In the early days of craft beer, fruit was added to beer to offer something to people who didn’t like beer. These beers were typically made with syrups added to a beer and not a lot of thought went into them. Today, breweries are embracing fruit and building beers around them.
The fruit is the focal point of the flavor and with increased scientific knowledge of how to work with fruit, brewers are pushing and pulling levers – microbes used to ferment the beer, when they add the fruit and how much and for how long – to bring forward all the right flavor chemicals.
Modern fruit beer is bursting with flavor.
Listen to the latest episode of the All About Beer podcast.
Guests
Bret Kollmann Baker is a founder and the COO of Urban Artifact in Cincinnati, Ohio. Urban Artifact is the countries largest fruit beer only brewery, using over 1,000,000 pounds of fruit per year. With degrees in chemical engineering and brewing science, Bret has been able to help build out a brewery dedicated to handling massive amounts of fruit puree. In addition, Bret is the Beer Ambassador for Les Vergers Boiron, helping them reach more professional breweries with their fruit purees. In his free time, writing, hiking, and working on the Brew Skies podcast are his pursuits of passion.
5 years ago, Steven Smith-Hay started Vault City Brewing after experimenting with heavily fruited, mixed fermentation sour beers and spotting a niche with huge potential in an otherwise crowded market. As a keen home brewer, Steven saw the accessibility of Vault City’s signature style as an opportunity to reach avid craft beer fans and non-beer drinkers alike. He has since seen the company grow from just two full-time employees to nearly 30 across Vault City’s brewery and its two bars. Steven’s past life as an IT consultant seems a world away in 2023, which makes for a good story about boring day jobs and exciting hobby-turned-career opportunities that may have otherwise remained a daydream.
This Episode is Sponsored by:
Estrella Galicia is an independent, family-owned brewery in northwest Spain, founded in 1906. Estrella Galicia Cerveza Especial, a world class lager is brewed with the finest malt and locally cultivated Galician hops in a state-of-the-art facility in A Coruna. Recognized around the world for quality and exceptional character. Estrella Galicia is “A beer like no other.”
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Em Sauter
Em Sauter is an Advanced Cicerone®, cartoonist, author, beer reviewer, international beer judge and public speaker who runs the award winning website Pints and Panels, which focuses on visual beer education. Her first book "Beer is for Everyone! (of Drinking Age)" was published in 2017 by One Peace Books. Her second book "Hooray for Craft Beer!" was released in April 2022 with Brewers Publications. Em is also co-host of the All About Beer Podcast. She lives in New England with her husband Matt and two cats- Milbo and The Geen.
Don Tse
Living near seven malthouses, Don Tse is a freelance beer and malt writer and consultant known globally as The Don of Beer. He has been active in craft beer for over 25 years and has famously sampled and written tasting notes on almost 27,000 different beers. He is the co-host of the All About Beer podcast. Don has also written for magazines and presented on beer in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Ukraine and Singapore. Nobody in those countries thinks his jokes are funny.