The following is a part of a guest series authored by Lauren Gutshall on discovering new wines and beers.
Just the other day a friend asked me if I had every tried 21st Amendment’s Hell or High Watermelon. My response was that while I had, I probably judged it too harshly because I’m not a huge fan of fruit beers. But that night Nate and I sampled St. Peter’s Grapefruit Beer, and just the night before I had a Troegs Scratch 98, which happens to be a triple mango IPA. So maybe I’m a liar: my Untappd list clearly indicates that I’ve consumed far too many fruit beers to claim I’m not a fan.
The thing about fruit beers is that you never quite know what to expect. Some fruit beers are subtle; others try to punch you in the face with bold flavors. Until you take that first sip, you just don’t know. In the case of that Troegs Scratch 98, the mango is slightly subdued and the IPA hop is the focal point. Pizza Boy’s Orangatang sour ale – while certainly a different style of beer – showcases far more intense tropical fruit flavors.
Of course, probably the most well-known fruit beer has the most concentrated and intense flavors – the fruit lambic. Lambic refers to the style of beer that is barrel aged and sour with wild yeasts and bacteria. Lambic provides the base for some of the popular fruit beers from Lindeman’s Brewery, and now in the United States, lambic has become virtually synonymous with deep fruity beers.
Fruit lambics come in many flavors and can be made with either fresh fruit or syrup. Around here you can often find framboise (raspberry) on tap and kriek (cherry) and peche (peach) in bottles. Fruit lambics retain the sourness of the base beer, but have the sweet intensity of the fruit. They are a beautiful marriage of sweet and tart. Because of their concentrated flavors, if I drink a lambic, I like it as a shot in something rich like a chocolate porter or dry stout. Nate likes his floated with Guinness, which makes a great accompaniment to Sunday brunch at The Sturges Speakeasy, where our good friends know how to perfectly layer a beer.
While my Untappd list shows that I like fruit beers more than I say I do, I don’t have the same affinity for fruit wines. I find the typical fruit wine to be too sickeningly sweet, but we always seem to have one or two in our wine fridge. Fruit wines can have their place – mostly on the deck in the summertime.
Fruit wines comes in myriad flavors as well – everything from blueberry or cherry to pineapple or papaya. Long Trout Winery has made crazy fruit wines part of their feel good, have fun wine selection and Arbor Mist has turned inexpensive fruit wine into a huge industry.
Fruit wines are often viewed as inferior to traditional wines, but I am pleased to see more winemakers experimenting with adding fresh fruit to their dry wines, instead of processing the fruit or using a super sweet, grape-juice-with-a-kick Concord as a base. Nate and I tried a blueberry Chambourcin in Virginia that was well balanced: the sweetness of the blueberry rounded Chambourcin’s sharp edges and reduced the tannins. Sara recently shared with us a blueberry Merlot, which had a soft, supple flavor and just a hint of the fruit.
It seems that more winemakers are supplementing their wines with fruit in a similar way to brewers who are adding fresh fruit during the brewing process. It’s nice to see winemakers starting to have some fun.
I’m not sure I’ll ever really love fruit wines, but I’m always open to trying something different. I do have to stop saying that I’m not a fan of fruit beers since this summer I’m sure they will make up an even larger part of my Untappd list.
