New Glarus Strawberry Rhubarb

Teased from the loam by the kiss of the Sun. Mom’s Strawberry Rhubarb delights are the happy memories of childhood. Diploma Master Brewer Dan employed juicy sweet Strawberries to tame the barbaric wild tart fermentation of rhubarb. Escaped from the far corners of neighboring yards, local rhubarb was incorporated into the wild sour fermentation to create this drinkable dream. Bright sour and effervescent. Toast chilled cold to Bright skies, fireflies, bare feet and rhubarb pies!

2013 - 2015: 750ml bottle

2017: 12-oz bottle

412 reviews

New Glarus, United States

Community reviews

4.0 Bottled. Pours ruby red deep murky color. Ruby-tinged beige head. Aroma is straight strawberry jam, very sweet. Nice. Flavor is little tart, strawberry, pretty thick for the abv, like strawberry jam. Really good. I see why there's such hype. Not really beer. More like fruit juice. Excellent. Hope to get this one again.

3.8 From a Growler from Ken out of Denver. Cloudy brown pour, no long lasting foam. Smells malty with oodles of strawberry that isn’t implying a whole lot of tartness. Tastes match the taste. Only a hint from the Rhubarb but the caramel, which resembles mild oxidation, and the strawberry carries the weight nicely. Thanks again Ken!

4.3 12 ounce bottle into pint glass, best before 9/8/2017. Pours very hazy deep ruby/pink/brown color with a 2 finger fairly dense and fluffy off white head with great retention, that reduces to a nice cap that lasts. Nice spotty soapy lacing clings down the glass, with a moderate amount of streaming carbonation retaining the cap. Fantastic appearance. Aromas of huge strawberry jam, rhubarb, red grape, wheat, cracker, brown sugar, brown bread, and light herbal. Incredible aromas with awesome balance of strawberry, rhubarb, and bready malt notes; with big strength. Taste of huge strawberry jam, rhubarb, red grape, wheat, cracker, brown sugar, brown bread, and light herbal. Light herbal bitterness and fruit tang/tartness on the finish. Lingering notes of strawberry jam, rhubarb, red grape, wheat, cracker, brown sugar, and brown bread on the finish for a while. Incredible robustness and balance of strawberry, rhubarb, and bready malt flavors; with a great malt/tang/tartness balance, and zero cloying sweetness after the finish. Slightly drying from fruit tang/tartness. Medium-high carbonation and medium-full body; with a very smooth, creamy/bready/grainy, and fairly acidic/tannic/tangy balanced mouthfeel that is awesome. Zero warming alcohol as expected of 4%. Overall this is an amazing fruit beer! All around incredible robustness and balance of strawberry, rhubarb, and bready malt flavors; very smooth and refreshing to drink with the balanced tart/tangy fruit finish. Unbelievable levels of fruit presence, with nice malt balance to keep it drinkable. Tastes like a jar of Smucker’s jam as a beer. A highly enjoyable offering.

4.5 Bottle shared among Aaron, Gus, and ebone1988 at the You Can’t Drink All Day If You Don’t Start in the Morning Brewhaha. 12 oz bottle. The pour is a dirty strawberry smoothie color with a thin dark white colored ring of head and a few solid spots of lace as it vanishes. The aroma is fantastic. This tastes unbelievable. The strawberry is so huge. This is like a very tart strawberry rhubarb pie. So tart and delicious. The flavor is much of the same. Tart strawberry. The fact there is so much fruit in this is out of control. Good lord. The mouth feel is light but thick with a soft carbonation and a beautiful tart fruitiness that really rounds it all out. Got damn this is excellent. 8 5 9 5 17

4.7 Bottle shared with koleminer20, Gus, and Aaron at the "You Can’t Drink All Day If You Don’t Start In The Morning" Brewhaha. Finally. Aroma is fucking awesome. Strawberry, rhubarb, bready, slightly tart, like pie. Appearance is red, pink head, looks like a smoothie. Taste is strawberry, rhubarb, bready, slightly tart, slight wheat, like it was filtered through a strawberry rhubarb pie. Mouthfeel is medium body, light carbonation, strawberry rhubarb pie aftertaste. Overall, much like every New Glarus fruit beer, this is a god damn experience.

4.2 Bottle shared by Rick, thank you. Pours a ruby red with a little ring of head. Aroma is intense with strawberry jam sweetness and lightly tart. Smells just about as fresh as fresh jam can be. Full on strawberry jam taste and bits of rhubarb tart. The fruit notes are just amazing. Another wonderful fruit beer from New Glarus.

4.5 Bottle from Rick. Murky dark pink pour, small ring of head. Aroma is fresh baked pie. Taste too, big jelly jar flavor. Just awesome throughout. Tasty.

3.8 Cloudy red pour with a big pinkish colored head. Aroma is full of strawberries. Light bodied. Taste is loaded with strawberry with a hint of tartness on the finish. An amazing aftertaste of strawberry, it really is like just eating fresh strawberries. Lots of lace present. Another outstanding fruit beer from NG. If you told me this was just strawberry juice, I’d believe you.

4.1 Had this one several times. From 750 ml bomber, on draught at the brewery, several beer festival and now the Thumbprint Series. Pours a hazy deep red amber colored brew with a hot pink head that slowly dissipates and leaves behind some excellent lacing. Aroma of mostly strawberries, golden grain malt, floral hops and a hint of rhubarb. Taste is full bodied, fruity, lots of strawberry and rich golden grain malt and a hint of floral hops. Finish is quite sweet with more strawberry and a hint of rhubarb aftertaste followed by some mild bitterness. Though I detected more strawberry flavors in the Thumbprint Series version compared to the former 750ml bomber, it’s still an outstanding fruit beer.

4.2 big bottle, little bottle, its all good .. . strawberry and fruit juice, and i guess rhubarb .. sweet finish, but not overly so .. this is fruit juice level, good once or twice a year .. . . i found a cigarette butt in one of planters and almost cried..

4.2 Thanks Virby44 for sharing the bottle! Poured into a wineglass showing cloudy lightly filtered strawberry with very sparse foam white lacing and translucent rims. The nose shows jammy rich strawberries. The palate is light bodied and well carbonated. Moderately sweet with jammy flavors of strawberry from start to finish lightly supported by rhubarb. NG does make the best fruit beers.

4.6 12 oz bottle. Smells like strawberry rhubarb pie, complete with baked crust, and a really good pie at that. The taste doesn’t disappoint, instead living up to the promise of the aroma. Excellent smooth body with perfect carbonation. Overall: Super. A new favorite for me from New Glarus?

3.7 Bottle thanks to Dita. Pours cloudy red with a pink head. Strawberry Jell-O nose. Medium mouthfeel. Clawingly sweet.

3.6 Original 11/13 rating; Ar - 7 Ap - 4 Fl - 8 P - 4 O - 16 Rate 3.9. 2017 rerate: Pulpy, hazed rusty blood color along with a pink/tan head. Strawberries and pale malt mingle in the aromas along with a hint of stomach acid. I seem to be catching some other fruits as well, such as tart cherries and a few other berries. Light sweet start that is quickly whisk away by tart rhubarb that is quite similar to tart cherries. Very light on the palate, which along with the tartness leaves the mouth watering. Seem to have a grainy finish this time around.

4.1 12oz bottle shared. Dark cloudy ruby red pour. Huge fruit aroma. Taste like fresh strawberries and rhubarb. So juicy and delicious. They nailed it.

4.6 aroma is just spectacular. strawberries galore. flavor is not too sweet, strong strawberry flavors. just refreshing and crushable. pours reddish pink somewhat clear. best fruit beer i have ever had.

2.7 small tan head with a fair retention and a stringy lace. Looks like a glass of muddy water, one ugly sumbitch. Lotsa strawberry in the aroma and flavor dept. Medium bodied, little crunchy. Rhubarb is noticeable in an earthy, slightly vegetal way and actually helps pound the sweetness of this beer down a skoche i do believe, thank Gambrinus! Otherwise a sweet, strawberry, ugly ass beer. Not sure how it rates this high or if its the age killing it or maybe a lot of you folks just like sweet fruity beers like the kiddies do. Got me. Anyways, props to MOTORTODDHEAD for the bottle that was delivered in a trade many , many moons ago. Thanks bro, love ya!

3.3 Poured from a 750 ml bottle. Aroma is fruity with a rhubarb and strawberry character. Moderately strong syrupy, honey notes with a touch of a wet cardboard character. More rhubarb than strawberry with a faint phenolic note. Pours a murky, light brown color with a bit of a tan hue and a medium sized, fairly thick, tan head that slowly recedes to thin film that lingers on the edges. Light lacing and no legs. Flavor is very sweet with some moderate honey, caramel and syrup notes. Moderate rhubarb notes with some lighter strawberry character. Some light phenolic notes. A touch of wet cardboard notes. Low bitterness. Mouthfeel is medium bodied with medium carbonation. Low astringency and low alcohol warmth. Overall, the age hasn’t helped this beer, but I am not sure it was very good in the first place. The beer is very sweet with some moderate fruit notes. Moderate oxidation and sweet malt notes.

3.7 At Hopishop’s B.U.M.B. 2016, shared by 77ships, cheers! Lightly lacing, egg-white, moussy head, lightly hazy orangey blonde robe with warm amberish hue. Aroma breathes a ton of ripe, sweet strawberries, home made strawberry jam, rhubarb stewed with lots of white sugar to soften the tartness like my grandmother used to do, more subtle notes of marmelade, apple cake, vanilla, banana and white bread lurking underneath. Very emphatic sweet strawberry flavor and though sugary, still feeling ’natural’, not cloying as in an industrial sweet fruit beer; the sourish rhubarb flavor sits underneath but it’s hard to spot and could have been more outspoken if only to provide balance against the sweetness. Medium carbo (could have been a bit fizzier for such a sweet dessert beer, to my taste at least), some soapy ’wheatiness’ and soft, fluffy breadiness provide an underlying structure that carries the artisanal strawberry jam sweetness onwards. Slight earthiness in the very end, with the sweetness sticking a little bit to the throat. Like many of these New Glarus fruit beers apparently, this is very sweet, but in an elegant, refined kind of way - comparing this and the others with cheap industrial sweet fruit beers would be a lot like comparing grandmother’s sweet strawberry cake with sticky, plasticy, industrial strawberry-flavored candy. It know which of those two I would prefer.

3.4 At Hopishop 2016. Aroma of strawberry jam and candy. Flavor has sweet syrupy strawberry and candy jam. These New Glarus beers are a bit of a letdown.

3.8 750 ml. bottle sampled @ HopisHop B.U.M.B. 2016. Hazy amber with an off-white head. Nose is hilariously heavy on sweet strawberry jam, quite awesome, stupid sweet as usual for a New Glarus fruit beer, pure strawberry jam really. Taste is bit empty especially compared to the smell, bit metallic upfront, sparkling water, strawberry jam, some faint lemon way in the back, bit empty tasting. Body is lightly metallic strawberry jam diluted with sparkling water. If only it tasted like it smelled. I have no idea where the Rhubarb is.

4.4 A: Very cloudy red/brownish coloured with a big off white/pinkish head N: Strawberry! Hint of raspberry and red currant. T: Strawberry bomb! Light rhubarb as well. O: Very much strawberry and a small hubt of sweet rhubarb. VERY well balanced flavours! Perfect carbonation. Super nice!

4.5 Three bottles consumed over 2013-late 2015. Usually I had this in a NG flute; I think it’s good to start it out fairly cold, especially if you’re going to do the whole bottle by yourself (which I did with 2 of them) over an evening. It poured a murky brick-red to muddy brown, with plenty of fizzy head that died off fairly quickly...nose is, as expected, strawberry-rhubard, duh! But of course as with other NG fruit beers, it’s so fresh, so bold, so aromatic that the whole room lights up and I can’t do anything but keep smelling, keep nosing, keep loving...it’s a bit less sweet on both the nose and tongue than the Belgian Red generally is, I’d say, but perhaps more sweet than the Raspberry Tart or Serendipity, but what really stands out special about this one in comparison to the other masterpieces is the malt extraction, this has a fullness and biscuit-pie crust malt that provides a fuller and less acidic body than I’m used to, making it simultaneously more quaffable at once in a glass or two, but a bit tougher to consume when talking the whole bottle. There’s also snatches of vanilla and caramel in here, and a hint of lime. I probably liked this more than the bottles I’ve had of Serendipity, though I had that on draught once and it was otherworldly; as it is, it’s just another "typically" great experience from the American master of fruit beers. I’m sorry to say it looks as if this might be gone for good; it’s listed as such on the website, and the clerk at the brewery a couple of weeks ago told me he didn’t think it was coming back. But one never knows - the Apple Ale was out of circulation for a few years at one point. Bring it back, Dan!

4.1 Bottle. Pours murky pinkish brown with medium light pinkish brown head which quickly recedes. Aroma is loaded with strawberries. Taste is strawberry sweet, slight rhubarb tart, a hint of sweet sugar.

3.0 Small yellowish head over fully hazy red-brown beer. Strawberry ice-cream, milky, even a bit vomit-like smell. Milky, lactic, again strawberry ice cream, if watered-down. Medium bodied, quite slick. Another NG fruit I really can’t like.

4.0 older bottle had plenty of sediment as well. the pour was cloudy reddish mess really. guessing it was past its prime but none the less. the most delicious of the fruit beers that I have tasted. pure strawberry and rhubarb flavor. just totally delicious and since its not being made anymore i’ll never see it again. but this was just one fantastic beer. thanks shrubber for this one. I still owe you

4.3 could never imagine a "strawberry jam" beer would taste like this one...quite a pleasant surprise to have tasted a beer that is essentially a fruit beer but did more than just fruits. the freshness, light sweet sour of strawberry after fermentation just came together nicely---if you ever see this beer--grab it--or throw me a line...:) 草莓大黄酿制的啤酒，用想象是不可能的，因为喝了第一口就惊艳，想象不到水果啤酒可以是那么美味。看到的话，绝对不要错过，虽然可能也很难找到了。

3.9 Taste pour at my birthday party 12/6. Nice amount of strawberry, lightly tart. New Glarus never fails.

4.8 "The greatest slice of strawberry rhubarb pie ever served. In a glass." Those were the notes I entered into my phone on the night I tasted Strawberry Rhubarb. While I want to provide a few more details, I feel that statement captures the essence of this brew about perfectly. Appearance is totally unimpressive: hazy (almost muddy) with just a little head. That’s the only knock - if you can call it that - against this beer. Smells and flavors are unreal. Juicy, lightly tart fruit with a hint of malt. Feel is lively and smooth. My first New Glarus brew and it sure as hell won’t be my last.

4.7 (Thanks, Josh! "StFun") Bottle. A- Strawberry puree, rhubarb, slightly sweet. A- Brown color, murky liquid, off brown head. T- Rhubarb, strawberry. P- Light body, average texture, average carbonation, long beautiful finish. O- When I first got into craft I loved fruit beers, with all the sweetness and artificial fruit flavors. Then I learned that they actually really sucked. Now, this beer came across my path. Holy moly. This smelled like my grandma’s award winning strawberry rhubarb pie. The nose translates into the palate. Very natural tasting and balanced. Not tart, not bitter, but just right. Wow. I can’t say enough good things. The only bad thing is it looked like dirty sewage water. That hurt it overall a little, but otherwise this is as good as you will find for not only a fruit beer but a beer in general.