Stumptown Tart delivers sass

This week Bridgeport Brewing releases its “Big Brew,” a special beer that comes out once a year. This year their Stumptown Tart takes the same name as it has for the past two years, but its style and flavor have since changed.

Bridgeport will hold a release party for the brew on Thursday at its downtown brew pub. Free samples of the Tart will be available for tasting, and limited editions of the 22-ounce bottles will be for sale.

Bridgeport always uses some type of fruit in its Stumptown Tart. In 2008 it was marionberries. Last year a sour concoction of 2,000 sour-pie cherries was added to the brewing process. This year, 2,000 pounds of Oregon raspberries were thrown in to give the brew a sweet and moderately tart flavor.

A sniff at this beer lends a surprising shade to its flavor. It smells flowery, almost like roses, but the flowery aroma doesn’t last long after a taste. This beer is certainly a tart beer, as its name commands, but the addition of raspberries doesn’t make it overly sweet. It isn’t a fruity beer for the fruity beer drinker. The Tart is a bit tougher than that.

At 7.7% ABV, and sold only in 22-ounce bottles, the beer is akin to a stout or IPA when it comes to alcohol content, but few would ever guess it. The Tart goes down a little heavy like an IPA, but the fruity flavor is more noticeable. A very slight malt makes it feel like a big beer, and it is. As a Framboise, it takes after Belgian beers, which are often heavy on the alcohol content. After all, 2,000 pounds is quite a bit of fermented raspberries.

While definitely a tart brew, the Tart won’t make your lips pucker. It’s reminiscent of a fruity summer ale, except that it lingers on the tongue longer and doesn’t deliver the same sweetness. Still, it serves as a good medium to link the lover of wine spritzers and the devoted beer drinker. Both will be content.

This year the ale is a 50/50 mix of fresh Belgian Tripel and aged Belgian Tripel which soaked in oak barrels for a year. It’s much easier to taste the fresh Tripel than to notice any hints of oak barrel. Bridgeport insists that there are overtones of spice and oak from the barrels, but a sip or two reveals that it’s hard to get past the sweet and sour raspberry.

As it has in the past two years, Stumptown Tart’s bottle features Portland model Bernie Dexter, who’s known for her classic pin-up photos and rockabilly and psychobilly style. Dexter will attend the release party and will be signing bottles and posters while presumably looking fabulous.

Always trying to keep its ingredients relatively local, Bridgeport used raspberries grown at the Willamette Valley Fruit Company in Salem, Ore., to make the Tart.