How’s it hanging, Pop Pal? You keen beans that have been following our social media over the last week or so might have noticed we’ve got a super fun mega exciting brand new collaboration out!
The Tayberry Sour is a low alcohol sour beer, brewed with our local Leyton neighbours Nirvana Brewery, and topped off with the juice from Sussex tayberries. We sourced the berries from our good pals Maynard’s Farm, pressing them on site at our East London Soda Works before adding them to a dry-hopped sour brewed just around the corner at Nirvana.
“But what the heck is a tayberry?” we hear you cry. Well, when a raspberry and a blackberry love each other very much, they have a special cuddle… Just kidding, we’re keeping things PG here. But strap in and let us Soda Jerks explain!
The tayberry is a blackberry/red-raspberry cross that was developed by a chap by the name of Derek L. Jennings. Now, Derek was a pretty clever fellow, and managed to successfully cross the European Red Raspberry with the American "Aurora" variety Blackberry. And boy did it taste good! 🤤 The resulting fruit was super large and super juicy - sweeter than the raspberry and bigger than the blackberry (which sounds like a pretty good combo if you ask us!).
“But hang on, isn’t a raspberry-blackberry hybrid called a loganberry?” Well yes, that’s certainly true. Both berries were created by breeding blackberries with red raspberries, and you’d be hard pressed to tell them apart side by side! But the tayberry tends to be slightly larger and heavier than the loganberry. It’s also sweeter when fully ripe (usually in or around July), making it an excellent choice for making jams and crumbles! 🥧
The tayberry was patented and released in 1979, and named after the river Tay in Scotland (where the mild climate means that the berries grow extraordinarily well!). Unfortunately, the fruit is a bit of a pickle to pick by hand, and the berries can’t be harvested by machines, so it hasn’t become as #famous as either of its parent crops.
Here at Square Root, we think it’s a crying shame the humble tayberry doesn’t get the love it deserves, and so when we sat down to make plans for our collab with Nirvana we decided it was time for it to shine. Fortunately the fruit was the perfect choice for the dry-hopped sour Nirvana had brewed over at their place, creating a sweet n’ sour mashup that’s perfect for summer sipping! Expect sweet notes of raspberry and blackberry, with a tart and refreshing finish!
The Tayberry Sour is available from our online store now. Why not give it a spin and let us know what you think?