At first, it sounds improbable. Impossible.
Gummy bears? In beer?
But that’s exactly what’s on tap currently at Double Bluff Brewing Company in Langley – a Berliner Weisse with a subtly sweet kick to it called Rainbow Sour.
“We were really honestly looking for a way to honor Pride Month,” said Marissa Thomis, who co-owns the brewery with her husband, Daniel. “We thought, what a fun way to put the rainbow into the beer.”
Approximately ten pounds of gummy bears – in all colors of the rainbow, of course – were added to the 50-gallon batch of beer during the brewing process. The beer is a kettle sour, meaning it took a two-day process to achieve tartness.
The result is Rainbow Sour, a wheat beer that still manages to taste like something akin to a cider.
Thomis said the beer has been well-received.
“It’s strange but it works,” Beertender Kacey Crawford said. “It’s a good beer for non-beer drinkers.”
“It’s distinct and it’s a summer refresher. It’s soda pop for adults,” customer CJ White said.
This is not Double Bluff Brewing Company’s first time experimenting with gummy bears in beer. A few years ago, a beer made with grape-flavored gummy bears called “Purple Grain” made its debut at Strange Brewfest in Port Townsend.
It is, however, the couple’s first time brewing a specialty beer for Pride Month.
“It’s special just for June, or until we run out of it,” Thomis said, adding that the brewery does not bottle or can.