Tag Archives: gose

Fruit in Your Beer Isn’t a Crime

Posted on by Ed Sabato

Once upon a time, I would wince at the request for fruit in a beer, throw a sideways glance at the guy ordering a wit with a slice of orange, or the girl holding a clear bottle with a lime floating in it.

Not so anymore. I am now fully on board with fruited beer, but I’m talking built into the recipe, rather than dropped on top. Hefeweizens with orange peel, Gose with citrus, stouts with cherries, sours with kumquats, raspberries or currants. Fruit beers have taken a place on the podiums of local, national and international beer competitions.

Thanks to some incredible talent and some extraordinary recipe design, fruit beers are everywhere these days. I have had the pleasure of working with some talented brewers who are pushing the boundaries and using locally grown fruit to produce some of the best beers I have ever tasted. Living in Hawaii, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to ingredients that can’t be found on the mainland. Lilikoi, or passionfruit, is king here. My friend Matt brews ridiculous saisons using lilikoi in secondary. A local cider producer makes an amazing lilikoi cider that clocks in at 10% ABV and is impossible to find due to demand. But why has fruit become so popular?

Offering something “different” for most drinkers, fruit has become the next big thing.  Companies and orchards that grow the fruit or produce purees are flush with cash thanks to this new trend. Everyone makes an IPA, but who would have thought five years ago that a national craft brewery would produce a papaya IPA year-round? These beers are chewing up market share and not just from the umbrella-drink consumer.

Case in point: I have to fly to San Francisco in February or March of next year to pick up 10 bottles of fruited sour beer. My trip will cost me thousands of dollars for $200 of beer. Clearly this makes no economic sense, so why would anyone do it? Honestly, it’s because the beer is simply that good. I was on a road trip to South Carolina a year ago and took a five-hour detour to visit Wicked Weed Brewing in Asheville, North Carolina just to buy fruited sour beers. I walked out 11 bottles heavier and almost $200 lighter because the beers were insane.

I have yet to embrace fruit in my own brewing, save some blood orange in a cider here or there, but I now realize I have missed out on something in my 20+ years of beer consumption. Although fruit beers feel new, they are not at all. European brewers have made them for years. The classic Berliner Weiss has used raspberry syrup forever. American brewers are adding blood orange, kumquat and citrus. Dogfish Head started putting their 60-Minute IPA on grape must. And other brewers are making grape infused beers as well. It truly is a revolutionary moment in American brewing culture.

The next time you are at your local liquor emporium, or that homebrew shop you love, think about adding something a little extra to your repertoire. I am eyeing a plum puree for a chocolate stout and the blood orange puree for my Weapons Load Wheat as I write this.

Declaring War on IBUs and ABV

Posted on by Ed Sabato

I love IPAs, Double IPAs, Imperial Stouts, and Bourbon Barrel-aged Whatever beers as much as the next beer nerd. That said, no one can drink a half-dozen of them with their friends on a Friday night without falling down a flight of stairs. What’s the deal with the IBU and ABV tendency to go to the extreme?

Thankfully, in recent years the IBU wars have effectively ended. It seems the voice of the consumer is being heard, and both ABV and IBU are on the decline. In the last year or so, I have seen menus with expanded lower ABV beer offerings. “Session” has become the new buzz word, and I am in love with it. The brewery where I volunteer has a 3.6% ABV mild on the menu that’s become my choice for consumption with friends. Don’t get me wrong, I do love my IPAs, but being able to put down three or four brews over a few hours of sports and conversation about nothing with friends and walk away still upright and coherent sure is nice.

So why the switch? Well, it makes economic sense to start with. I recently heard an interview with the brewers at Founders, about the success of their All Day IPA. This new session beer is 4.7% ABV and they cannot make enough of it. It has become their top-selling beer because consumers want to buy it buy the bundle. It’s a very good beer, and you can drink several without getting that “slow-pan, freeze-frame” sensation that lets you know it’s time to slip a big glass of water in the mix. It is also less expensive to produce. Golden Road is on the same trajectory with their Wolf Pup session IPA at 4.5% ABV. It is a good “beach beer,” being flavorful, crisp, and refreshing.

Berliner Weiss has also made a huge comeback as well for the same reasons. Considering this style of beer isn’t uniquely American, the “Motherland” of Germany needs to pick up its industry jaw. It would appear that beers in the 4% range are good business, and thankfully, the craft beer industry is listening to the market.

Homebrewers are doing the same. My “Weapons Load Wheat,” clocking in at 4.7% ABV, is ideal for those hot summer days for the very same reasons. It was less expensive to produce, came out dry (1.008 SG/2° Plato) and had great citrus character from the Cascade and Mandarina Bavaria hops. This beer performed extremely well in my focus group, and people raved about it.

The next time you are at your local brewery or in your preferred spot to purchase beer, take a look around at what consumers are buying. I’ll bet you’ll see a lot of lower ABV and IBU beers, because they both “taste great” and are characteristically “less filling.”

So get out there, and try something that isn’t barrel aged, 11% ABV, or has an advertised 120 IBUs. You might be surprised how great these “session” beers really are.