A bit of a debate recently broke out in the rather ratified circles of beer aficionadodom – beerophilia? – over what makes a fruit beer a real fruit beer. Because, you see, there are two general ways in which to create such a brew: Either the brewer ferments actual fruit with the wort, as unfermented beer is known, or adds fruit juice or fruit extract to a fully brewed and fermented beer.
If you’re a fruit beer drinker, it may surprise you to learn that the latter is far more commonplace than the former. The reason for this is that it’s much simpler for a brewer to add a controlled amount of fruit flavor to a completed brew than it is to try to manage the fermentation of natural fruit sugars, in harmony with the sugars of the barley malts and other grains already present. The corollary being that, to my not inconsiderable experience, at least, the real fruit method will almost inevitably yield a more complex and interesting beer.
Which is not to say that fruit juice additions necessarily produce bad beers. In my neck of the woods, there is a well-known apricot ale crafted in that very manner which is respected and enjoyed by a large number of beer drinkers, double IPA sipping aficionados included. And the Lindemans brewery of Belgium makes no attempt to hide the fact that their enormously popular fruit beers are made by adding 25% natural fruit juice to a base of 75% traditional, spontaneously-fermented lambic. And the Belgian brand Fruli, which is nothing more than strawberry juice added to a Belgian-style wheat beer, is also, as I have recently learned, a wonderful complement to a slice of dense, flourless chocolate cake.
Put any of these sweetish to highly sugary brands up against a beer fermented with fruit, however, and their limitations immediately become apparent. Think of a prosecco versus a Champagne, if you will. The Italian sparkler, if sampled with an open mind, can be quite enjoyable under the right circumstances, such as on a hot Venetian afternoon idling by a canal, but it will never compare in overall character to the dry, biscuity beauty of a true French original. It’s the same with fruit beers.
Personally, as I am less than enamored with sweet drinks in general – I almost never consume sodas and much prefer classic cocktails like Manhattans and sazeracs to fruity drinks like cosmos – my preferences run towards fermented fruit beers like the outstanding Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus or the equally impressive Wisconsin Belgian Red of New Glarus Brewing. (I also have an issue with the dilution of the honorable designation of “lambic” by sweet and fruity brands, but that’s another matter entirely.) But for a nation of Coca-Cola consumers, the fruit juice addition beers, with their generally greater sugar contents and less challenging characters, may be preferred.
In the end, I’d have to say that both styles are legitimate examples of the brewing arts and, it should be added, can be equally laudable or forgettable. And as with most drinks on this planet, each has its own place within the wide spectrum of beer enjoyment.
(Read more from Stephen Beaumont at his website.
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