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Every autumn, beer lovers from around the world gather in Denver, Colorado for the Great American Beer Festival. In addition to sampling some of the nation’s best brews, the festival’s professional panel of judges choose gold, silver, and bronze award winners in 98 unique categories.
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The Goldilocks of seasons gives craft brewers an array of fruit beer options.
Seasonal holidays, seasonal foods, and seasonal ingredients all influence seasonal brews. During the winter, we seek out dark, complex brews to compliment longer nights by the fire and succulent holiday feasts. Come spring, we’re worn out by winter’s heavy flavors, and we crave sweeter, lighter beers. Hot summers steer us towards light beers that pair well with watermelon, hot dogs, and long days on the beach.
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The addition of fruit to beer is an ancient practice. Beer is an ancient craft with a basic recipe that predates writing, so it’s no wonder that brewers have experimented with a variety of ingredients during that time. The addition of fruit is a natural way to add interest to a traditional base style as well as increasing strength and nutritional value. Fruits can add sweetness or tartness. They mingle with malts and hops for greater aromatic complexity. They add novel qualities to beer flavor and color that can’t be accessed by grains alone.
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Over its relatively short lifespan, the New England IPA style has generated more than its fair share of controversy. In the beginning, brewers both professional and on the home side debated what made the beers cloudy and hazy.
Was it flour or some other agent of haze? And what accounted for that softness on the palate or the extreme juiciness in the aroma? As brewers and brewing scientists dug further into the biology of these beers, they expanded their understanding of the importance of biotransformation, thiols, and other components of the DNA of hazy and juicy beers. Near the center of the attention is the use of oats, flaked, rolled, or malted, in the grain bill.
The word aseptic comes from two Greek roots that mean, in essence, not toxic. The aseptic manufacturing process preserves foods and beverages through rapid heat treatment followed by rapid cooling under sterile conditions. By using aseptic processing, potentially harmful microbes are eliminated from products, making perishable fruit pureés shelf-stable and safe for consumption. But that’s not all that aseptic processing and packaging does.
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In 2022, people are more motivated than ever to eat and drink healthier. Retro themes are popping up as people escape to pre-pandemic days. On the other hand, they’re also feeling a little stir crazy and ready to travel. It’s likely that two years of global pandemic are having a big impact on lifestyle trends. As a result, consumers are motivated by health concerns, nostalgia, and the call to adventure. That combo should give daring brewers plenty of inspiration for novel fruit beers.
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Fruit beers are having a moment. Once subjected to derision among serious beer geeks, often due to the abundance of sickly sweet versions, modern fruit beers often employ a steadier hand and seek to achieve some balance. The days of adding blueberry juice to a bland base beer are in the rear view and the technology fruit infusions employ have substantially improved from the days of having to hand juice fresh fruit.
No barley, no wheat, no rye? No problem! Gluten-Free Brewing: Techniques, Processes, and Ingredients for Crafting Flavorful Beer is the latest book release from Brewers Publications.
The book explores the world of gluten-free grains and walks readers through how to make delicious gluten-free beers with a variety of ingredients. Author Robert Keifer addresses the wildly flavorful gluten-free ingredients available today, where to source such ingredients, the malting process, fermentation challenges, and more.
While the act of adding fruit, vegetables, and herbs is nothing new for beer, the pace in which brewers have been tinkering with recipes using those ingredients has certainly increased. There are companies that make it easier than ever to get garden-fresh flavors into beers via powders, purees, and extracts, but for smaller operations or special one-offs, using fresh is still best.
Chris Lohring once called corn “the most vilified grain in all of American brewing.” He also argues that it is one of the most traditional and historically important brewing ingredients. As the founder of Notch Brewing in Massachusetts, Lohring has long fought against such unjust brewing notions, has brewed multiple beers with corn, and offers some advice for those who may be interested in exploring this historic often ridiculed ingredient.
In a world where just about everything is added to beers to increase flavor or bring new delight to a pint, it is fitting that honey, the sweet nectar that mankind has been enjoying for more than 8,000 years, is enjoying a renewed turn in ales and lager.
Honey is showing up in all manner of ways, from flavoring during the boil, to being added during fermentation.
“The way we use it most regularly is as a sugar source for bottle conditioning, as opposed to dextrose,” says James Priest of The Referend in Pennsylvania. “There’s not really a qualitative flavor difference at least early on. Given that honey is more expensive, I don’t think its for everyone.”
The buzz around CBD and THC infused drinks has steadily grown in recent years, from faint whispers to celebratory screams. Once a pipe dream for cannabis enthusiasts, spiked seltzers and other beverages are increasingly big business. And near the center of the action is an unlikely advocate, the creator of the famous Blue Moon Belgian White.
Keith Villa spent more than 30 years working for various permutations of Coors, including as the founder and head brewmaster of its Blue Moon Brewing Company. With a doctorate in brewing science, Villa has long been a student of the minute details of brewing. After retiring from MillerCoors in early 2018, Villa turned his hunger for knowledge to a new area: brewing non-alcoholic beers. He and his wife Jodi co-founded Ceria Brewing Company and released Grainwave, a Belgian-style White Ale, and later a non-alcoholic IPA called Indiewave. From there, Villa became interested in infusing his NA beers with both THC and CBD. He dove into the subject matter, researching all manners of production and exploring all the related details. It culminated in Ceria’s release of two infused beers and in late 2021, the release of a book, Brewing With Cannabis: Using THC and CBD in Beer. We recently spoke with Villa to explore the growing interest in CBD and THC drinks and to get some advice on how brewers can get involved with this expanding product area.
Brewing with Hemp: The Essential Guide by brewing professional Ross Koenigs, has just been released by Brewers Publications.
Brewing with Hemp, the companion book to Brewing with Cannabis by Dr. Keith Villa, explores the Cannabis sativa plant from a brewer’s perspective, focusing on how hemp (which contains less than 0.3% THC), hemp flavors, and cannabinoids play in beer. Koenigs leads readers through the history, legal considerations, physiology and ecology of hemp, while helping professional brewers and homebrewers alike understand the science of cannabis and how to best utilize the popular plant in beer.
For more details on the book go here.
Brewing with adjuncts is more than just dumping a specialty ingredient in the mash or adding it into a fermenter. As experimentation grows in the beer space, consumers are savvy about recipes and have expectations. Brewers need to understand what they are working with and how different flavors can impact beer.
Bailey Spaulding, the founder and brewmaster of Jackalope Brewing in Nashville, Tennessee has two well-known beers with adjuncts – Bearwalker, a brown ale with maple syrup, and Lovebird, a strawberry and raspberry wheat ale – and she joins us to share insight for making beers with special ingredients.
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As brewers embrace whimsy in pints, some are looking to a Saturday morning breakfast staple from childhood and adding cereal to their beers. When done correctly they can evoke the familiar flavors contained in the box and even get a boost from specialty malts, lactose, and specific hop varietals to round out a complete AM experience.
Bolero Snort Brewing Company is no stranger to cereal beers. Since its inception in 2011 the New Jersey brewery has been having fun with its beers, brewing ales inspired by (and sometimes containing) cereal, owner and brewer Robert Olson Jr. has learned a thing or two.
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The recent proposal in Congress to decriminalize cannabis is the latest step forward in legalizing the drug nationally. Even if Congress doesn’t pass the current legislation, it is only a matter of time before it does. Eighteen states currently allow recreational cannabis.
How this eventual rollout of legalized cannabis will impact the beer and beverage industry is worthy of exploring. Forbes magazine recently spoke with Dr. Keith Villa, who had a thirty-two-year career with MillerCoors, is the founder of CERIA Brewing Co, Colorado’s first THC-infused, non-alcoholic craft beer, and the author of Brewing with Cannabis: Using THC and CBD in Beer.
If anyone has a good perspective of how legalized cannabis will dovetail into the craft brewing industry, Keith would be that person. See the full interview here.
Is coffee the next frontier? Although coffee and beer have been married in the past and coffee has been added to other beverages over the years, there seems to be a growing surge in coffee beverages lately.
S.Pellegrino just last month released a coffee-flavored sparkling water and Coca-Cola With Coffee was introduced in the U.S. in January. Add Guinness to the list with the recent introduction of Guinness Nitro Cold Brew Coffee.
The company describes it as “coffee-forward beer” and the “perfect balance of bitter and sweet with roast coffee character.” The beer is 4% abv and will be available in 14.9oz 4-pack cans.
The TTB has long prohibited any sort of health claim on alcohol packaging or advertising. The Center for Science in the Public Interest and Consumer Federation of America have submitted a letter to the Food and Drug Administration requesting that they bring enforcement action against Molson Coors for illegally misleading consumers with its Vizzy Hard Seltzer labeling and advertising campaign.
The request is unusual because there is no specific health claim made by Vizzy but the consumer group is going after the reference that the beverage contains a “healthy” ingredient.
The issue that the CSPI and CFA are pointing to is the Vizzy advertising that touts the addition of vitamin C to the beverage. The letter states that “claims such as ‘made with antioxidant vitamin C’ convey healthfulness and are misleading on alcoholic beverages given their empty calories, association with serious health conditions, and anti-nutrient properties. Such claims may mislead consumers to believe alcoholic beverages are healthful sources of nutrients.”