OnTap Magazine

Fruit can work with a broad spectrum of alcohol strengths and provides sweetness that can be balanced by a high level of acidity. Where and when fruit is added in the brewing process will impact the character of the finished beer, i.e., before fermentation to allow the yeast to convert sugars into alcohol and biotransform unique fruity esters and flavours, or after fermentation to prevent the sugars from fermenting out. The latter will leave the final product sweeter by maintaining the subtle fresh fruit flavours. Brewing with fruit opens up a world of creativity. Urban Artifact , a brewery in Cincinnati, Ohio, is the USA’s largest ‘sour’ only brewery and uses more fruit than any other brewery in the country (over a million pounds of puree per year!) Bret Kollmann Baker, COO & Brewmaster of Urban Artifact explains: “We were established in 2015, and the first couple of years were rough. We knew that tart and fruited beers were going to be a major thing but didn’t know it would take a couple of years to break down wrong perceptions about fruit beer being for ‘women’ or tart beer being ‘spoiled’.” “Now the stigma associated with fruit beer in general is fading, and people are craving flavour and choice. We tend to skew to a slightly younger audience and have found great success with those that are open to new experiences, ideas, flavours and great tasting liquids which are attributes usually associated with younger people. We’re extremely proud of how our drinking demo skews almost 50:50 male female where the ‘normal’ US craft brewery sees a customer base that is closer to 70:30 male female.” Kollmann Baker has every right to be proud claiming a long list of awards for Urban Artifact beers but ironically, not from the biggest international competitions where feedback tends to be that it ‘doesn’t taste enough like beer!’. Kollmann Baker says this is exactly their point as fruit is the main star in all their beverages. Many flavour compounds that exist in fruit also exist in hops, for example citrus. An IPA brewed with citrussy Centennial hops may benefit from the addition of lemon zest to the finished beer to emphasise the Centennial hop characteristics. Alternatively, a small addition of passion fruit puree to a beer brewed with tropical flavoured hops such as Mosaic or Simcoe may help to amplify the tropical notes of the beer. A US brewery producing both award- winning IPAs (without the addition of fruit) and sour fruited beers is DESTIHL ® Brewery located in Normal, Illinois. Matt Potts, Founder/CEO of DESTIHL ® , says: “We launched our Wild Sour Series in 2014 following increased interest from our original barrel-aged Saint Dekkera ® Reserve Sour Series but have pivoted from more traditional, non-fruited styles (such as traditional Gose, Flanders Red, Berliner Weisse, etc.) to now releasing almost all of our sours with fruit because that’s what the consumer wants.” DESTIHL ® was one of the first breweries in the U.S. to package sours in cans, which was industry-changing since most sours before then were bottled, often with cork & cage, and expensive. One of their best-selling single beers is a blonde ale, Hawaii Five Ale, that uses five different fruit purees – coconut, mango, peach, pineapple and pink guava! DESTIHL’s fruited sours appeal to both men and women, old and young, but Potts thinks that younger drinkers especially like sours because, as he speculates: “Younger generations grew up hooked on tart and sour candy, so their palates are well-trained and accustomed to the ‘pucker’ factor.” But can the audience for IPAs and fruited sours ever mix? You bet they can! Potts continues: “I would say the biggest crossover with our DeadHead ® Hazy IPAs and our fruited Wild Sour Series or Saint Dekkera sours is due to the low bitterness and natural fruitiness from either the hops in our IPAs or the fruits in our sours, whereas our DeadHead ® IPA (west-coast style) appeals to the more traditional IPA consumer.” As consumer tastes evolve and brewers continue to innovate, we can expect even greater experimentation in future years to keep American craft brewing firmly at the forefront of global brewing creativity. The Brewers Association publishes a wealth of resources to understand and enjoy craft beer, downloadable free of charge from www.brewersassociation.org *The Harris Poll, consumer data Brewing with fruit opens up a world of creativity 30 | Autumn 2024 | ontapmag.co.za