Perhaps the most famous and enduring beer that uses fruit is Belgian fruit lambic, where fruits are added to a lambic beer. Kriek, which uses cherries, is the most widely recognized (“kriek” is the Dutch word for the sour cherries). The beer is aged in special casks for about 18 months (sometimes longer) and the cherries are tossed right in. They soak (and cause refermentation), for at most, the length of a summer; anything longer and the pits will adversely affect the flavor with strong bitterness. After removing the cherries, there is further maturation in the bottles for about a half a year.

Fruit lambic beer has been around since around the 16th or 17th centuries. Besides cherries, brewers have also traditionally used raspberries to make “framboise.” It doesn’t stop there: you’ve got peaches in Pecheresse, as well as bananas, strawberries and cassis used in new kinds of flavorful lambics. With bananas and strawberries, the actual fruit itself is not tossed in like the Kriek; rather, the juices are added.

There are other fruit beers besides lambics. Generally speaking, it’s possible to add fruits to any kind of beer, but for the most part, it’s most common to add them to wheat and pale ale beers. Either way, it’s important to have balance when making fruit beers. If there is only a fruity aroma, if the fruit aroma is imperceptible, or especially if additives are all that’s making it fruity, then most tasters don’t consider it a fruit beer.

In Japan, Baird Beer makes a seasonal called “Carpenter’s Mikan Ale” that uses mikan from the local Shizuoka area. Baird also makes “Temple Garden Yuzu Ale” with yuzu (a citrus fruit similar to a small grapefruit) and a “Sweet Citrus Stout” that uses amanatsu summer mikans. In Chiba, Harvest Moon makes seasonals with grapefruit, grapes and yuzu. Sankt Gallen in Atsugi, Kanagawa, uses locally grown oranges in its Shonan Gold, and, well, pineapples in its “Pineapple Ale.” Brewmaster in Fukuoka uses cabos (another variety of mikan) from Oita in its “Cabos & Honey Ale.” There is really a great variety of delicious fruit beers in Japan beyond these.

No doubt, brewers will continue to conceive of other unique varieties of delicious, seasonal fruit beers.

by Kido Hirotaka

This article was published in Japan Beer Times # () and is among the limited content available online. Order your copy through our online shop or download the digital version from the iTunes store to access the full contents of this issue.