Characteristics:
Pitch Black Boysenberry Stout is the first Pitch Black varietal we ever bottled. It is a Kiwi take on an old English staple of stout with raspberry cordial. It was a concept that cried out for developement so we added berry to a really strong malt-bodied beer in the fermenter, and came up with chocolate berry ripple, bottle conditioned with Rogue Invercargill Yeast for a true touch of terroir.
Tasting Notes:
This member of the Pitch Black stout family starts rich and finishes dry. Prior to fermentation we added the equivalent of 15 percent boysenberry juice which blends with the familiar accents of chocolate and roast coffee in the brewer’s version of chocolate beery ripple.
Black Story:
It all began when staff mixed Pitch Black with Boysenbeery fruit beer (which has a very light wheat-beer base) at an in-house party. Brewer Steve Nally, ever the purist, decided it was a concept that deserved a trial brew. “We wondered what would happen if we put berry in the kettle with a really strong malt-bodied beer,” he said. And, as luck would have it, almost immediately stumbled across some some surplus boysenberry concentrate.
What happened was chocolate berry ripple, very tasty when fresh, but with the addition of Rogue Invercargill Brewery yeast it became drier, and even tastier over time.
