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Raspberries move me. They always have, ever since discovering massive wild raspberry stands in the wilds surrounding Island Lake while visiting my grandparents as a child, and learned that these hairy red berries really can brighten your world.

The taste of those juicy wild berries was otherworldly, transporting me from this tiny smudge on the Earth to a place of eternal sunniness, inside and out. Wild strawberries were always good to find, too, but they just don’t seem to contain the primal essence of raspberries.

In early Christian art, raspberries symbolized kindness and pure energy from the heart. In ancient Greece, raspberries represented fertility. Native Americans used the leaves and roots as well as the fruits for a wide variety of complaints, including bowel troubles and childbirth issues.

The smell of raspberries is summer itself to me. A smile cracked my dour-feeling face recently when I opened a can of Lil Brainless Raspberry Ale from Epic Brewing of Denver, Colo., and got a lovely waft of raspberry summer. The aroma enveloped me as I poured the beer into a fluted glass.

Before taking my first sip, I cued up Prince’s “Raspberry Beret” as performed by The Derailers (my favorite version), took a deep breath of the raspberry aroma and dove into the sweet-tart deliciousness of the 5.2 percent ale.

Yum! This beer is extremely refreshing. The carbonation leaves a nice fizziness on the tongue, and the raspberry is just right. I have to smile after every sip. 
I highly recommend this beer if your spirits need perking up. It’s such a happy sip of beer that a few sips in and you’ll be in Cheshire cat territory.   

I regret that I bought only one can. In my defense, I do feel a cold coming on and the delicious aroma would only be wasted on my quickly-closing nasal passages. I want to be able to enjoy this beer to its fullest, and that includes the lovely smell of araspberries.