Strange Brew: There’s Fruit In Your Beer
Photo via Founders Brewing
Is it already the one-year anniversary of the Budweiser Pumpkin Peach Ale ad?
How time flies, and how we continue fussing over our beers, noses perked over the bouquets to take in the complexities the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) additions as craft beer all but abandons the Reinheitsgebot. Fruited beers are all the rage, ranging from prickly pear to blueberry to kumquats, and more.
Beyond the macro-driven orange and lime wedges, there are big sellers like Scupulin grapefruit IPA and Leinenkugel’s Berry Weiss, and an infinite number of one-off experiments in between.
German purity laws aside, fruited beers have a long tradition in beer. From countering the sour of a Berliner Weisse, popping some brightness into a framboise, and accenting a cask or heavier beer with extra layers, the right touch of an extra ingredient goes a long way.
Here’s a collection of some fruit additions that have passed enough taste tests to reach the canning or bottling line, just waiting to get those waxed mustaches atop the tulip glass ready to dissect.
3 Citrus Peel Out
Southern Tier (Lakewood, NY)
Citrus fruits are sort of a given seeing as how they pair with the new wave of proprietary hops. In this unique combination, Southern Tier brews with blood orange juice and tangerine and grapefruit peels to pull a fruity sweetness atop of the imperial wheat base. Over four and half pounds of peels were added to each barrel in the brewing process and, with the inclusion of Mosaic hops, the blood orange shines through. 3 Citrus Peel Out releases in April, the first in Southern Tier’s Imperial Series.