crisp, dryness on the end does a fairly solid job of imitating a rosé wine.

A quick note on the can art: I’ve always enjoyed Drygate’s style of using interlocking diamonds and alternating colours. Nice bright colours and certainly stood out on the supermarket shelf.

I actually think that ‘Rancho Rosa’ does a half decent job at attaining what it set out to do; emulate rosé wine in a beer. I believe the addition of rice has definetly helped achieve this outcome. That said, I don’t think I could drink a whole pint or two of it. On the whole the beer is rather refreshing and fairly tasty. However, for a pint of beer at an ABV of 4.2% I’d like to be able to drink it like a pint. The dryness sort of holds you back from enjoying the beer properly. An interesting gimmick and not a half bad beer. I think some people would quite like this but personally I’d prefer a classic lager.

Score: 6/10

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Additional Information:

• Hops: Not Available
• Malt: Not Available
• IBU: Not Available
• ABV: 4.2%
• Gluten Free: No
• Vegan: Yes!
• Purchase Location: Lidl
• Purchase Price: £1.79