When visiting a bottle shop or a
craft beer pub, the chances of encountering a fruit beer nowadays are quite
high. With a dizzying array of options out there such as Sours, Gose, Saison
and IPA’s, it’s hard to avoid them; even the breweries themselves have gone to
great lengths to boldly proclaim its fruity contents like Juice Forsyth (5%)
by Brew York, an punchy IPA featuring the likes of pineapple and mango along with
whole host of hops that promises a ‘tropical explosion’, Wild Un-Bongo (5.8%) a NEIPA inspired by the famous tropical drink, packed with mango or Fruitbooter (5.7%)
by The Wild Beer Co., a sour made with raspberries and pink peppercorns that
has nothing to do with rollerblades. Fruit beer is not a specific beer style
like Old Ale or Stout, Josh Weikert states “as a Specialty style, Fruit Beer is
necessarily broad (or, more accurately, user- and declared-style-defined). The
overarching theme of the style is “balance,” though, with a beer that’s still
recognizable as “beer” but also with “evident” fruit character.”[1]
Weikert suggests that certain types of fruit are more suited to specific beers,
dark beers are better suited to bright acidic fruits, whilst pale and lighter beers
are better matched to more subtle fruits. The strength and quality of a fruit
beer is down the fruit that is used, some fruits likes Raspberry, Cherries and
Plums are more potent than the likes of Peaches or Blueberries; overall it
shouldn’t give the impression of a fruit juice drink, although this is not
always adhered to. When it comes to fruit beer, Roger Protz notes “the
inspiration for fruit beers comes from Belgium. Lambic and gueuze beers are one
of the world’s oldest beer styles and are made by spontaneous fermentation.”[2]
We usually associate fruit beers with classic Belgium examples like Kriek, Frambroise,
Cassis and Peche, which are made by adding fruit to maturing barrels of beer
and leaving them to mature for several months. According to Craft Beer &
Brewing, in the UK brewers usually use frozen fruit purees, concentrates and extracts
due to the high cost of using fresh fruits, purists may baulk at this practise
but it has been regularly utilized for the past 30 years. The rate of fruit beers on the current
domestic market has dramatically increased in the past decade following the
craft beer revolution, they often get good press and attract sufficient demand.
Yet there was once a time where it was hard to find a bottle fruit beer on the
shelves or find it available in a pub, even at the turn of the century fruit
beers were generally relegated to festival specials or seasonal one-offs.
Although these beers were few and far between, when sampled they were often
derided and ridiculed by critics, the Beer Monster summed this up in an issue
of Opening Times in 1997, “they ruin the palate, almost necessitate being drunk
in halves (slowly) and most of them taste like amateur vimto. If this is the
micro-brewers answer to alcopops then my advice is not to give up the day jobs,
and stick to malt, hops, yeast and water.”[3]
At the time fruit beers were alien to British tastebuds, that were used to the
likes of Bitter, Mild and Stout, and any attempts were often criticised and at
worst unfairly compared to their established Belgian counterparts. In this
series of articles, we will chart the struggles brewers had to go to produce
fruit beers for market, from the one-off specials in the Nineties to the efforts of
pioneering brewers like the Kitchen Brewery, Salopian, Coach House, St. Peter's and Lloyd’s Country
Beers to give fruit beers a better reputation, and the establishing of staple
regulars like Banana Bread Beer (5.3%), Lemon Dream (4.5%), Bramble
Stout (5%), Orange Wheat (4.2%), Blueberry Classic Bitter (5%),
Fruit Beer - Grapefruit (4.7%) and Plum Porter (4.9%) that helped place
fruit flavoured beers firmly on the map.
The earliest recorded records of
brewing fruit with beer date from neolithic China in 7000BC where villagers
created a beverage which contained honey, rice, and hawthorn fruit and/or
grapes, whilst in ancient Egypt, they were using dates and pomegranates in
their beer. In Britain brewing fruit with beer can be traced back to the 9th
century when Welsh druids whom emigrated to Scotland brewed ale with
elderberries. This Elderberry Ale, as William Bros brewery in Alloa mentions
that the brew “was part of the Celtic Autumn festivals when the ‘elders’ would
make this strong ale and pass the drink round the people of the village.”
Meanwhile, in England the brewing of beer with fruit dates back a few
centuries, the writer Dorothy Hartley in seminal book ‘Food in England’
published in 1954, notes “old ale flavoured with cherries, known in many
locations at least since the early 18th Century, but especially
associated with Kent.”[4]
Indeed, she mentions in the same book, trying out a Cherry Ale brewed and sold
at a village pub near Molash, Kent. The earliest widespread use of mixing fruit
adjuncts with beer in this country occurred in the mid-19th century
with the introduction of Shandygaff (later shortened to Shandy). Initially it
was a mixture of ale with ginger beer, but over time as Vritti Bansal notes “in
the late 19th century, shandygaff was modified to shandy, and mixologists began
to use lemonade instead of ginger beer. Orange and grapefruit juice followed,
as did cider.”[5] These
mixtures were usually mixed by the barman onsite rather than produced in the
brewery; however this all changed in 1974 when Watney’s released Biaritiz
(ABV ?), one of the first fruit beers commercially sold and brewed in the
UK, which featured a mix of their Pale Ale with Merrydown Orange Wine, it was
sold in third pint nip bottles and designed to attract female drinkers, in
order to divert competition from the likes of Babycham and Cherry B. Despite
their audience, the label had a rather chauvinistic design, featuring a ring of
ladies’ legs around the centre, the likes of Biaritz barely made an impression
on the market and was soon forgotten.
In 1988, Heather Brewery was set
up by brothers Scott and Bruce Williams initially in a brew-shop in Glasgow,
who came onto the scene with Froach (5%), an ale produced with heather
that was based on a historic recipe called ‘Leanne Froach’ which was donated to
the brothers by a woman of Gaelic descent whom wanted them to recreate her
family recipe, so that she could share this brew with her relations, after several
years of development it was released commercially in 1992. Before long, the
brothers set up a brewery in Taynuilt, in 1995 Roger Ryman joined the brewery
and encouraged the brothers to diversify their range, Ryman notes “eventually,
Williams Bros started to look at producing some secondary brands. They were
selling niche beers into a broad market, which was really unusual at the time.
It was a strong brand – selling the Scottish dream. I helped to develop Grozet,
Ebulum and Alba. It was about finding the right balance between interest and
authenticity, and practicality.”[6]
Around this time they introduced several more beers that utilized botanicals in
their recipes, including the likes of Alba (7.5%), Kelpie (4.4%),
Grozet (5%) and Eblum (6.5%); the latter two beer utilized fruit
in respectively in their recipes. Grozet is a golden ale brewed with
Gooseberries and Bog Myrtle, Mark Dredge describes the beer as “the aroma is
light and fruity and inconspicuous which belies the first taste of pale ale
with a kick of sour berries, not wild-beer-sour, but fresh fruit sour. It’s
bready and clean with a kick of earthy, heathery, flowery hops and then that
fruitiness, which mellows as you drink.”[7]
Conversely, Eblum is a strong dark ale brewed with Elderberries which was based
on a 16th century recipe for Elderberry Ale. Jeff Alworth describes
the beer “it is a deliciously rich and creamy ale, and fairly beery--although
interesting new flavors abound, you're on more familiar footing here. The
elderberries are rooty more than sweet, and they contribute a strange
astringency that seems like it's anesthetizing your tongue.”[8]
Both of these beers are usually available in bottle form, sold in 330ml
bottles, and to this day the brewery continues to the sell them as part of
their regular range. When inquired about these beers, Ryman adds “I was aware
of how unusual these beers were but I don’t think I had any sense that we were
being ‘revolutionary’.” But revolution was already afoot as brewers across the
country began experimenting with their beers, brewing with them with fruit,
spices and botanicals, change was underway but the brewers faced an uphill
battle with critics and punters alike.
The development of fruit beers
gathered pace during the mid-1990’s as other breweries based across the UK
started to produce their own fruit beers, often released as seasonals or
limited-edition releases at beer festivals. In the summer of 1995, Whitbread
introduced Colonel Pepper’s Lemon Ale (5%) as part of their series of
single varietal cask ales released that year. Brewed at Flower’s Brewery in
Cheltenham, it was a golden ale infused with lemon and black pepper which the
brewery audaciously proclaimed in their trade ads “is a wonderfully refreshing
beer, unusually light and golden in colour for an ale, with a spicy aroma – the
lemon peel and ground black pepper added into the brew give it a clean and
fresh ‘tingle’ for the drinker’s palate.”[9]
Whitbread were seeking to promote this drink as an alternative to lager,
although this barely made a dent as it was only available between the 10th
July – 5th August that year. Later the same year, Batemans released Strawberry
Fields (4.2%), which the writer John Clarke described at the time as truly
horrible. The following year, in 1996 the brewery released Waynflete
Hedgerows (3.7%) an elderflower pale ale, fruit beers were also beginning
to make appearances at CAMRA beer festivals with the likes of Banana Madness
(4.6%) – Blackmoor, and Cherry Bomb (5.6%) - Hanby, both appearing
at the 23rd Cambridge Beer & Cider Festival. In 1997, the newly
launched St. Peter’s introduced Fruit Beer (3.6%) released in both
Elderberry and Raspberry varieties, and is one of the few fruit beers to make
it onto Roger Protz’s ‘Real Ale Almanac – 5th Edition’ published the
same year. Whilst, the fledgling Salopian Brewery in Shrewsbury produced their
first fruit beer Dragonfly (4.4%) made with raspberries, sold exclusively
at Oddbins. Subsequently in 1998, Salopian followed this with produce their
second fruit beer Puzzle White Wheat (4.8%), a wheat beer made with
orange and coriander. Other fruit beers on sale that year included the likes of
Krieky Knees (4.3%) – Finnock and Firkin, Raisin Stout (4.8%) –
Kitchen, Damson Beer (6%) – Strawberry Bank, Very Cherry (4.2%) –
Funnel and Firkin, Strawberry Blonde (4.2%) - Kitchen and Raspberry
Lambic (4.7%) – Leatherbritches, the latter of which was described
by one reviewer at the time as smelling like Sherbert with strong raspberry and
vodka like flavours and resembling a cloudy Tango. The slew of fruit beers
released at the time attracted disapproval from critics, with John Clarke thunderously
stating “a growing and unwelcome development, in my opinion, is the growing
obsession of British brewers with fruit beers as the end product is usually
quite disgusting. lt was bad enough when this was confined to a few micros but
now more established brewers are jumping on the bandwagon.”[10]
The common consensus felt at the time was that Belgians did a better job as
producing fruit beers which were
well established and respected by that time, whilst the British examples were
in comparison amateurish and dire. However, the tide was beginning to turn for
British made fruit beers, later that year, St. Peter’s gained an award for Best
Speciality beer for Lemon & Ginger Spiced Beer (4.7%) at the 1998
Norwich Beer Festival. The same year, Sameul Smith’s reopened the defunct
Melbourne Brewery in Stamford, exclusively producing fruit beers that included
the likes of Cherry, Strawberry, Raspberry and Apricot all of which continue to
be sold to this day. As the 20th century due to a close, the Kitchen
Brewery in Huddersfield was making big waves in the fruit beer scene, set up by
former chef Robert Johnson. He experimented with a wide a variety of fruits
(and even vegetables) releasing the likes of Pert Pear (4.4%), Grimacing
Grapefruit (4.3%), Tropicana (4.3%), Laminated Lemon (4.6%)
and Tubby Tangerine (4%). The Beer Monster gave a glowing response about
Johnson’s beers describing Grimacing Grapefruit as “pale and dry with a nose of
hops and citrus, a lightish body is dominated by light and dry malt flavours,
with some bitter hop hints”[11],
whilst reviewing Tubby Tangerine as “it was very nice with a citrus sweetness
that cut through the malt, and whilst in the taste it could have been almost
any fruit, there was a just perception of tangerine on the nose.”[12]
Johnson experimented with a slew of fruits such as Rhubarb, Plum, Dates,
Sultanas, Grapefruit, Cherry and even Mango, many years before they became
popular flavours among modern craft brewers, John Clarke notes this in his article on the brewery. Unfortunately,
due a series of poor business decisions, the brewery closed in March 2001, and Kitchen
remains an overlooked footnote in the history of home-grown Fruit Beers.
Meanwhile in September 1999, J.W. Lees debuted their first ever fruit beer, Sloeberry
(4.4%), a copper-coloured beer made with real sloeberries. The October 1999
issue of ‘Opening Times’ (the branch magazine for the CAMRA Stockport and South
Manchester region) reported “its not only of the few British fruit beers that
is worth drinking, it’s worth actively seeking out.”[13]
Meanwhile with the Christmas season fast approaching, on 15th
November, Fuller’s released Jack Frost (4.5%) a winter ale made with
blackberries. London Drinker (the branch magazine for the CAMRA London region)
noted at the time “Jack Frost is a warming yet deliciously light amber ale with
a malty flavour. Thanks to blackberries in the brew, it also provides a smooth,
fruity sweetness complimented by a refreshingly hoppy finish.”[14]
The beer was put on sale at Fuller’s pub that Christmas, and subsequently
continues to be released on a seasonal basis every Christmas, and was is
briefly sold in bottle form. With a new decade and a new century just around
the corner, the next few years would prove pivotal towards to the shift in
public opinion towards fruit flavoured beers, and several major beers would
first appear on the scene that would help engineer this sea change.
[1] ‘Make
Your Best Fruit Beer’ by Josh Weikert; Craft Beer & Brewing, 30th
September 2018
[2] ‘Big
surge in fruit beer sales: up 80%’ by Roger Protz; Protz on Beer, 30th
July 2012
[3] ‘The
Beer Monster’; Opening Times Magazine, Issue 157, May 1997
[4] ‘Foods
in England’ by Dorothy Hartley, MacDonald General Books, MacDonald and Jane,
1954
[5] ‘Shandy:
The History Of The British Drink’ by Vritti Bansal, 31st March 2022
[6] ‘Williams
Bros: Craft Before It Was A Thing’ by Boak and Bailey, 28th February
2015
[7] ‘Williams
Bros Historic Ales’ by Mark Dredge, Pencil and Spoon, 7th January
2010
[8] ‘Froach
and Eblum, Ancient Beers of Scotland’ by Jeff Alworth, Beervana, 2nd
August 2006
[9] ‘Artyfacts
from the Nyneties #1: Lemon Ale’ by Boak and Bailey, 14th September
2015
[10] ‘In
the Editor’s View’ by John Clarke, Opening Times Magazine, Issue 136, August 1995
[11] ‘The
Beer Monster’, Opening Times Magazine, Issue 195, July 2000
[12] ‘The
Beer Monster’, Opening Times Magazine, Issue 190, February 2000
[13] ‘Brewery
News’, Opening Times Magazine, Issue 186, October 1999
[14] ‘Brewery News: Chill out with Fuller’s Jack Frost’, London Drinker Vol 21, No.11, Dec 1999/ Jan 2000
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