When trying to make a point, analogies are a frequent go-to
for me. I was trying to think of a good
one for fruit beers, their niche & perception in the bigger world of
beer. This may not be the perfect
parallel, but the thing that came to me first is The Monkees. For many fans of serious music, The Monkees
are a punchline. They’re seen as
gimmicky, commercial, insipid, superficial by many. On the surface, this is what most people know
The Monkees for – but not all. Sure,
there’s the TV show, the fabricated origins, the bubblegum hits. But there’s also the part of their career
that achieved some depth & quality, some really solid songwriting &
even pushing the envelope a bit (check out Head
& Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn, &
Jones Ltd.). I’ll still argue that,
at their hardest, The Monkees rocked harder than The Beatles (not better, but harder). They never stopped
being a pop band, but grew into something so much more interesting than the
expendable hit machine they were engineered to be. And even “serious” rock fans can erroneously
overlook the value & pleasure of a well-crafted pop song.
Fruit beers might be The Monkees of the beer world, especially
by craft’s standards. Most craft
drinkers approach fruit beers with some skepticism. The big brewers’ attempts to break into craft
markets have typically been with fruit beers.
People get turned off by gimmicky, commercial, insipid, superficial
examples & may write fruit beers off entirely. But there’s so much possibility beyond the
“pop” beers, & even a well-done, easy-drinking fruit beer can be just right. At this month’s Top Shelf Thursday tasting,
we asked people to put aside their prejudices & look at some of fruit beer’s
deeper cuts.
Speaking of pushing the envelope, things kicked off with
Dogfish Head’s Ta Henket, which some may remember from an episode of Discovery
Channel’s Brewmasters in which Sam
& crew traveled to Egypt. The beer
is based on a recipe from hieroglyphs, uses a wild saccharomyces yeast strain
native to the region, as well as chamomile, za’atar (a blend of herbs, sesame,
& salt), & the date-like fruit from the doum palm, or gingerbread tree. The beer was wheat-based & had a nice
round sweetness & bready complexity, even with its light ABV (4.5%).
Fruit beers are seldom hoppy, but we saw how orange zest can
complement a hop-forward beer with Contact High, from 4 Hands Brewing. The hoppy character of this pale wheat was
accentuated by the citrus, & hopheads in attendance were not disappointed.
ShawneeCraft’s Raspberry Blanche, a Belgian-style witbier
with raspberries, hit lighter notes. The
dry, spicy character of the witbier worked well in conjunction with the use of the
slightly tart fruit. Raspberries worked
very differently in Oud Beersel’s Framboise, a traditional Belgian lambic. It was interesting to see the versatility of
the fruit, as here it emphasized the sour, funky, earthy notes of the wild
ale. On another sour note, Cuvee-Brut,
from traditional Belgian brewery Liefmans, is a blend of two Flanders sour
brown ales: Liefmans Oud Bruin & Goudenband. Whereas the fruit in the Framboise seemed to
add tart to sour, the addition of black cherries in the Cuvee-Brut rounded
& sweetened the otherwise sharp, acidic/acetic base beers.
Locally-sourced fruit is the concept behind Hangar 24’s
Local Fields series, from which we sampled their Palmero. The use of Coachella Valley dates fit
squarely within the darkly sweet & fruity profile of the Belgian-style
dubbel.
Fans of sour ales were excited to try Savant Beersel from
Perennial Artisan Ales, but maybe not more excited than the beer itself – both
bottles gushed enthusiastically when the caps were popped! The use of 100% brettanomyces to ferment this
beer was responsible for the volatile foam-up, & the funky, dry, & sour
notes of the wild ale worked great with the use of Missouri grapes & the
seven months spent aging in wine barrels.
Perennial also stimulated some very different tastebuds with Fantastic
Voyage. This imperial milk stout was
given a slick, almost oily feel & toasty flavor from the addition of
coconut.
We ended on a high note with a pair of golden Belgian-style
ales – high alcohol, if nothing else. 5
Golden Rings is the fifth in The Bruery’s 12 Beers of Christmas, a diagonal
series of holiday beers. The use of
ginger, allspice, & cinnamon came through in the nose, while the taste was
heavy with the addition of pineapple, which concealed the 11.5% ABV surprisingly
well. And we stretched the definition of
“fruit” with Kasteel Trignac XII. The
classic Kasteel Tripel from Belgium’s Van Honsebrouck was kicked up both in
flavor & alcohol content – a whole percent ABV - from time spent in cognac
barrels (hey, cognac’s made from grapes, so this is a fruit beer, right?).
So there you have it: ten pieces of evidence that fruit
beers stretch beyond weak & soda-like, & can embrace adventurous &
odd profiles. What’s next – craft light
beer? I doubt we’d see a tasting based
around it, but who knows? Maybe a shandy
tasting? Hmmm…
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