My latest article for The Bulletin this week examines a “smoothie” fruit ale from McMenamins Old St. Francis School, Black Beary Temptation, brewed with some unusual ingredients. It also happened to be the winning beer at the Barley Cup Brewfest in June.

This year’s winning beer was created by brewer Vance Wirtz from Bend’s Old St. Francis School, a fruit ale named Black Beary Temptation. Based on the beer’s description, I might call it a “pastry” or “smoothie” fruit ale in a similar vein to pastry stouts and sours; in addition to blackberry, Wirtz also added marshmallow and lactose (milk sugar).

With such an unexpected combination (especially marshmallow) I wanted to find out more, and asked Wirtz about the inspiration for the beer.

“I just wanted to do something that was sort of on the same wavelength as those beers from a style perspective, but without the hassle of incorporating hundreds of pounds of fruit puree,” he said via email. “The idea started as trying to create a shake-like beer on nitro, and then evolved into trying to create a beer that tastes like someone melted a fruity marshmallow into a pint glass.”

Wirtz didn’t tell me how he got the marshmallow into the brew, preferring to keep it a secret and leave it open for speculation.

It does smell and taste like marshmallow with the blackberry, so if I were to speculate, I’d guess it was an addition of marshmallow creme (perhaps house made?) since that seems easier to work with than solid marshmallows (the kind you’d get in a bag). Unless bagged marshmallows were added during the boil, that is.